Lawtech: a comparative analysis of legal technology in the UK and in other jurisdictions

We have done a comparative analysis of public, private and third sector accelerators to lawtech innovation and adoption in the UK and in other jurisdictions. This study is based on data available up to August 2019.

The objectives are to:

• identify the funding patterns of UK lawtech
• undertake a jurisdictional and state-of-play analysis of our nearest competitors against ease of doing business, the rule of law, innovation and investment metrics

The main findings of the study are:

• investment in UK lawtech is likely to increase
• lawtech remains less mature than other fields of digital disruption, most notably Fintech (financial technology), where funding and regulatory alignment are more advanced
• London is becoming a hub for legal technology
• the UK is playing a significant role in lawtech on the world stage
• the most established lawtech products in the UK are target eDiscovery and legal research

UK legal technology will need continual investment to stay on top – with other jurisdictions seeing strong growth in their domestic sectors.

The global market lawtech is growing rapidly and is valued at $15.9bn. The adoption of new technologies could increase productivity growth in the legal sector from 1.3% per year to 2.7% per year. Every £1 spent on legal services supports £1.39 in spending across the entire UK economy – a contribution that could be boosted by investment in lawtech.