COVER STORY
Firms
will start
thinking like
start-ups
Forget robot lawyers – the “Uberisation” of legal services poses the biggest threat to
the legal industry. That’s according to US-based legal innovator and professor of law
Daniel Martin Katz, who delivered the keynote speech at the 2018 FLIP Conference.
Katz, a professor of law at Illinois Institute of
Technology and Michigan State University,
said recent media reports had caused
misdirected panic among lawyers by focusing
on the so-called “rise of the robo-lawyer” in a
shrinking jobs market. But, he said, the most
significant threat to lawyers’ wages and firm
profitability would come from smaller start-
ups and fusion businesses such as consulting
and accounting firms.
“The media loves the ‘robot lawyers’ thesis,
but legal innovation is far broader than legal
tech per se,” said Katz.
Katz explained that in recent years start-
ups and consulting businesses had begun to
compete with law firms by “Uberising” the
sale of legal services. He said these businesses
tended to compartmentalise individual
documents or products and offer them cheaper
than traditional firms – with their expensive
office overheads and staff salary bills – could
afford to.
He gave the example of an online start-up
offering downloadable legal documents for
a fi xed fee, such as employment contracts or
wills. These contracts often have artificial
intelligence solutions built in, enabling users
to adjust certain terms and produce a legal
document suited to their individual practice.
LegalVision, Zegal and LawPath are some
Australian examples of firms working this way.
“The lines have become blurred
and boundaries between industries are
disappearing,” said Katz. “Law has historically
p30-35_Cover Story.indd 2
The race is on
been a service business, but it is becoming a for firms to
product-service hybrid.”
Katz, who described himself as an offer products
academic-cum-scientist, technologist, teacher,
consultant and advisor, is highly qualified to and scalable
speak on the issue. He is known as a change
leader in the legal profession internationally tech solutions
and was named in the “Fastcase 50”, an award
that “recognises 50 of the smartest, most to continue to
courageous innovators, techies, visionaries,
and leaders in the law”. Katz was also named compete in the
one of the American Bar Association Journal’s
“Legal Rebels” in 2018. legal industry.
Katz is the Chief Strategy Officer of his
own legal-consulting hybrid called LexPredict, DANIEL MARTIN KATZ
which works with Fortune 500 companies to
solve technical and strategic problems.
In its mission statement, “#MakeLawBetter”,
Katz notes that his company is just one of the
more than 70 legal tech start-ups listed by
Stanford University in the US. Most of these
start-ups have been doing the “lion’s share”
of research and development in the legal
industry, said Katz.
He said traditional law firms would do well
to take a leaf out of the books of start-ups, by
exploring technology solutions to help lawyers
do business more efficiently and for lower cost.
“Pick a problem with good monetisation
value, and offer a product that solves that
problem,” advised Katz.
“The race is on for firms to offer products
and scalable tech solutions to continue to
compete in the legal industry.”
ISSUE 50 I NOVEMBER 2018 I LSJ 31
24/10/18 4:44 pm