According to a recent report by The Business Research Company, the global legal software market is growing at a CAGR of 30.9 percent. What is your view of this market trend and how do you see the market evolving in India?

Every industry in India is adopting new technologies for the improvement of their business operations. When we look from the end user’s perspective, the market evolving in India is expected to grow at considerable pace. If we talk from the service provider’s point of view, there are a lot of companies which are emerging in this domain. Digital transformation is causing widespread use of devices and technology has connected the users and clients with the organization. Devices like cell phones and Internet of Things enabled ones are being used more these days. This is the reason why people encounter more cyber attacks and threats nowadays.

The adoption of technology is comparatively low in the legal industry due to uncertainty about scope of technology and lack of awareness about potential benefits of integrating technology. What is your opinion on this phenomenon?

As every business is transforming today, legal industry lacking the awareness about benefits of using technology is the major reason behind the less use of it by legal industry. To change this trend in legal industry, education, adaptability and being open minded for the changes that are going on is the only thing which can be done to spread awareness about the impact of technology. Use of new technology not only saves time and effort but it can do a lot more things like providing cyber security, tracking logistics and transportation, threat monitoring and situational awareness and many other things.

“Use of technology is not limited to only automating the routine and rule based task in today's world. Artificial Intelligence has acted as the game changer in the field of technology”

There has been a big misconception that technology is meant to only automate the routine and rule based tasks, however, advent of AI has completely changed the game. How do you see AI revolutionizing the operations in this sector?

Use of technology is not limited to only automating the routine and rule based task in today's world. Artificial Intelligence has acted as the game changer in the field of technology. Still AI is going to take more time to evolve in India because of its complex functioning and algorithm which AI runs through. There are a lot of other factors which are considered to be serious factors which act as hurdles in the evolution of Artificial Intelligence in near future. Over the period of time AI will be able to reach some extents. It will take some more time to reach 100 percent evolution level.

The amount of sensitive data that law firms and corporate legal departments hold makes them an easy target for the hackers. How can technology help them the handle the cyber attacks and achieve data security?

The increasing adoption of technology also increases the risk of cyber attack and data breaches. Technology plays a key role in India or we can say at a global front. Data breach is the major concern for the users and they should be more aware of the various cyber attack and data breaches and also have the idea about how to avoid these challenges. It is not that the adoption of new technology trend is risky or it is insecure, but it is better to be aware of all the aspects of technology. There are awareness campaigns that are running in India about data security. Some punishments are also there, which are not so rigid at this point of time but it will be imposed strictly in near future.

Powerful mobile devices, software as-a-service, web-based technologies have led to the creation of virtual workplaces allowing people to work from anywhere. How do you see the impact of this work-from anywhere trend in legal fraternity?

Evolutions like usage of mobile devices and software-as-a-service model have led to the development of virtual workplaces allowing people to work from home or anywhere else. The legal domain is still far away from the work-from-anywhere concept when it comes to Artificial Intelligence. When we talk about the general IT using some collaborating tool then work-from-anywhere concept will be adopted by the legal fraternity in coming times.

Today every industry is bound to be disrupted as newer technologies keep making in-roads into the market. What according to you are the current legal-tech trends that are disrupting the legal domain?

A rapid transformation in terms of technology adoption is going on in today's world. However, from IT point of view, technology is yet to be evolved in legal domain. Transformation is going on at the present time on global level, and technology is being tested but when we talk about adaptability from national point of view, the transformation procedure is very slow in legal domain as compared to global level as they are trying to adopt Artificial Intelligence in the legal domain.