Legal

Understanding Legal Tech

First and foremost, Legal Tech is a part marketing term and in part a real term to describe specific applications that empower your legal practice. We say in part because technically any technology that a law firm uses could be considered ‘Legal Tech’. Google Workspace or Office 365 is technical ‘legal tech’ going by this general definition. 

Different Types of Legal Tech

Before we dive into how we at Taurus specifically assist our Legal Clients, we’d like to discuss the types of technologies employed by Modern Law Firms. According to The Bucerius Law School and the Boston Consulting Group in their study How Legal Technology will Change the Business of Law, there are three main types of legal technologies that practices employ;

• Enabler Technologies – Technologies support general business operations. 
• Support Process Solutions – Often tech that support paralegal and admin operations.
• Substantive Law Technology – Solutions for actual litigation and case analysis.

The second classification of legal technology can be found in the Stanford Legal Codex Database which defines nine types of legal technologies which as you will see nicely overlap with the above classifications and could be used to further define the types of legal technologies available. 

• Marketplace
• Document Automation
• Practice Management
• Legal Research
• Legal Education
• Online Dispute Resolution
• E-Discovery
• Analytics
• Compliance 

Needless to say, there’s a whole host of other classification schemas that dive deeper into the nitty-gritty of what’s available to today’s Legal Practices. The biggest change though due to these technologies has been the ability for smaller practices to handle much larger workloads than ever before. 

For more information on the specifics of legal technologies available and their definitive use-cases, we cordially invite you to read the Legal Technologies article at IT Chronicles who has done a fantastic write-up on the subject. 

How We Help

Not every solution is the right solution. Many firms get by just fine with a mailbox and telephone while others utilize near-AI-like capabilities to perform research and document automation. 

At Taurus, we utilize The Boston Consulting Group’s methodology for the classification of legal technology. We secure, manage, and enhance the enablement layer (Endpoint/Laptop Managed and Security, Cloud Productivity Suites (Workspace or M365), VOIP/Telecom, etc) and have extensive partnerships with Support Process Solutions Providers that allow us to provide strategic guidance to your firm. 

For Substantive Legal Solutions, we can assist in guiding your decisions based on several key factors such as interoperability between the other layers in your technology stack. Whether you need to compete against commoditized solutions, balance cost justification and transparency requirements, or need to consider other factors not readily apparent, we can help guide your journey with our expert advice. 

For more information on this subject, we gladly invite you to discuss with us your specific needs or if you are looking for more information on modern legal practice technologies we are more than happy to offer you a free consultation to discuss some of today’s exciting solutions.