Legal tech

What is legal tech?

Legal tech is the use of technology (software, automation and artificial intelligence) to make legal work more efficient, from client intake to case management. Common categories include case/process management, contract automation, e-discovery and compliance, and AI-assisted drafting and triage.

Main categories

Case management covers automatic tracking of progress and deadlines, integrated with court systems where available. Intake and CRM automate triage and client relationships, increasingly via chat channels like WhatsApp. Document automation generates motions, contracts and letters from a template. Compliance and data protection tools handle personal data governance and regulatory compliance. And generative AI for legal work covers research, assisted drafting and case summarization.

Legal tech for small and medium firms

Legal tech isn't exclusive to large firms with their own IT department. Most real adoption in small/medium firms starts with targeted tools (WhatsApp triage, document generation) before any full platform, the same pattern described on the process automation page.

How the market usually evaluates a legal tech tool

The same three questions apply as with any legal software: does it solve a concrete pain point, does the firm keep control of its own data, and does it integrate with the tools the team already uses day to day, instead of requiring a full replacement of the existing workflow.