Legal Technology: Build the Digitally Ready Legal Department

Realize greater value from GenAI and emerging legal technologies by building a firm digital foundation.

Strengthen legal technology initiatives by focusing on digital readiness

A maturing legal technology market and recent advances in AI are creating new opportunities for improved productivity, better decision making and higher-quality legal services. Traditionally, legal technology initiatives aimed at enhancing productivity and efficiency have focused on selecting systems based solely on their desired capabilities, often overlooking critical factors such as user needs, integration and scalability. This approach can lead to obstacles that result in costly pauses, repeat work, missed deadlines, poor adoption rates and budget increases.

Success with legal technology depends on a firm foundation for digital readiness. Teams with higher levels of digital readiness are nearly twice as likely to see significant benefits from their  technology systems — but less than a quarter of legal departments are digitally ready.

Download Your Checklist for Legal Digital Readiness

Use these 5 key steps to build and scale digital readiness in your legal department.

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    General counsel (GC) are ramping up investments in legal technology

    Drive productivity and accelerate operations to anchor your technology investments to business outcomes and navigate shifting markets.

    Generative-AI-powered legal technology solutions are a top GC priority in 2025

    Ongoing regulatory and geopolitical shifts create heavier and more complex workloads for legal and compliance, compounded by budget restraints. In response to this pressure, 64% of legal and compliance leaders report they plan to accelerate investments in legal technology. 

    While most of these investments will flow to foundational solutions such as e-billing and contract life cycle management, generative AI (GenAI) creates even more significant opportunities. Use cases for GenAI-powered legal technology span every category of the legal function, including intake and analysis, transactions, litigation, management, governance and regulatory compliance.

    Nearly 40% of in-house legal and compliance leaders are using GenAI or testing it in beta. And over half say that identifying opportunities for leveraging GenAI applications is a top priority in 2025.

    Volatility in the legal technology market demands an informed approach

    While GenAI offers many promises, most remain untested by legal teams. For GC, navigating the technology market successfully can avoid the pitfalls of choosing market hype, keep the focus on practical opportunities and maintain sight of longer-term transformation goals.

    Emerging legal technology trends, vendors and solutions are blurring once-clear distinctions between categories. Established, limited-scope solutions are now competing against holistic platforms with wide-sweeping benefits such as cohesive workflow management. 

    Legal and compliance leaders must navigate these blurred lines across the vendor landscape to create a successful technology strategy and identify solutions that meet their unique workflows and business demands.

    Digital readiness maximizes ROI and helps meet business demands

    GC will see suboptimal returns on technology investments when the legal department struggles to effectively navigate digital initiatives — and a well-developed legal technology vision is only half of the equation. It’s essential to prepare the department to select, implement and adopt technology in a way that achieves results.

    A solid roadmap toward digital enablement requires a multifaceted approach. Meet tech enablement prerequisites across people, processes and data, then choose technologies that fit legal and business needs. Integrate these solutions with existing infrastructure to ensure easy adoption, and expand sustainably to support growth and evolving needs.

    Legal technology FAQs

    What are the benefits of using AI in the legal industry?

    AI in the legal industry boosts productivity, enhances decision making and improves service quality. It streamlines tasks such as intake, analysis, transactions, litigation and compliance. With GenAI, legal teams can handle complex workloads efficiently, despite budget constraints. Success, however, depends on digital readiness and strategic technology adoption.

    What are some of the challenges and opportunities in legal technology adoption?

    Challenges in legal technology adoption include navigating market volatility; overcoming obstacles like poor adoption rates, budget increases and missed deadlines; and ensuring digital readiness. Many legal departments struggle with implementing and integrating new technologies effectively. Opportunities lie in leveraging GenAI-powered solutions to enhance productivity, decision making and service quality. By aligning technology investments with business outcomes and maintaining focus on long-term goals, legal teams can maximize benefits and drive growth.

    Drive stronger performance on your mission-critical priorities.