Susanne Chishti - The LegalTech Book

The legal profession has always been conservative and rightly so. However, the transformation of industry after industry by the digital revolution means that in order to stay relevant to its clients, the legal profession must also embrace the technology enablers that exist in both the business and practice of law. The LegalTech Book, crowdsourced from leading industry experts and thought leaders, provides important insights into the use of technology in the law, as well as the debates surrounding its use. It is an invaluable resource to help understand the LegalTech ecosystem.

Steve Schiff, Independent Disruptive Technology Consultant and Former CEO of ReMATCH LTD

AI is already changing both the practice of law, the courts and the legal system through which we govern ourselves as a society. Automation is changing the nature of legal jobs, while AI increasingly allows us to identify patterns in human conduct from financial decisions to risky behaviours governed by criminal or private law in ways that both hold great promise, but also pose grave risks to the legitimacy and transparency of our legal institutions. Whether you are a legal practitioner, entrepreneur, executive, investor or academic, The LegalTech Book is an essential resource for anyone seeking to better understand how AI is changing legal practice, adjudication and the rule of law itself. Highly recommended reading for experts and non-experts alike.

Professor Alexander Sarch, Head of School, University of Surrey School of Law

Truly excellent legal technology depends on deep understanding and collaboration between many different disciplines. However, the mother tongue of lawyers, developers, data scientists, knowledge managers and ontologists, to name a few, differ from each other. TheLegalTech Book brings together a vast array of contributors, each on the cutting edge of their respective LegalTech projects. It will undoubtedly foster the necessary understanding, as well as keys to being understood, to the end of excellent multi-disciplinary LegalTech collaboration. It is a must read no matter what your discipline.

Garth Watson, Co-Founder and CLO, Libryo

The largest and most impactful tech change to the world as we know it I am free to say will be LegalTech. The ways the laws, regulations are brought to light, implemented and enforced will change the legal industry and our lives beyond what we know. This brilliant book and amazing minds of authors and editors behind this book bring the full light to us in a very powerful way.

Milos Kresojevic, Founder, AI.Legal Labs

While automation has played a role in the legal profession for some time, the legal industry is reaching a tipping point not only are intelligent systems on the verge of taking over, but clients also ask for them.

This book provides an excellent insight into the new role that LegalTech plays in the workplace. Intelligent applications based on artificial intelligence, smart contracts, and advanced document management, are the next wave of technology transforming how lawyers, law firms and legal technology consulting firms work and learn.

Djuro Stojanovic, Founder and CEO, Uhura Solutions

Bringing together insights in an easily understood framework, this well-written and lucid book looks at LegalTech from a wide range of perspectives. The use of AI, smart contracts, RegTech, contract management, and digital due diligence are some of the areas of LegalTech which promise to reshape the legal profession for good. This excellent and timely book will be useful to experts in the field and of interest to general readers and policy-makers thinking ahead of time.

Ana Odorovi, Lecturer at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law, Research Affiliate at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Judge Business School

Technology is redefining whole industries and the legal sector is not immune. Technological innovation and adoption will be the major defining drivers as to which firms prosper and those which struggle to survive over the next decade. Clients are looking for technological solutions and technology enabled efficiencies and expecting firms to spend in order to deliver this. Those that do not will find themselves priced out of the market. The LegalTech Book will enable law firms to consider some of the innovations that are underway and develop a strategy to best position themselves for the changes that are about to come.

Martin Bartlam, Partner, Head of Finance, Projects & Restructuring, DLA PIPER

Legal tech is a growing movement globally. We are fortunate to have a world leading legal tech hub in the UK which complements the strengths of its internationally renowned legal sector. As an active supporter, the Corporation sees the potential for legal tech to be a game changer right across the economy. The role of technology in supporting and transforming the delivery of legal services has been accelerated as a result of the global lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes a significant increase across all parts of the legal sector in the use of existing and emerging technology. The need is greater than ever for lawyers and clients to develop their understanding of the potential benefits of legal tech and increasing awareness and understanding.

Catherine McGuiness, Chair of the Policy & Resources Committee, City of London Corporation

This edition first published 2020
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chishti, Susanne, editor.