Is Covid-19 the trigger for a big push within Legal-tech?

3rd July 2020 by Kevin Karue

Technology has taken centre stage in the last couple of months as we all adapted to survive in a world brought to a standstill by the covid-19 pandemic. As the UK and other countries slowly re-open their economies, it is expected that there will be a significant analysis of how businesses will operate in the post covid-19 world of business, once we are firmly and surely clear from the virus and its devastating effects. At Lifeium, we have been affected in the sense that those industries which we depend on ground to a halt and our experience thus far demonstrates that it will take some time for law firms and other related businesses to get back into the rhythm of day to day work. Is working from home the new normal and what does that mean to for all the office space that is set to be handed back with reduced needs for office space? The driving force behind such bold changes (and for law firms to revert to a mainly working from home model, this is a big change) is the renewed sense and understanding of the benefits that technology can deliver to enhance a business and how it operates.

It is quite encouraging that the legal sector was not left behind whilst other businesses adapted during the crisis. Remote/virtual hearings are a regular occurrence, and this will certainly deliver some cost saving benefits to all the stakeholders who are involved in the Justice system. The challenge for the legal sector has always been that the entire Justice system needs to advance and adopt technology for all who are involved in the justice system to unlock all the benefits of technology, such as automation of tasks, Artificial Intelligence and leaner-smarter methods of working. The Ministry of Justice was quick to commission a review to look at new ways of executing Wills, with the potential that the witnessing and signing requirements might be relaxed and/or changed to incorporate technology readily available in the market. Three months later, nothing concrete has materialised in Parliament.

At the same time, Will writing business experienced exponential growth during the pandemic and with it, other closely related areas of law. Law firms and Will writing businesses had to quickly adapt and zoom became the norm for all meetings. The benefits of remote working and remote consultations have highlighted the deficiencies of the traditional approach to Will creation but more importantly, has convinced — in part at least — a good majority of lawyers and Will writers that they need to be more responsive and adaptable to their client’s needs and preferred methods of engagement. We just need the Government to do its part and take giant steps to innovate the justice system. The government is often the catalyst for widespread change and so for legal-tech to exceed its current limitations, the operating environment needs to change drastically.

Lifeium’s Will creation App is an example of the future of legal tech, and a leading change agent to empower businesses in the Will creation and estate management sector. Our technology is so easy to use that it begs the question — why has it not been done this way all this time? We facilitate the collection of data forming part of instructions from clients within 15 minutes, and then we add a touch of automation to help lawyers and Will writers whizz past administrative and non-billable tasks, to take control of their day and focus mainly on giving advice. The App is twinned with a powerful but sleek Lifeium Dashboard which gives firms insight into the client journey and allows them to do all their work within the dashboard. Small and medium sized law firms and Will writing businesses can benefit from a two weeks free trial of our product to experience the benefits that the App and Dashboard deliver.

The value-added features include in-App identity checks, appointment scheduling and payment processing. Firms who utilise the Lifeium App and Dashboard will reclaim significant time from unbillable tasks and essentially increase efficiency to work on more Wills per hour than without our technology. The Private client industry is set to continue experiencing a boom and we believe that our technology shall enhance businesses to do more per hour leading to more sales with optimised effort. This month we roll out our product to law firms and Will writing businesses across Scotland, England and Wales. We are excited to be finally reaching this milestone and we are equally looking forward to the opportunity to learn from within the market and test our ideas and general ideology as we have other products lined up in the Lifeium pipeline of innovation. We are reaching out to all law firms and businesses to in the Private Client space to sign up for our two week free-trial here: https://www.lifeium.co/get-lifeium/#enq

Has covid-19 been the big push within the legal tech sector? Yes. There is such amazing technology out there and so our view is that we are moving to a world of technology without borders. Lifeium’s technology is Smart. Simple. Secure. Give your firm or business the big push it needs to ride the storm with the Lifeium App and Dashboard. Click here to sign up.