First impressions from ILSF 2019

It’s been two weeks since the phenomenal Innovative Legal Services Forum (ILSF) supported by Legito.

We heard many inspiring innovation of innovation from corporate counsels, attorneys, and legal engineers.

I was thinking how ILSF 2019 differed from ILSF 2018 and what, if any unifying element could be found in all speeches.

Well, I finally found one: A majority of lawyers have started to see technology as a friend, not an enemy.

Photo Lukas Biba

Automation became the standard for legal departments in the financial sector and large corporations, as well as law firms with more than 200 lawyers,. The question is no longer “Do you use document automation?” but “Which document automation tool do you use?”.

Lawyers from small and mid-size law firms and companies have joined the discussion and started actively seeking, testing, and using legal technologies.

Ondrej Materna of Legito giving a talk at ILSF

Photo Radek Vebr

In the previous years, we discussed whether legal tech would replace legal services jobs. This year, there were no such discussions, and the opinion of the most of the lawyers, as well as legal engineers, was that although legal tech will significantly change the way lawyers work, it would not replace lawyers.

Photo Lukas Biba

Another encouraging fact I realized, was how many young lawyers (under 30) are tech-savvy and excited about legal tech. I would estimate that number at nearly 50%, which may not seem impressive compared to other sectors, but it’s still much more than previous generations. This is a positive trend.

More Industry Insights