Status of the use of technology in legal firms and management in Chile

The legal sector in our country is increasingly aware that technological tools help in the management of legal signatures and management. This is how they are already investing in technology, however, there is still some reluctance in the legal market to incorporate it, because of the fear that it will end up replacing the work of lawyers and thus reducing their income.

According to the survey of Technology and Administration of Legal Management 2017 conducted by Alster Legal, 70% of the respondents have recognized to have among their short-term plans invest in technology, figure that in the measurement It was only 35%, which is encouraging, and shows that we are on the right track.

However, there is still a low level of technological penetration in the Chilean legal market and the technology already being implemented. refers basically to tools for billing process management for legal studies; documentary administration in general; and case-law investigation.

On the other hand, contract generation and management tools are also being used, which shows the importance of management efficiency and operational improvement in the legal sector.

It is interesting to note that according to the 2016 Legaltech Survey, carried out jointly by Thompson Reuters and Alster Legal, 40% of respondents said that today's technologies are for local supplier technologies, compared to 6% that it indicated having foreign suppliers, which denotes a low market penetration, in respect of tools that today are very successful internationally.

With regard to tools related to the provision of legal services, in recent years many initiatives and projects related to legaltech have emerged in Chile, implementing and offering the mechanisms for the management of contracting, online legal advice, remote working systems, writing, organization and administration of documents, counting systems of hours worked and collection etc.

Private and public institutions are being tempted by the incorporation of Legaltech, that is how the Judiciary implemented an electronic invoice, signature and processing platform; it is currently in process of preparation of writing templates; and in future it aims to incorporate the possibility of making remote allegations through video conferences. This process of digitization has also been implemented by other Tribunals, such as the Free Competition Court, Court of Justice Contracting Public and the iCam platform, of Chamber of Commerce Arbitration and Mediation Centre.

Bar and business studies have done the same, hiring external technology services for the administration of billing processes for legal studies; documentary administration in general; case-law research, and contract generation and management tools, the suppliers of which are mostly Chilean.

We believe that the incorporation of legaltech will contribute to more equitable access to justice, and so have been able to observe recently, both state and private authoritiesthey are already willing to experiment in such solutions.

Jimena Altuzarra, Communications Coordinator at Alster Legal.