Productisation of Legal Services

More Lawyers Can Now Offer Best In Class Client Service Through Productisation

I’ve spent almost 15 years working with AI companies. Back in 2012, I joined a fast -growing Ad Tech company that went on to become one of the biggest IPOs out of France. It was at a time when printed advertising was on the decline and ecommerce was growing fast. 

In 2018, I found myself unexpectedly pulled into the world of legal tech. I quickly realised that the market dynamics that contributed to the growth in ad-tech industry we're about to become prevalent in legal.

Consumers were buying products in new ways and that was changing how marketers needed to engage with their clients. Technology disrupted the market in the same way that technology is now disrupting legal services.

Just a few weeks ago, I was at an AI breakfast hosted by CMS, and the topic of conversation was when we might see the first "agentic IPO" - the first company to list on a public exchange where the employees are AI agents, not people. A year ago, this would have sounded like science fiction. But today, the pace of change is mind-blowing, even for someone who has spent more than a decade immersed in it.

ChatGPT reached 1 million users in a single day. For Facebook, that took nearly a year; for Netflix, nearly three. And as of now, ChatGPT has over 800 million regular users - that’s 10% of the global population, all accessing advanced capabilities that, until recently, were reserved for large organisations with deep resources.

ChatGPT reached 1 million users in 24 hours

This shift isn’t just happening faster - it’s also happening from the bottom up. Historically, innovation flowed from government to corporations to individuals. In the past two decades, startups changed that dynamic, launching directly to consumers. And in the last two years, tools like ChatGPT have landed overnight, for free on devices already in everyone’s pocket.

From top down to bottoms up innovation

Individuals now have powers they’ve never had before. Knowledge and capability have been democratised. One person can now achieve what once required a full team, capital, and heavy infrastructure. That’s why we’re entering a new era of bottom-up innovation and this matters deeply for two areas I care about: legal and product / software development.

Credit Andrej Karpathy - Power to the people: How LLMs flip the script on technology diffusion

Let’s talk about "vibe coding" - using natural language to build software. I don’t have a technical background, but over the past few months I’ve been using platforms like Loveable, Bolt, and v0.dev to build a platform that helps legal professionals evaluate the viability of their legal tech ideas. We’ll be bringing this to market later this month but if you want a sneak peak check out the video below.

We’re not yet at the point where software developers are obsolete, but we’re moving toward a world where if you can think it, you can build it. The barriers we used to accept - degrees, credentials, specialised skills, years of experience - are no longer the roadblocks they previously were.

And it's those same limitations or barriers that have afforded the legal industry its exclusivity. Now, that exclusivity is under real pressure.

The limitations we’ve accepted as natural - degrees, credentials, specialized skills, years of experience, are no longer the barriers we believed they were to making things happen. Gian Segato - Founder and CEO Replit

However, in a world where "if you can think it, you can build it" the real question then becomes - should you?

From speaking with over 200 legal tech founders last year, ranging from solo lawyers with ideas to companies generating millions in ARR, the biggest challenge they all face: defining the problem and validating they have a commercially viable business.

The Legal Tech Founders Report - www.legaltechcollective.com/legaltechfoundersreport

It’s one thing to have an idea, it’s quite another to make a commercially viable tech business a reality. 

In legal work, lawyers are meticulous. Every T is crossed, every I dotted. But when it comes to building tech, evidence is sometimes an afterthought. It's easy to see how you can get swept up in the excitement of creating something - the platform, the product, the experience.

Despite AI helping to make things easier - there is a whole lot that goes into building a startup and for most of the founders this has been a 1-2 year process to get to the point of MVP.

So it’s critical to minimise the risk of launching a venture that is a solution to a problem that no one is willing to pay to solve. And on a personal level - make an informed decision before you embark on this journey.

That’s why we created the Legal Tech Foundry - we are taking aspiring founders and law firms from idea to market in 90 days. You have the legal expertise. We' bring the product, tech, and commercial experience of building technology powered businesses.

Whether you're looking to turn a great idea into a real product, unlock new revenue streams with AI, or adapt your firm to be digital first - we believe there are many paths to rethink how your team can deliver more value.

AI can help speed things up, but building a viable startup still demands research, planning, and design. However, the good news is with the right approach, the path to MVP and beyond is more achievable and faster than ever.

The firms that will lead in the next five years won’t just adopt new tools - they’ll rethink how they deliver value from the ground up.

We’re here to help you move fast and make it happen.

Check out www.ltcfoundry.com for more information.