In-House Legal Technology: Mind your Ps and Qs

Never has an end-of-year review of legal technology been so interesting: what have we accomplished and where are we going? For the industry? For in-house matter management? For Xakia?

The end of year star gazing (or navel gazing) seems to be leading industry players down an almost infinite number of paths. So many exciting opportunities, big dreaming and industry-changing trends. 🤩

And yet, all paths seem to have a single destination defined by just two letters: A and I.

And the paths are covered in rocks, branches and other tricky obstacles.

And have become crowded with tourists who don’t quite know where they are going.

It might be said that the 2024 predictions are starting to feel “same-same-but-different” without a clear map to the final destination. Does it feel like lining up for two hours to climb the Eiffel Tower at the height of summer? The views might be awesome when you get there, but in the meantime you’re sweating it out with the rest of the crowd, wasting time in a beautiful city hoping that the trade off is worthwhile.

Social media posting about #LegalTech has faded in 2023 despite significant advancements. Why? Because – as Zach Abamowitz rightly points out – AI has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and everybody is on standby waiting to see how it will (or will not) solve legal team problems or replace legal technologies that are available today.

The risk, of course, is that the waiting puts legal teams further behind on the adoption curve. AI will be amazing, but be careful about assuming it will do:

• everything
• perfectly
• tomorrow

So, here are our reflections on 2023 and predictions for 2024: Mind your Ps and Qs.

Our tip: get your (in)house in order in 2024 and you will be well positioned to leverage the legal technology tools for in-house teams that will become readily available in the second half of this decade.

What have we (Xakia) accomplished in 2023?

The first quarter of 2023 kicked off with questions about whether we would focus on AI. After some quietude and queries about the quasi-usefulness of AI, Xakia decided to remain quite focused on its core in house legal software for the year. As always, our quintessential legal matter software team delivered quality matter management tools for corporate legal departments who can easily quantify a better quality-of-life with Xakia.

• Quick matter add. As always, speed is of the essence, so at Xakia we made adding matters to keep track of your work super-speedy
• Quantify your legal spend in real time. Operational efficiencies are top of mind for CEOs and CFOs and in-house legal departments are required to have spend metrics at their fingertips
• Quontract (a.k.a. contract management) with quality. End-to-end contract functionality: from thought bubble to termination

What do we predict for 2024?

Pondering the year ahead, we predict that the pace of legal technology for in-house legal teams will increase perceptibly. Probably, the perfectionism of lawyers will push legal technology products to be phenomenally powerful and we expect many will pilot the new wave of productivity tools. Pioneers will play but the industry is poised to move beyond positivity to popularity of all legal technology for in-house teams.

• Primary tools first. It’s hard to reach for the stars if you haven’t built the rocket ship. Increasingly, we see in-house legal departments laying the foundations to legal team efficiencies and mass adoption is in motion.
• Progress in real AI use cases. Moving beyond the experimentation to the implementation.
• Proficiency in technology will be essential. We strongly believe that AI and legal technology won’t replace lawyers, but the lawyers who use it effectively will replace those who do not. Don’t get left behind.

There is little question that 2024 promises to be a year of incredible innovation in the legal technology space. We are excited to be part of it and look forward to continuing the journey with our clients, consultants and co-conspirators.

Written by:

Jodie Baker
Founder & Group CEO

Jodie is an innovator, entrepreneur, and advocate of LegalTech. Her passion to give in-house counsel greater visibility and control to their legal operations is the driving force behind Xakia, an in-house legal matter management platform that is simple, powerful and affordable.

Anne Post
CEO, North America

Anne is an experienced lawyer and entrepreneur, with a celebrated litigation career spanning more than 20 years. Anne brings to Xakia her passion for organization and efficiency, which translates to her heightened understanding of the needs of clients to achieve greater visibility and control over their legal function.