The transformative impact of legal technology: Emerging trends shaping the future of in-house legal teams
As a leading provider of legal technology software, LawVu maintains close contact with our customers and the broader in-house legal community, ensuring we are always aware of emerging trends and able to deliver on our mission, which is to support and accelerate the work of the world’s corporate legal teams.
Presently, we’re paying close attention to the transformative trends reshaping in-house legal teams highlighted in the 2025 In-house Legal Trend Report from legal leaders in the InView community. The report, along with related webinars and community discussions, reinforces the many ways in which the in-house legal landscape is undergoing significant change, including areas where technology plays a pivotal role in everything from reshaping how teams work to how business defines their value.
In this article we examine the trends and their relationship with legal technology, with practical advice you can use to best leverage legal tech in the dynamic in-house environment.
Click here to access your copy of the 2025 In-house Legal Trend Report
The adoption of AI by the wider business is impacting legal teams
AI is not just a buzzword. It’s a catalyst for change in the legal sector, and a trend that is impacting legal teams in multiple ways. The swift adoption of AI by the business is putting increased pressure on legal teams to keep up with changing regulations, risks, greater workloads and higher expectations. Also, AI is transforming the way legal teams operate, with AI tools built for legal work promising greater efficiency – and in some cases, unlocking budget for digital transformation, modernization and AI solutions.
The key takeaway for legal technology: Safely and successfully adopting AI as part of your legal tech stack is critical for keeping up with the rising demand and higher business expectations for legal service – and the time to start is now. The growing volume of AI tools available in the market is both a blessing and a curse: while there are many opportunities to use AI in the legal department, it can be difficult to identify the best solution for your team, and hard to have confidence in a successful approach to implementation and adoption that will deliver genuine efficiency gains and return-on-investment.
To ensure your legal team’s AI adoption strategy is correct, and to set yourselves up for success for years to come, here are some considerations:
- Focus on the most pressing problems to solve, not the shiniest AI opportunities. You can easily use tools like a simple matrix to map your pain points on an axis of need versus complexity to identify key use cases that are a good fit for a short term ROI.
- Look to your existing technology vendor: if you already have a trusted provider that houses your legal information and is the go-to for legal workflows, the application of AI within that technology is far more likely to be successful, secure and easily adopted. If you’re looking for legal tech, consider AI as a key feature, but not the entirety of the solution.
Recommended resources:
- AI for in-house legal, A practical Guide to adoption
- AI workshop: A practical workshop to help legal teams adopt and maximize the value of AI
Legal team composition, skill sets and changing roles
In-house legal teams are undergoing substantive changes. In-house is no longer the domain of only lawyers and their support staff. New roles such as data analyst and legal project manager are being introduced to legal teams, marking a shift toward a more multidisciplinary approach, and creating new career paths. Therefore, expectations for legal leaders are changing, where they are now increasingly focused on the value of a function that has an optimized operational model, not just legal subject matter expertise.
The key takeaway for legal technology: Importantly, this trend reflects the growing expectations for legal leaders and legal departments to behave like other departments: data-driven and operationally sound. Digital transformation and modernization of both systems and processes are required to achieve these objectives, creating a straight line to investment in legal technology. With this trend in mind, there are two considerations for legal leaders :
- Not all technology is created equal when it comes to operational optimization and scale. Carefully consider non-functional requirements like usability, that drives adoption; total cost of ownership; support for multiple workflows, resulting in the ability to grow your use cases more efficiently over time if you want to truly optimize your operations.
- Disparate data is a productivity vampire: even with technology in place, legal teams can spend hours consolidating data from disparate systems and struggle to find and communicate insights to the business. Solutions that consolidate workflows also offer consolidated data; combined with easy-to-use dashboard and reporting capabilities, they will set you up for greater success as a data-driven business partner.
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Client experience is at the heart of how in-house legal services are delivered
The paradigm shift from legal advising to service delivery means that legal departments must prioritize user-friendly experiences, meeting internal and external expectations for ease of access, streamlined processes, visibility, and reasonable turnaround times.
The key takeaway for legal technology: A major benefit of increasing efficiency with technology and automation is a better client experience, particularly when it comes to a legal team’s ability to handle increasing workloads with reasonable turnaround times. In addition, you can choose legal technology that has features built with the wider business in mind to deliver outsized value and much higher adoption.
- To make your legal processes accessible and your adoption stronger, look for a modern solution that delivers a positive user experience – including support for modern ways of working, such as the ability to engage in legal processes on mobile devices or quickly and easily generate low-complexity contracts with a simple user interface.
- Legal technology that can be seamlessly integrated with key business technology like your CLM, e-signature tools and email platforms, will ensure streamlined legal workflows and better data without disrupting the way the business is working.
Recommended resources:
- Four features of a successful intake process for in-house legal teams
- Learn how to design a legal intake process with the dedicated course as part of the connected legal certification
Legal functions have a strategic purpose – providing a competitive advantage
Modern legal teams are increasingly shaping corporate strategy, ESG initiatives and cybersecurity efforts, which means they are more embedded and deeply integrated in the organization; more often recognized as a strategic asset rather than just a compliance function. This optimized strategic legal function also provides the business with a competitive advantage.
The key takeaway for legal technology: The strategic use of technology has been critical in creating this new reality by reducing inefficiencies and administrative overhead, giving legal professionals more time to focus on high-impact work. Once this basic productivity enhancement is in place, a technology-optimized function can increase a business’s competitive edge and their strategic value with support for key workflows that are business enablers. For example:
- Technology like contract lifecycle management platforms, curated AI solutions, and business intelligence tools can accelerate deal making, optimize contracts data, and allow for proactive risk and regulatory views that give an organization an edge over its competitors.
- Legal technology that encourages collaboration and visibility with other departments ensures ongoing engagement, goodwill and understanding of legal processes – not to mention a streamlined, consistent way of working for cross-functional teams.
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Legal teams are measured by the value they generate
The ability to quantitatively assess and demonstrate value is crucial for legal teams today. It’s becoming more common for businesses to look for key performance indicators that evaluate value beyond legal spend, such as contribution to risk management and revenue generation, and legal teams are looking to quantitative, value-based data to secure resources and budget.
The key takeaway for legal technology: Teams without technology will struggle to track and showcase their contributions in a quantifiable way, whereas those using modern technology can have immediate and ongoing access to data that demonstrates their performance. Teams looking to optimize their use of data and technology to showcase their value should keep these things in mind:
- The most prevalent legal technology – spend management technology, closely followed by CLM solutions – can only provide a narrow set of metrics related to legal spend or contract work. This means you’ll be missing critical data to show and evaluate a significant portion of your in-house work.
- A matter management solution that supports your in-house workflows can solve that problem by generating the data you need to represent all your internal work; if that matter management system is integrated with contract and spend data you’ll have an even easier time showing and evaluating the full value of your function.
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Legal teams scale through innovation and technology rather than team growth or outsourcing
What more can we say? This trend says it all! These community conversations have made it clear that legal technology must and will continue to sit alongside and support innovations in processes, interactions with the business, and ways of working. As demands on legal teams grow, legal technology offers scalable tools for automation and self-service, ensuring that legal departments can remain agile and effective without needing extensive resource expansion.
Legal technology is at the forefront of enabling in-house legal teams to transition from service providers to strategic business partners. By embracing these trends and integrating the right technology solutions, legal departments can drive business success and secure their place as indispensable components of their organizations. Let’s stay ahead of the curve together, harnessing the full potential of legal technology in this evolving landscape.
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