“Fully virtual hearings can be a significant advantage to clients,” the city said in a new report
The city of London has called for the fast-tracking of court infrastructure digitalisation.
“Legal and judicial services in London have gone through a radical process of accelerated technological adoption this year. This is a great success story and opens up huge opportunities for how London and the UK can be the undisputed leading legal centre for the world,” the City of London Corporation said in a new report entitled London Recharged: Our vision for London in 2025.
The report outlines the city’s recommendations to facilitate London’s recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and maintain its global competitiveness, and looks into the future of legal services in the UK in particular. Findings showed that UK lawtech investments skyrocketed in the 2018-2019 period, with 44% of all European lawtech startups based in the UK.
“This has introduced new ways of working in billing, automation, client reporting, and analytics. It also made legal services more accessible to remote clients and enhanced the ability to tailor services to global business needs,” the City of London said. “Law firms have shown a tremendous interest in the lawtech ecosystem, launching incubator tech hubs, digital literacy programmes, and partnering with developers and academic institutions to create custom products.”
The report also highlighted financial support provided by the government to accelerate the digitalisation of courts.
“The Ministry of Justice has committed £2m for the digital transformation of the sector, and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is investing £1bn on its court modernisation programme, including a new courts facility in the city,” the City of London said. “These investments highlight the strategic opportunity that lawtech provides to build the competitive advantage of the UK’s legal and tech sectors.”
With tech adoption becoming a necessity as a result of the pandemic, the reinforcement of national infrastructure and digital capabilities will “increase the accessibility of UK legal services from a global market,” the city said.
“Fully virtual hearings can be a significant advantage to clients who wish to avoid travel, whether due to time commitments, sustainability concerns, or travel restrictions caused by COVID-19,” the City of London said. “This global outreach would facilitate international partnerships and collaboration, bolstering the UK’s international reputation as a leading and collaborative centre for digital legal services.”
London can also serve as a connection point for regional legal services and legal services centres onshore and offshore.
“Encouraging the unbundling of case elements and investing in regional centres can provide consistent client services. By lessening the geographical weighting towards London through remote working, law firms will become open to diversified national and international talent,” the city said.
In the report, the City of London made the following recommendations for the legal services sector:
- prioritise the investment in and rollout of technology-enabled court processes that enhance the rule of law and ensure delivery of justice in an accessible, efficient and timely manner
- emphasise the importance of innovation in legal services delivery to include agile and flexible ways of working; remote access of services and the adoption of lawtech to better serve clients domestically and abroad
- upskill legal practitioners to embrace digitised legal services as the status quo
- finance the development of platforms for alternative dispute resolution that are reliable, secure and interoperable and improve the sustainability of legal services
“Many firms have had to reduce budgets for innovation and tech adoption and reallocate funds to grassroots upgrades to enable business continuity,” the city said. “This not only jeopardises innovation as a whole, but also risks replicating old habits rather than embracing new ways of working. London law firms should avoid this risk by instead focusing on developing new and different dispute resolution strategies, tactics, and platforms on which more diverse voices could be heard.”
