Justice tech can offer significant competitive advantages as new realities redefine the profession — and offer lawyers and founders alike the opportunity to do well while doing good
This article is part of an ongoing series titled Scaling Justice, by Maya Markovich and others in consultation with the Thomson Reuters Institute. This series aims to not only explore how justice technology fits within the modern legal system, but how technology companies themselves can scale as businesses while maintaining their access to justice mission.
Ethical direct-to-consumer legal tech advancements are a win-win-win for lawyers, founders, and consumers, especially for those lawyers in small to midsize law firms because working with technology partners can offer them unique and transformative business growth opportunities.
From lowering overhead and increasing business success to elevating equity and expanding lawyers’ reach, collaboration with justice tech can offer lawyers significant competitive advantages as new realities redefine the profession. Not inconsequently, it can also provide lawyers with the opportunity to do well while doing good.
A new, hybrid approach
More than 5 billion people worldwide lack access to justice, a clear indicator that many people find accessing the legal system challenging, if not impossible. And 30 million Americans each year attempt to resolve life-altering problems in court on their own and often experience deeply unequal outcomes. To address this justice gap, justice tech firms have been building solutions for the public — and forging partnerships with lawyers and their firms is one way to bring these solutions further forward.
As technology challenges law firms’ traditional billable hour model, the legal industry is at an inflection point.
Justice tech offerings can successfully help bridge the justice gap in a few ways, including by placing an emphasis on transparency and by educating the user about their legal rights, options, and the process. And these platforms can do this in multiple languages and modalities to empower all users, and reduce the overwhelming confusion of the process, thus facilitating good decision-making.
In addition, justice tech offerings can allow for the automation of legal forms and provide a centralized dashboard or app to manage processes, pending tasks, and more. Often, the apps offer immediate updates and 24/7 access to accommodate user availability, even in legal deserts. They can also offer real-time support when a lawyer is needed, replicating the success of telehealth models, and allow for affordable, transparent fees for routine legal needs.
Finally, these tech offerings are now leveraging AI to better facilitate initial client intake, summarize rules, statutes, and case law, help with fact pattern analysis, provide quick answers to common legal questions, and suggest search terms.
An untapped opportunity
For investors and entrepreneurs, the justice gap is a massive, largely untapped opportunity: those billions of people globally who cannot access their rights represent the total addressable market in a field that critically needs innovation.
Legal professionals are also increasingly aware that with the recent and impending waves of transformation, their own industry is no longer lawyer centric. These changes present an opportunity for them to join with justice tech firms and capitalize on new business opportunities. Forward-thinking lawyers and justice tech companies share a collective goal — that of combining technology and legal expertise to make the law more accessible and at scale.
Efforts to make the law more accessible have been underway for decades, but until a few years ago, most people had only heard of a few direct-to-consumer legal tech companies like Legal Zoom, RocketLawyer, or ProBonoNet. Venture capital was initially hesitant, and regulatory constraints were not yet tested. Now, however, recognizable direct-to-consumer brands like Trust & Will serve thousands, and some of these justice tech entrepreneurs make access to justice their core mission.
Legal professionals are also increasingly aware that the recent and impending waves of transformation… present an opportunity for them to join with justice tech firms and capitalize on new business opportunities.
Courtroom5 is an example of this mission-focused hybrid model, offering members of its pro se community the option to engage a licensed attorney in their area for limited-scope services, including legal advice or pre-filing document review. Another justice tech company, HelloDivorce, enables its users to complete their divorce procedures using proprietary tech alone or by adding on-demand legal, wellness, and financial services. And TurnSignl, a platform that quickly and efficiently connects a driver to a lawyer during traffic stops or accidents, makes legal help accessible at the moment of need.
These companies and more like them empower more people at the beginning of their issues through scalable and consumer-friendly tools to simplify court bureaucracy and translate complex legal concepts into plain language. They also offer seamless partnering with lawyers when the situation becomes too complicated for the user to handle on their own. And this enables lawyers to do what they do best — problem-solving and legal representation — without administrative overhead.
Why should lawyers partner with justice tech companies?
Justice tech-lawyer partnerships establish a sustainable framework that increases the public’s ability to access their rights while still preserving lawyers’ vital role. These collaborations can be especially important to solo and small to midsize law firm practices in several ways, including:
Driving profitability with new revenue streams — Lawyers working with justice tech companies can drive firm profitability through multiple new revenue streams and supplement their existing practice during slower times. Providing limited-scope services such as document review, legal advice, and negotiation strategy to clients can lead to full representation without requiring intake processes, scheduling, or business development investment.
Increase business success — Partnership makes it easier for prospective clients to find representation via referrals and virtual marketplaces, allowing lawyers to build their brand and digital presence through co-marketing opportunities that tap into justice tech companies’ increasing brand recognition. Justice tech company partners can also market on lawyers’ behalf, answer customer service questions, and handle billing inquiries, which would allow lawyers to focus on the more rewarding work of counseling clients, digging into legal issues, and helping people navigate their legal problems.
Lower overhead — Working with justice tech companies enables law firm leaders to outsource many pain points of managing a law firm and clients. Some justice tech companies handle appointment scheduling, billing, and administrative aspects of a legal practice, reducing the non-legal services workload for participating attorneys and ensuring prompt payment for services.
Offer a competitive advantage — In a rapidly evolving industry, lawyers who embrace tech-led solutions to maximize their value are enhancing their practices by differentiating themselves and setting new standards for client satisfaction. And since justice tech companies are customer-obsessed, collaborating with them enables lawyers to benefit from that consumer satisfaction and trust by association.
As technology challenges law firms’ traditional billable hour model, the legal industry is at an inflection point. Indeed, as the access to justice crisis expands, fewer clients will be willing or able to pay for traditional legal representation. In response, those in the legal profession need to rethink how they can best deliver legal services in order to remain relevant and profitable while refocusing on their ethical obligation to ensure they are helping, not hindering, public access to justice.
You can find out more about the impact of Justice Tech here
