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INTRODUCTION
A startup is usually a company such a small business, a partnership or an organization designed to rapidly develop scalable business model. Often startup companies deploy technologies, such as internet e-commerce, computers, telecommunications or robotics.
These startups always have a purpose to bring technologies products or services to market some of the biggest and best known companies on the planet today, including Google, Apple and Facebook, are examples of companies that were once tech startups. Technology in legal field has given the rise to legal tech startups and these startups are those companies which use technology and software as their method to provide all legal related work through their online platform. Legal tech is quickly moving from the traditional sector to becoming a significant sector in the mainstream legal industry. The technology is the significant reason for the formation of legal tech startup in India.
LEGAL TECH CONCEPT
Legal tech basically stands for “LEGAL TECHNOLOGY “, refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services and support the legal industries. Legal tech presents an opportunity for the legal profession to try and improve their overall efficiency and to adapt to a more agile working environment and in doing so reduce costs and increase access to justice. The further motive of these legal startups is to replace the traditional ways of procedural work which was followed by lawyers & other legal professionals with the budding tech driven things as the result of modern technology it has benefitted the common public and lawyers to do their job more accurately and efficiently.
LEGAL TECH IN INDIA
India’s first legal firm is prarambh (Announced by Cyrillic Amarchand mangaldas) in 2019 known as first step to boost legal innovation in India. This initiative was started mainly to help young students to get effective solutions to help them prosper in their legal careers. It also helped legal technology companies growth in Indian legal market.
India’s legal technology industry has been gaining momentum. As various Indian legal technology companies have been flourishing in not just India but also in other countries Abroad. It shows growth of legal tech in India especially considering that the world is amidst the COVID pandemic.
LEADING LEGAL TECH STARTUPS IN INDIA
In India, the legal system is now getting taken over by various technological advancements. There are some of the leading Indian legal-tech startups that have taken the Indian legal market by storms.
- BLOG IPLEADERS:- This is one of the leading legal tech startups in India from delivering upto date legal content to offering various courses, this startup is booming. They also provide online diploma , have many online legal programs. A lawyer or a law student can start their internship with BLOG IPLEADERS they have a good record for all the students about legal tech startups and how to work as a technology lawyer.
- PRESOLV360:- This is a Mumbai based tech start-up, enabled platform specializing in online dispute resolutions. This legal tech startup settlement system in India by creating a prompt, technology backed mechanism that allows people to effectively manage and resolve their disputes online in a viable, economical and effective way.
- LEGAL KART:- Legal kart tech start-up is also one of the leading legal tech start-up in India providing many opportunities to the technology lawyers with various legal internships and legal support.
- VOLODY:- Volody is on cloud enterprise software product company having contract Lifecycle management. It provides great opportunities to all the tech lawyers to work with them. Users can draft negotiate, approach, and attest to their different legal agreements under one roof.
- MIKE LEGAL:- This is a trade mark management legal tech startup in India that automates intellectual property management of owners. It comes with the following legal tech tools:-
. MIKE TM SEARCH is related to a exhausted trademark search which is to be done by technology lawyers in fraction of time.
. TM WATCH stands for trademark watch services which means startup’s trademark is protected from unauthorized user.
. MIKE TM MANAGER has to manageintellectualproperty portfolio deadlines. In such case the manager will work as legal assistant.
. MIKE LIIGATOR is an AI powered case law tool, which helps lawyers to conduct a case research easily.
- LEGAL MIND:- Legal mind is another legal tech startup in India in the legal research, legal AI, and predictive analytics segment. The tool comes with an Analytics feature that allows users to forecast the decisions and actions of parties and judges.
- QUANT LEGAL TECH:- Quant legal tech startup in India that offers enterprises and law firms solutions to optimize their compliance contract and due diligence activities.
LEGAL TECH CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
Legal tech is a vital field because technology is an important part of this modern world as technology is changing the world today. Largest companies in the world today are tech companies. Naturally, opportunity for lawyers and other professionals are drastically increasing in this sector.
Tech companies offering better package, perks and work environment. Many of the exciting startups are technological advancement. Every known industry like Media and Press, telecom, FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), food, retail,
farming, defense, education and anything else can image is being or is about to be distributed by technology companies. In this time when everything is going digital, there are innumerable laws regulations that govern from operations, contracts and transactions. Companies are increasingly in desperate need of professionals who understand these laws and regulations, and even the government policies behind them, so that they can protect their significant business interests extract maximum advantage in the market place.
LEGAL TECH START-UPS SUPPORTING DIFFERENT GROUPS
LAW STUDENT:- Now all the law students across the world getting various legal courses online to improve their efficiency to work better as legal officer. They have a lot of choices to work in any legal tech startup in which they want.
PROFESSORS:- Professors can also join various training courses according to their requirements which will help them into legal researches. It will helped them to improve their teaching skills and they can get updates on legal points.
ADVOCATES As advocates have to spent a lot of time in database research for their cases but this could be more easier with these legal tech opportunities.
