Direct to digital

Client need and demand for digital services has existed for many years, yet the legal market has only slowly transitioned to a digital services focus. The reason for this is multifaceted: it’s about technology maturity, skills maturity, risk appetite – especially around cloud technology – and the need for a lawyer’s role to change, both in private practice and in-house. It also requires an acceptance by law firms and companies of the lower costs that digital services can provide within the overall matter cost.

The demand for digital services, and the desire for more value add, is primarily due to a combination of in-house functions creating legal operations teams and a greater awareness of the technology available in the market. In addition, client businesses know that right-shoring or automation can create efficiencies, which has seen legal spend come under ever more scrutiny.

It’s perhaps not surprising then that companies and law firms alike are turning to digital services for repeatable legal tasks. These services can be delivered through a transparent costing model, either flat fee or on a per document/matter basis, providing clarity to businesses and enabling them to budget. Why wouldn’t clients want more of this?

The key benefit of live data is the ability to deliver proactive services – for example, a potential solution could be to provide a dashboard of issues based on contracts held on record for our clients. As new regulations are adopted, the data model can be parsed across the dataset and provide a traffic-light system around the impact

The move to a greater level of digital service is a journey, and we need to experiment alongside our clients to understand all desired outcomes, then work backwards from there. It may mean that digital services teams become critical relationship partners with clients, particularly if clients require law firms to build solutions within a client’s own tech stack. The Ashurst digital services team already supports many matters internally to create the best value for clients and continually looks for opportunities to co-develop services directly with clients. In looking at a matter through a digital lens, we can create automated, repeatable and efficient processes with management information outputs and automatic task allocation.

In addition, we can provide clients with data collected during the matter to update their systems. This approach provides the foundation for creating direct-to-client digital services and products, some of which could be self-service.

The data collected from matters, or held for clients, presents an enormous opportunity to develop future digital services. The key benefit of live data is the ability to deliver proactive services – for example, a potential solution could be to provide a dashboard of issues based on contracts held on record for our clients. As new regulations are adopted, the data model can be parsed across the dataset and provide a traffic-light system around the impact. Data is a massive opportunity for law firms and our clients in general, but close collaboration with clients will be critical to achieving real benefits.