The 10 Most Important Legal Technology Developments of 2014
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Last year, I posted my picks for the 10 most important legal technology developments of 2013. In many ways, this year’s big legal tech stories were continuations of last year’s. Last year, for example, I wrote about the cloud having come into its own, about competence in legal technology becoming a necessity, about mobile becoming the driving force in tech development, about practice management becoming mainstream, and about technology helping to fill the access-to-justice shortfall. All of these continued to be important into 2014 and to develop throughout the year.
But 2014 had significant developments of its own in the area of legal technology. As I look back over the year, here are my picks for 2014’s most important legal technology developments. The numbers are not meant to be rankings — all of these are important in their own ways.
1. Legal research “rebels” join the establishment.
2. ‘Legal Hacking’ is no longer an oxymoron.
3. Encryption becomes essential.
4. Businesses and technology are changing the nature of law practice.
5. Docket searching is the new black.
6. Human + Machine > Human
In last year’s post, I noted that lawyers were at last overcoming their fear of computer analytics and artificial intelligence. The sensational headline of a 2011 New York Times article, Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software, characterized the concern that technology would render lawyers moot. If 2013 was the year in which lawyers overcame their fear of such technologies, then 2014 was the year in which these technologies became accepted as essential and commonplace. Rather, we now understand that humans and technology can work together to produce results far superior to those from humans working alone.
7. Your father’s legal directory is dead.
8. Practice management goes wide.
9. Innovation and disruption become the norm.
10. The justice gap becomes a primary driver of innovation.
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