Legaltech (2024)

1. Killing billable hours

   Law firms typically operate on billable hours — and more rarely on a case basis. Software tools that reduce billable hours may be perceived as threats to core business models and might then find resistance from legal teams.

   Unless pressure comes from the market itself, legaltech startups may find it difficult to sell their products. But as the industry adopts tech more widely and productivity improves, sales cycles should become proportionally shorter.

2. The Magic Circle pricing strategy

   Europe can count on an estimated 1.09m registered members of the Bar, working in firms of different sizes and focus areas.

   Verticalised software that is able to scale and integrate across complex organisations will be granted an important market lead, alongside greater freedom with contract structures and pricing strategies. But the diversity of the client base means that there are also gaps for more flexible subscription models for SMEs.

3. Case closed: jailing complex UX

   It’s not just the AI angle — a lot will also fall on software’s usability and flexibility, including integration capabilities and compliance.

   In a time-poor industry, versatile UX will likely be the next deal breaker — only behind time saving and efficiency improvements. The sweet spot will be somewhere in between those key selling points.

4. Explain it to me

   Explainability is a core element of a high-stakes legal role, more so than for other professional figures. Lawyers will want to retain a high level of oversight and direct agency over a good share of a software’s output.

   Privacy-first and explainable software will smoothen out adoption of software tools, against the widely blackboxed and generic LLM tools that the industry hasn’t yet welcomed across their workflows.

Who early stage startups are up against