According to the 2020 Wolters Kluwer future ready lawyer survey, that deals with performance drivers and change in the legal sector, technology is at the center of top performance, as stated in a press release of the 5th of June, 2020. 

Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in professional information, software solutions, and services for the health, tax & accounting, governance, risk & compliance, and legal & regulatory sectors. The 2020 Future Ready Lawyer Survey: Performance Drivers from the Legal & Regulatory team of Wolters Kluwer included quantitative online interviews with 700 lawyers in law firms, legal departments and business services firms across the U.S. and nine European countries, in order to examine the effect of client expectations, technology and other factors on the future of law across core areas, as well as the preparation of legal organizations when addressing these. 

As to Wolters Kluwer, the global COVID-19 pandemic will have a great impact on the legal industry and accelerate the sector´s ongoing transformation, which has already started before the crisis and is driven by economic, demographic, regulatory, technology and competitive demands. The crisis has highlighted the importance of technology solutions for business continuity. In order to thrive in the new legal landscape, the factors future readiness and resilience are very important. These were assessed by the independent survey conducted by Wolters Kluwer, with the participation of a great number of legal professionals. 

The most important key finding of the survey is that technology is seen as the top performance driver by legal professionals, and critical to improved relationships, performance and productivity. 

Top Trends expected to have the most impact within the legal sector are: 

- Increasing Importance of Legal Technology – 76%

- Meeting Changing Client / Leadership Expectations – 74% 

- Emphasis on Improved Efficiency / Productivity – 73%

- Ability to Acquire and Retain Talent – 73%

- Coping with Increased Volume and Complexity of Information – 72%

Nevertheless, the study has also shown that there exists a significant gap between trends and readiness to address them. Less than a third of the survey´s respondents said that they were very prepared to address any of them – for example, while the increasing importance of legal technology was mentioned as the top trend by 76% of the respondents, only 28% felt prepared for it. The biggest barrier to implementing change seems to be the difficulty of change management and leadership resistance. Also, significant gaps between corporate legal department´s expectations and law firms´ ability to deliver them have been found. 

Clearly, the relevance of technology in the legal sector is increasing and crucial to how well firms meet client expectations. Thus, it is not surprising that law firms plan to invest more into this sector, with 60% of respondents planning to increase their technology investment over the next three years. 

For more information: https://know.wolterskluwerlr.com/2020-Future-Ready-Lawyer