Legal Tech: What is it and why should you care about it?

Author: Sharessa Naidoo

The crux of the matter

In legal practice we’re often fixated on measurable outputs. This means we don’t take the time to step back, and think about what overarching role law plays in our lives and why. 

Is our legal system a social contract, that we’re automatic signatories to, used to avoid anarchy? Thomas Hobbes would say so[1]. Or is it a reflection of our sense of morality, used as a vehicle to get closer to treating people more fairly? Plato would agree[2]. Or ultimately, is it a problem solving mechanism that allows us to solve problems we personally face to get a desired outcome? This seems to be the goal in classic law course problem questions. 

You may think the answer to what role our legal system plays depends on which legal practitioner you ask. But it seems evident that law significantly impact’s people’s lives, while at the same time, it evolves to address societal developments. As KCL’s first ever Legal Tech society we believe the biggest driver of societal developments, and impactor of this reciprocal relationship between society and law, is digital technology. 

Demystifying digital technology 

If you’re like me, digital technology conjures up abstract images of connected electrical systems, fleeting scenes of alien-looking grey hardware, and oddly, an overwhelming sense of the colour blue. So even though most of us use digital technology 24/7 (from Google-mapping, online-banking, Spotify to Netflix etc), it’s a topic with a lot of question marks. Our lives involve observing what these technologies do for us, but not how they operate. This is commonly referred to as the ‘black box problem’[3]. 

We all at least know that artificial intelligence is the biggest player right now in the digital technology space. For those less familiar with AI, AI refers to the development of computer systems that perform tasks which normally would require human intelligence[4]. To build AI systems, engineers gather information. They then train computers to use this information to spot patterns that enable computers to perform different tasks for humans. This means tasks traditionally requiring human intelligence can be performed at much higher speeds with increased availability. This limits the need for actual humans in different areas of our lives.

Interestingly, AI only became mainstream at the beginning of 2011, when IBM created the first ever computer to beat human ‘Jeopardy’ champions[5] and when Apple introduced their AI assistant Siri[6]. But AI was being developed way before this. It was first established as a formal field as far back as 70 years ago at a Dartmouth conference[7]. 

How is AI being used in legal practice? 

Law students are no stranger to LexisNexis. Most of us use the legal research and analytics platform, along with WestLaw, to access AI-generated case summaries, often after a covert Google/ChatGPT search fails to give us adequate detail on a case we’re researching. But the platform also has ‘Lex Machina’[8], an AI-powered litigation analytics tool. The tool analyses millions of court documents to aid a lawyer presenting a case in court, by predicting a particular judge’s ruling history and how the lawyer’s opposing counsel has handled similar cases, to estimate the win rate of specific arguments the lawyer can use. 

Companies like Luminance have also created AI systems that review legal contracts for potential compliance issues, as well as systems that draft contacts to aid lawyers[9]. Most remarkably, we now have AI chatbots like DoNotPay that directly provide users with legal advice for appealing parking tickets, submitting city repairs to authorities, closing bank accounts, securing copyright protections etc[10]. DoNotPay was designed to help consumers regain power over big corporations. 

But how much is industry supporting the use of AI in legal practice?

Goldman Sach’s 2023 report titled ‘The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth’ estimated that 44% of legal tasks can be AI automated[11]. This has been acted on. At the beginning of 2025 Clio, the well-established law practice management software provider, reported that 96% of UK law firms use AI. Clio also stated that 62% of firms anticipate an increase in use over the next year[12]. While more generally, the UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has outlined his plan to grow the UK’s AI sector, now valued at USD92 billion, to USD1 trillion by 2035. Kyle wants the UK to become the second leading AI nation in the democratic world, aiding UK public service provision and sparking economic growth[13]. It seems AI has made a permanent home in legal practice.  

On the flip side

With this increase in AI adoption in legal practice and beyond, the law is needed more than ever to regulate AI and most importantly to prohibit certain AI applications. With the rise of technofascism, where political power is now concentrated in the hands of tech giants, we need law to step in and answer weighty ethical questions. This includes addressing how AI cements current bias in operating systems, that has real-life effects on marginalised communities. Ashwini K.P, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance, has said in her 2023 report that ‘predictive policing can exacerbate the historical over policing of communities along racial and ethnic lines’[14]. 

The European Union Artificial Intelligence Act[15], adopted in 2024, has made a start in the right direction. Chapter II, Article 5 of the act talks about prohibited AI systems such as those deploying ‘subliminal techniques beyond a person’s consciousness’ to purposefully manipulate or deceive someone. While groups such as the London AI and Humanity Project have sprung up to provide people the space to think deeply about the negative and positive impacts AI has on humans[16]. As shown, our understanding of the effects that AI has on society is evolving. It’s important that law students keep an on eye on this, as future clients will look to lawyers to resolve the negative impacts digital technology has.  

Introducing our Legal Tech Review! 

As stated, there is a significant tension between the quest for greater productivity and the importance of human well-being. There is also the dual relationship between law and AI – law being a profession AI can help through legal tech, but also law needing to guard humans against the dangers of AI. There are many people, issues, types of legal tech and law reform that needs to be discussed. As your new KCL Legal Tech Society, we aim to address these in our future pieces! Watch this space. 

[1] Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan’ (1651)

[2] Plato’s ‘The Republic’ (approx. 380BC)  

[3] What is black box artificial intelligence (AI)? By Matthew Kosinski https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/black-box-ai 

[4] What is AI? By Cole Stryker and Eda Kavlakoglu https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/artificial-intelligence 

[5] Watson, ‘Jeopardy!’ champion https://www.ibm.com/history/watson-jeopardy 

[6] Siri https://www.britannica.com/technology/Siri 

[7] Artificial Intelligence Coined at Dartmouth https://home.dartmouth.edu/about/artificial-intelligence-ai-coined-dartmouth 

[8] How Lex Machina Legal Analytics Works https://lexmachina.com/how-it-works 

[9] End-to-End Legal Document Processing https://www.luminance.com/overview.html 

[10] DoNotPay Community Article Categories https://donotpay.com/learn/ 

[11] Global Economics Analyst, The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth (Briggs/Kodnani) https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/03/27/d64e052b-0f6e-45d7-967b-d7be35fabd16.html 

[12] How UK Law Firms Are Adapting to AI and Technology: Key Insights from the Legal Trends Report by Louise Donnery https://www.clio.com/uk/blog/ai-technology-trends/ 

[13] UK Tech Secretary to bang the drum for closer AI partnership with the US https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-tech-secretary-to-bang-the-drum-for-closer-ai-partnership-with-the-us 

[14] Racism and AI: “Bias from the past leads to bias in the future” https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2024/07/racism-and-ai-bias-past-leads-bias-future 

[15] The European Union Artificial Intelligence Act https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ 

[16] London AI and Humanity Project https://www.ai-humanity-london.com/