CORPORATES:- It is obvious that CORPORATES are most benefiting from legal tech startups out of these because they required a lot complex data management and AI (artificial intelligence) to manage huge amounts of data so it is reducing their burden.
JUDGES:- Technology law is also benefiting judges because the court records can be stored on their servers and there is no risk of loss of files/data. And it is also simple to update any data with tech law.
THIS IS HOW THESE GROUPS ARE BENEFITING FROM LEGAL TECH STARTUPS.
DEMAND OF LEGAL TECH STARTUPS DURING THIS PANDEMIC
Pandemic is another reason for a surge in the demand for legal tech services as this Pandemic confined people to their home, because the unprecedented outbreak of coronavirus has affected the economy globally. As social distancing was the only way to curb the spread of the disease in the society. Most people seeking online solutions to their physical problems. People under the influence of legal distress were looking for instant legal consultation. These legal distress property disputes, disputes related to divorce and financial issues, etc.
Such legal startups are also challenging the notion that like legal advice come heavy price tag. The Pandemic has transformed the way of law professionals & attorneys work. It has transformed the law businesses. Technology has not just remained to the top legal firms but also small legal firms and interestingly legal tech startups have also invested in the same. Pandemic has played major role and has provided a significant opportunity to legal industry to improve and move towards digital transformation and the industry has rationalized itself for better.
WHAT SHOULD LEARN TO BECOME AN OUTSTANDING TECHNOLOGY LAWYER
- TECHNOLOGY CONTRACT DRAFTING AND NEGOTIATION is a very basic skill that all lawyers, no matter in which area they eventually specialize, will be expected to have. Apart from drafting contract negotiation is also considered to be a very important and valuable legal skill.
- MANAGING THE IP PORTFOLIO Intellectual property portfolio management oversees a collection of IP right in order to better protect them.
IP PORTFOLIO is included of:-
- Copyright for marketing materials Copyright can be guaranteed for intellectual property while filling a copyright tech lawyers specify legal right of the owner of intellectual property. This means that the original creators of products and anyone they give authorization to are the only ones with the exclusive right to reproduce the work.
- Trademark for the business name and logo all the startups have registered their trademark for the business and logo it gives a complete rights to the owner to claim triple amount of money with the fees of a lawyer from an integer. A trademark which is not registered can not be infringed.
- Patent protection for a product, especially when business markets a single, main product patent is a kind intellectual property there are three types of patent Utility, Design and Plant.
- RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT is the macro level process of assessing, analyzing, prioritizing and making a strategy to mitigate threats to an organization’s assets and earning. The help to create awareness of hazards and risk.
- KNOWLEDGE OF EARNING TECHNOLOGIES among various technological developments, emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Cyber security, Block chain, Internet of things (IOT) are impacting businesses and citizens across the globe.
- POLICY MAKING AND IMPLEMENTATION are both central parts of the strategic planning process. Whereas policy formulation stands at the top and build up the framework, implementation is a direct consequence of the decisions so to speak of the output of policy formulation.
- DATA PRIVACY AND PROTECTION a single company may possess the personal information of millions of customers ‘ data that if needs to keep private so that customers identifies stay so safe and protected as possible, and the company’s reputation remains untarnished.
- DISPUTE RESOLUTION generally refers to several different processes used to resolve disputes between parties, including negotiation, mediation, arbitration, collaborative law, and litigation.
- LEGAL RESEARCH istheprocessofidentifyingandretrievinginformationnecessarytosupportlegal decision making. It involves tasks such as: finding primary sources of law, or primary authority, in a given jurisdiction (cases, statutes, regulations, etc).
- E SIGNATURE AND VERIFICATION is an online electronic signature service this current scheme of in-person physical presence, paper document based identity & address verification and issuance of hardware cryptographic tokens does not scale to a billion people.
TRANSPARENCY IN LEGAL FIELD WITH TECHNOLOGY
The word TRANSPARENCY refers to clarity of the things which has done. In today’s world where technology is playing a great role in all the fields including legal field and helping to increase transparency in legal field. This is really true that lawyers sometimes want to charge more to their clients buy all the works done by them is online and trustworthy the online legal tech work has also given an opportunity to the people to choose lawyers & legal workers according to their choice. They can get legal advice easily at anytime without visiting court rooms physically because with technology these all the requirements are being fulfilled faster in the virtual mode including drafting, consulting, billing, document management and etc. Now it is not a burden to keep all the records together and safe it shows reduction into risks or burden of papers.
This is how technology helping legal tech field to develop a better transparency.
CONCLUSION
As above have mentioned the increasing trends of technology work process, and increasing demands of technology lawyer’s work by all the legal tech startups is just going beyond traditional law practice. These startups also exercising the goal to expand the quality services and to provide legal support to people. If a lawyer wants to work with these startups then a lawyer needs to be well-known about the technology and use of technology. These startups increasing their strength day by day with increasing technology.
Author: SHALINI AFROJ, DES NAVALMAL FIRODIYA LAW COLLEGE, PUNE
Editor: Kanishka Vaish, Senior Editor, LexLife India
Lexlife India 