What is legal tech? A guide for law firms

The tools lawyers rely on are evolving fast—reshaping how legal work gets done. With greater accessibility, more firms are adopting these technologies to improve how they manage cases and serve clients.

According to our 2025 Legal Industry Report, the most commonly adopted legal technology solutions include video conferencing (79%), e-signature (78%), and e-filing (76%). 

Incorporating these tools can help you speed up tedious day-to-day tasks to focus more on billable work. As a result, your firm can become more efficient and profitable over time.

In this guide, we’ll explore what attorneys need to know about technology to stay competitive and confident in a tech-driven legal landscape, including:

• A brief overview of legal technology

• Different types of legal technologies and their benefits

• Emerging legal technology trends to prepare for

What is legal tech?

Legal technology refers to software tools that help lawyers become more efficient in their operations, enhance client relationships, comply with regulations, and increase profit. Lawyers can implement these tools into almost every part of a law firm, from client onboarding and billing to research and discovery. 

The Boston Consulting Group and the Bucerius Law School analyzed legal tech to better understand how it would change law firms' operations. In their analysis, they determined that legal technology could generally be broken into three categories:

1. Enabler technologies

Enabler technologies focus on platform infrastructure, security, cloud computing, and connectivity. Their purpose is to digitize data and enable users to perform business-related activities more easily and securely. These technologies may be designed specifically for attorneys or for a multitude of industries.

2. Support process solutions

Support process solutions help lawyers perform their daily business-management tasks more productively. These solutions include law firm customer relationship management (CRM) software, legal accounting software, client portal tools, and legal practice management (LPM) software.

3. Substantive law technology

The third category of legal tech, substantive law technology, features specialized litigation solutions and case analysis tools. This emerging legal technology focuses on substantive work instead of support process solutions that facilitate administrative, human resources, and business management tasks.

Types of legal technology and benefits for law firms 

Legal technology companies continue improving and creating new solutions that increase efficiencies and enhance client experiences. The following list highlights some of the most common types of legal technology and the benefits they offer law firms. 

Practice management software 

Categories: Support process solution; enabler technology

Practice management software is an end-to-end digital platform that organizes the key elements of running a law firm into a single place. This solution can help in almost every area of a law firm’s operations, including case management, invoicing, and lead tracking. 

For example, a practice management system like 8am™ MyCase can easily link case details to invoices, eliminating the need to transfer information or integrate multiple tools.

Using legal tech AI technology with practice management software takes efficiency a step further by helping law firms automate repetitive tasks, opening up more time for you to work on billable hours and other higher-value work. 

Billing and time tracking software  

Category: Support process solution

Billing and time tracking software helps you maintain accurate time tracking, generate invoices, and bill clients. Both staff and clients gain the freedom to access billing details online so they can check and update information at any time. 

Centralizing this information also makes it easier to automatically generate invoices from logged time and expenses. When paired with an intuitive dashboard, you can use this platform to quickly check account statuses and gain immediate visibility into your firm’s finances.

For example, 8am LawPay integrates with MyCase  to sync financial and client information for easier invoicing and data analysis.

Additionally, AI has greatly improved billing and tracking software by automating many elements of the time tracking process. For instance, AI-assisted technology can automatically detect billable activities and flag invoice errors. 

Payment processing software 

Category: Enabler technology

Payment processing software like LawPay helps law firms smooth out the process of receiving electronic payments. Like most general-use payment processors, this solution accepts digital payment methods like credit cards, debit cards, and cash through an ACH transfer. 

However, legal payment processing software also enables law firms to ensure compliance with regulations around IOLTA and trust accounts. 

The introduction of AI integrations can help enhance different features. For example, AI could help detect possible fraud by analyzing data in real time to detect suspicious patterns that humans might otherwise miss. 

Document management and automation software

Category: Support process solution

Document management and automation software generate, store, organize, and retrieve digital documentation. This type of software can also help you create templates to speed up and automate legal document generation for clients. 

Then your team members can work collaboratively on these documents by uploading them to the cloud. 

AI makes it easier for attorneys to review and analyze case data quickly. Tools such as MyCase IQ can save law firms hours by quickly analyzing case documents and generating document summaries. 

E-discovery software 

Category: Substantive law technology

E-discovery software allows you to collect and analyze evidence and other information during legal proceedings. With digitized discovery documentation, it’s easy to search, filter, and review all information. 

Clearbrief is a solution that leverages the power of AI to automatically scan opposing counsel’s briefs and look for factual errors or other points of weakness in your opponent’s legal writing. It can also review documentation to highlight potential instances of hearsay or other types of inadmissible evidence.

