The UKLTA has joined a global research project to assess the state of the legaltech industry worldwide.

An initiative of the Australian Legal Technology Association (ALTA) and Alpha Creates the unprecedented research project to definitively assess the state of the global legaltech industry through the lens of the business of starting and running a legaltech start-up.

The Global Legal Tech Report is backed by every major legaltech association in the world. It is the first study into legaltech that asks the companies behind the booming sector. The other legaltech associations participating include:

  • International Legal Technology Association (ILTA)
  • European Legal Tech Association (ELTA)
  • ASEAN Legal Tech (ALT)
  • Legal Tech NZ (LTNZ)

Matt Pennington, UKLTA Chair commented:

“As a community of both lawyers and tech providers, the UKLTA is all about improving the interactions between those two groups, in order to facilitate the greater adoption of technology within the legal sector.

Building a greater understanding of the approach that legaltech companies are taking to the marketplace on both a local and international level will help us continue to develop and iterate our strategy for supporting them.”

Preliminary results from the field research conducted in Australia show that:

  • Founding a legaltech company is a solo endeavour. Most respondent Australian legaltech firms have one founder (50%), while 30% have two founders and 11% founded by a team of two and 11% of founding teams have three co-founders.
  • Age is just a number when it comes to founding a legaltech company. A third of Australian founders are aged between 31 to 40, a third are over 50 and the remaining spread across age brackets.
  • Law firms are the primary target market: Close to half (48%) of respondents in the Australian study have earmarked law firms as their primary target market, while 25% have developed their solutions for corporate legal departments.
  • Legaltech companies are using a mixed bag of technologies: A breakdown of underlying technologies reveals 41% of the underlying technologies used are databases, 26% are pre-programmed codes, 19% are artificial intelligence, three percent are blockchain-based and 11% indicated other.

The research fieldwork will be rolled-out to New Zealand, South East Asia, UK, Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa in collaboration with participating associations from January 20 – mid April 2020 via online survey. Participating legal technology companies will receive their regional report free and a substantial discount on the global research which will see a cross-jurisdictional comparison of the trends from each jurisdiction.

Stevie Ghiassi, ALTA Director and CEO of Legaler said:

“It is the first global study that directly surveys the companies behind the booming sector, and we invite every legal tech company to get behind this important initiative by completing the online survey”

The research uncovers key insights including:

  • What is the makeup of the legaltech start-ups’ founders?
  • What is the team composition of a legaltech start-up?
  • What are the underlying technologies that powers the solutions developed by the legaltech start-ups?
  • What is the growth outlook for legaltech start-ups?
  • What is the cost composition of a legaltech start-up?
  • Which business models and pricing models have legaltech start-ups deployed to commercialise the solutions they developed?
  • What major cross-jurisdictional trends could we observe in team composition, growth outlook, cost outlook, business model and pricing models?
  • Where are legaltech start-ups looking to expand outside of their home jurisdiction?

The Australian research report will be available in March, with New Zealand and South East Asian reports to be launched at ALTACON 2020, in Sydney on 29 May, with the UK, European and US reports following.

The research is sponsored by Macquarie, KPMG, Law Society of England and Wales and Toro Digital.

Visit www.globallegaltechreport.com to be notified when the report is released.