Does digital technology have the potential to address the 'legal gap'?

For many individuals and small businesses legal services can seem inaccessible and reserved for those with the time and money to navigate a complex legal system. It is something to engage with only when there is no alternative.

In fact, research from Nesta Challenges has found that six in ten people in England and Wales think the legal system is ‘not set up for ordinary people’.

Other research suggests that more than half of UK adults experience a legal issue over a three-year time period and increasingly so as we get older.

However, there is a widespread belief among individuals in England and Wales that technology could be part of the solution to the ‘legal gap’, with six in 10 saying they think technology could lead to better services to help people resolve their legal problems.

Technology is not a panacea, but in many other areas of our lives it has transformed the choice, convenience and quality available to us, as well as enabling people to make use of services they might not have previously found accessible.

I believe technology could do the same for legal services and change how legal services are experienced. But so far digital solutions have been very slow to emerge in the consumer and SME space.

People are already very comfortable using technology in other areas such as banking, mobility, and interacting with government services.

People can already envisage the possibilities; when asked what they thought the biggest benefits to using a digital service for legal advice would be, people identified having a fixed price upfront, being able to understand their rights and having access to cheaper legal advice and information.

The principle that accessing legal services should be easier is uncontroversial and the idea that technology could help in this goal is widely acknowledged. So why are technology-enabled solutions proving so slow to gain traction in legal services?

Having developed over centuries in the UK, the legal services market is characterised by several built-in barriers that prevent the sector from taking full advantage of twenty-first century technology.

These include a deeply ingrained legal culture which affects how both lawyers and customers think about who can solve their legal problems.

It favours conventional legal firms and their way of working, making it difficult for direct digital technology solutions to build trust, and raising potential concerns about how to assure the quality of digital technology solutions provided by a new generation of non-regulated companies.

Some firms will naturally have concerns about the potential disruption to business models from digital service innovations.

We see innovation as an opportunity for firms to reach new customers, grow the overall market, and to focus on higher value work – as well as providing greater access to legal support for the many people who do not currently have this.

There is a fragmented legal services market serving individuals and small businesses, which leaves many smaller firms lacking the resources and incentives to invest in the best new technologies.