Emerging Trends Across Legal and Compliance Technology & Services

Baird’s Legal and Compliance Technology & Services team recently connected with operators and investors across the Legal Technology & Services sector. In conjunction with Legalweek, Baird was thrilled to host over 75 attendees, representing both the industry’s leading companies and sector investors, at our annual reception in New York.

The conference brings together thousands of legal professionals to network and explore trends and opportunities emerging in the legal space. As in years past, the annual event attracted a diverse group of participating companies and “fiefdoms” between legal technology, corporate general counsel solutions and legal services providers.

Key Insights and Opportunities in the Legal and Compliance Sector

1. Automated Gavel 2.0: AI Pivoting– AI was still the “talk of the town,” with a noticeable pivot from a place of fear in some subsectors to a place of opportunity. Maturity and access to data continues to be a stumbling block for comprehensive use across the legal space, but more focused applications are starting to resonate, especially on the corporate legal side.
2. Here’s a Partnership, There’s a Partnership– New joint venture and tech integrations have become standard fare at Legalweek. This year marked some shift in the scope and scale of those partnerships. Of particular interest was on the eDiscovery front with providers announcing new reformed relationships with the software providers and, in some cases, new exclusive relationships. Teaming to accelerate AI is also a massive push for both law firms and incumbent software providers. Results from these initiatives will likely become clear over the next couple of years.
3. Golden Age of Litigation: Plaintiffs, The Underserved Market– An underlying buzz at the conference was the newly reformed view from providers and software vendors on the opportunity that resides with plaintiff firms. As hundreds of millions of dollars of legal financing each year continues to drive growth in case sizes and settlements, plaintiff firm needs and the ability to pay have started to eclipse the growth historically seen on the defense and corporate side. Firms are racing to formulate strategies to capture this opportunity while not “rocking the boat” with historical relationships.
4. Broader and Bigger: Growing Aperture of Legal Services– Investor interest has continued to broaden in the legal sector, but on the services front, scale among providers is starting to drive incremental demand. This accelerating scale across settlement services, expert witness and trial services is driving increased interest in investment and creating new platforms to better meet growing service demand across the ecosystem.
5. eDiscovery Revisted: Tech + Advisory = Significant Client Value– One of the more dramatic shifts over the past 12 months came in the eDiscovery sector. Growing cyber breach and data needs have allowed the larger, more sophisticated providers to expand their solution suite and continue to deepen relationships. Tech disintermediation risk has continued to move away, as software vendor demeanor has continued to shift to a partner versus compete model, with self-service moving to a service provider offering. Total impact has eDiscovery naturally moving into more of an information governance role, creating more value for clients, while enabling more recurring solutions for providers.

Connect with Baird’s Legal and Compliance Tech & Services Team

Kristy Obuchowski-Wallen
+1-312-609-7023
kobuchowski@rwbaird.com

Cody England
+ 1-312-609-4954
cengland@rwbaird.com

Chase Sanders
+1-703-394-1807
csanders@rwbaird.com

Sebastian Daumueller
+44-20-7667-8160
sdaumueller@rwbaird.com