Legal research software 

Category: Substantive law technology

Legal research software helps lawyers locate, analyze, and incorporate relevant legal information into their cases. This may include case law, statutes, administrative codes, or legal articles from law journals or other respected sources. 

Beyond completing legal research, software can also check citations and provide real-time updates as the legal landscape evolves. AI-enhanced legal research tools can quickly and accurately summarize statutes and administrative codes. This feature can save a lot of time, depending on the case's complexity and how much research is needed. 

Client communication and collaboration tools 

Category: Enabler technology

Client communication software, such as MyCase client communication software, improves how lawyers interact with their clients. These tools may include client portals, secure messaging platforms, and real-time case updates. 

Internal collaboration tools, including calendaring and internal messaging platforms, help you and your staff work better together. These solutions are often cloud-based, helping your team stay in sync while everyone is on the go.

AI-powered collaboration tools take these solutions to the next level by automating time-intensive tasks for better workflows. For example, communication software with generative AI tools can quickly edit, modify, and translate text. You can also use AI to generate an initial draft, giving you a solid starting point to refine and personalize. 

What are upcoming legal tech trends?

Cloud-based solutions, blockchain, and smarter legal analytics are trends gaining attention in the legal world. Like many other industries, legal tech trends are focused on using AI-assisted tools. 

As the legal industry evolves rapidly, lawyers who keep up with emerging legal technology trends will remain competitive and maximize their success. These include: 

• AI tools are helping to automate many aspects of billing, providing greater accuracy in time tracking, improving collection rates, and increasing payment options for clients. 

• Remote work and cloud-based software enable teams to work collaboratively while teammates work at home or at an entirely different office. 

Improved cybersecurity solutions provide better security for law firms and their clients’ data.

As generative AI is integrated into law practice management software, law firms will be able to use generative AI interfaces to easily access their firm's entire data set of matter information, financial metrics, documents, and more. This will allow legal professionals to rapidly obtain key information and analytics that will allow them to make informed, accurate impactful business decisions.

Nicole Black Principle Legal Insight Strategist, MyCase and LawPay

Webinar

Spring 2025 Virtual Legal Seminar

Watch now

How to successfully implement legal technology?

Bringing legal technology into your firm isn’t just about upgrading tools—it’s about improving how your team works every day. The following strategies can help you implement legal tech smoothly and maximize its impact.

Start with a needs assessment 

Talking to staff members across the firm will help you to understand what tools they are already using and (more importantly) areas where there are opportunities to improve their work. 

Prioritize based on ease of use

Once you have your wishlist of new technology, create a hierarchy with the easiest-to-implement solutions ranked highest. This allows your firm to secure quick wins that immediately create efficiencies without demanding extensive team training. 

That said, remember to provide adequate time for initial and ongoing training, along with time for creating process documents and other helpful internal resources.

Look for integrations with existing systems 

Confirm if the latest legal tech can integrate with some of your existing systems to make incorporating the new tools into your day-to-day processes easier. Integrated tools will also help prevent the siloing of information into different platforms.  

Continue to look for improved solutions

The solutions you currently use may be the best option for your law firm, but there’s no guarantee they will continue to be the best option going forward. 

Monitor performance and ROI

Implementing legal tech aims to create efficiencies, improve performance, and increase profitability. Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) will either confirm that the new tools are working or that your firm needs to adjust its legal tech further. 

Plan for possible tech fatigue

Tech fatigue is a real phenomenon, and it is especially true for law firms. Implementing too many tools all at once or frequently updating processes can leave your staff frustrated, anxious, or overwhelmed. 

Consider the following best practices to limit the risk of tech fatigue impacting your law firm:

• Adopt one tool at a time rather than rolling out every update immediately. 

• Look for an end-to-end platform instead of trying to learn multiple types of software. 

• Focus on high-impact wins by incorporating legal tech that can deliver a quick win that has a significant effect on your firm.

• Communicate the “why” by explaining why you’re making the changes and what the end benefits are for your firm.

Choose 8am MyCase as your end-to-end legal tech solution 

Finding the right technology for your firm doesn’t have to be complicated. MyCase makes it easy to choose the tools that truly make a difference—without the extra features you don’t need. With case management, client communication, and billing in one intuitive platform, MyCase helps your firm save time, stay organized, and boost profitability.

Let us help you simplify your firm’s processes using technology tools designed for lawyers. Start your free trial of MyCase today.