Legal technology news

About this section

Legal technology news has become impossible to separate from ordinary law firm news. Artificial intelligence, document automation, case management software and client portals now sit at the centre of how firms win work, price it and deliver it. This section covers legal tech in the UK market as it is actually used, not as it is demonstrated at conferences.

Legal AI dominates the agenda. Large language models are drafting first-pass contracts, summarising disclosure, triaging enquiries and answering the questions clients used to ask a trainee. The gains are real, and so are the failures: courts have already dealt with fabricated citations produced by generative tools and passed off as authority. We cover both sides, including the supervision, verification and training questions that determine whether AI in law firms saves time or creates risk.

Case management systems remain the backbone of most practices. Choosing one, migrating to it and getting fee earners to use it properly is often a multi-year project with a direct effect on lock-up, compliance and client experience. Our reporting looks at implementations that worked, ones that stalled, and what practice managers wish they had asked their supplier before signing.

Data is the quieter revolution. Business intelligence dashboards, matter profitability analysis and real-time work-in-progress reporting let firms see where money is made and lost. Firms that measure realisation, write-offs and fee earner capacity make sharper decisions about pricing and recruitment than those relying on the annual accounts. We report on how legal data and analytics are being used, and where the reporting still misleads.

Security sits alongside all of it. Law firms hold client money and highly sensitive information, which makes them a standing target for cyber attack and payment diversion fraud. Cyber security, phishing resilience, incident response planning and the practicalities of the SRA's expectations on data protection are all part of this beat.

We also track the legal tech market itself: funding rounds, product launches, acquisitions of legal software companies, the arrival of AI features inside existing tools, and the emergence of alternative legal service providers that compete with traditional firms on technology rather than on hourly rates. Suppliers to the legal sector can share thought leadership here too, provided it is genuinely useful to the reader rather than a brochure.

For most firms the underlying question has not changed: does this technology reduce cost, reduce risk, or improve the client's experience? Anything that does none of those three is a distraction. Practice Wire's legal technology coverage aims to help law firm leaders tell the difference, with plain reporting, real examples and a healthy scepticism about vendor claims.