SILICON VALLEY ENTREPRENEURS and venture capitalists have deployed digital tech to change the ways we live, eat, and shop. They’ve aggressively moved into crucial industries like healthcare and finance. But the practice of law is one area of expertise that has remained stubbornly resistant to disruption.

“We’re really at the beginning of a phase where technology is going to begin coming, where’s it’s really having a significant impact,” says Justin Hectus, the director of information at Keesal, Young, & Logan, a full-service law firm based on the West Coast.

Yet to understand how legal tech could have a significant impact on the venerable practice of law, it’s important to see why the sector has, in many ways, been a challenge for entrepreneurs. The legal industry, for one, is much smaller than say the financial services one, and, like healthcare, it requires a high degree of expertise. But most crucially, the lawyering business itself is set up in a way that resists efforts to move fast and break things—even though, and perhaps because, such innovations could help make the law more accessible for everyone.

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“Automation is not going to interfere with lawyers appearing in court or providing advice and counsel,” he adds. “There’s all sorts of work to be done.”

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