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How Tech Can Change the Legal Sector

Legal Innovation & Tech Fest Posted on by

In the lead up to the 2020 Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, Eventful People and Africa Legal have partnered to deliver a Legal Community Report offering insight into the current challenges in delivering legal services and the technology-backed innovations being deployed to combat these challenges. This report was compiled in a robust process, commencing with three months of in-depth research by Eventful People, and including in-person research groups in Cape Town and Johannesburg. This was followed by the digital surveying of lawyers across the continent. The findings of the report will now frame the backbone of the cutting-edge agenda planned for the Legal Innovation and Tech Fest which will be hosted at the Maslow Hotel, Sandton, Johannesburg on June 8 and 9 2020. Africa Legal is the event’s official ‘Intelligence Partner’. Lawyers and innovators from leading law firms and corporate legal departments such as Adams & Adams Attorneys, BDO South Africa, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, Bowmans, Standard Bank, Dentons, Stellenbosch University and Webber Wentzel contributed to the report through participation in the research groups which were designed to understand how technology and innovation in law can drive the profession. More than 100 organisations operating across 24 African jurisdictions engaged with the research process. Seven broad themes were identified as core issues for the legal community to reflect on and these are to form the basis for the upcoming event agenda in 2020: 1. Navigating the Maze of Legal Technology – Past, Present & Future Understanding what technology is currently available, discovering when you use … Continue reading →

Eitan Stern from Legalese on the Changing Landscape of Law

Legal Innovation & Tech Fest Posted on by

At the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest earlier this month, we sat down with Eitan Stern, Legalese’s founder and director, to discuss his thoughts on the legal tech space in South Africa. Legalese is a creative legal agency which has redesigned legal services to suit creative, start-up, and tech-based businesses by making them accessible, affordable and understandable. Tell me a bit about your journey in the legal space, how did you get started? I’ve always been around the creative industry as well as in the legal industry. While I was at law school I had a small music career. I’ve always been far more into public law, but I never really pictured myself being a lawyer. When I finished law school I had a tech start-up, but it ended up being the wrong people at the wrong time and didn’t work out. I’ve always been entrepreneurial, but at the same time I had this legal background and landed up doing my articles at a commercial law firm and I had one of those moments where it just clicked that I really understood commercial law. So, I worked at a commercial firm doing commercial law and had this idea to try and merge these two “lives” I’d been living: one in the creative industry and tech and one as a lawyer in a suit and tie. It was quite easy to get into the music industry because there were not many entertainment lawyers. It was good product-market fit I suppose. We … Continue reading →

Legal Research in the Age of AI

Legal Innovation & Tech Fest Posted on by

Ahead of his presentation at the 2019 Legal Innovation & Tech Fest, we briefly caught up with Juta and Company CEO Kamal Patel to chat about how Juta continues to remain relevant to its customers after 165 years in business, his predictions on the future of legal research and the predicted impact that Artificial Intelligence will have on the practice of law. Hi Kamal, we are looking forward to having Juta and Company as a Premier Partner at the 2019 Legal Innovation & Tech Fest. Can you tell us what it takes for a company with such a long-standing history in legal publishing to remain relevant in an ever-changing digital world? As an independent local player in the legal and academic publishing industry, and one that has weathered successive waves of technological change, it is a unique feat to have endured as we have since 1853. This milestone comes as Juta is poised to enter a new phase of technology-enabled growth. Juta continues to reinvent itself and does so by evolving to meet the shifting legal information needs of a range of users, and by diversifying our core skills and competencies. It’s one thing to be a respected and fondly regarded player in the SA legal information landscape, but it is imperative that Juta’s business remains innovative and responsive to emerging trends. We are constantly presented with opportunities that redefine the value we can offer to the users who rely on our content, which is a hallmark of our rapidly … Continue reading →

Making Contract Management Work For You

Legal Innovation & Tech Fest Posted on by

Search for the latest in contract management and these days it’s all blockchain and smart contracts. It’s an exciting time to be a GC or a Legal Operations Director. All of a sudden legal is at the centre of a technology revolution that will place it squarely on the map of business impact and real change. But there’s that little detail about not even having a contract repository yet. How are you supposed to run if you haven’t even learned to walk yet? … Continue reading →

The Pearl Harbour for Law Firms

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Surprise attack, not expected, provoked action, changed forever – these are some of the terms associated with the attack at Pearl Harbour on 8 December 1941. Similar to the businesses, services and technology coming at the law firm traditional business, with one difference – America did not know they were going to be attacked. … Continue reading →