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Legal Tech? «It is a very important niche because it directly impacts a primary need of every democracy: making legal services faster, more effective and less expensive for the benefit of professionals (magistrates, lawyers and notaries), citizens and public administrations», he explains the lawyer Donato Silvano Lorusso, Ambassador for the Italian European Legal Tech Association in his speech at the Summit AI Transition of the Sole 24 Ore, interviewed by Rai journalist Barbara Carfagna.
A very important niche but still too small, at least in Italy, where there are no more than 90-92 start-ups active in the sector for a turnover of around 40 million euros. Crumbs compared to the 15 billion dollars worth of the entire global Legal Tech, destined to rise to 40 billion within a decade.
«It’s true, our numbers are small, a clear sign that we are suffering from the lack of investments in technology and digitalisation of our companies», admits Lorusso. On the other hand, we are at the bottom of the list in the EU: Germany, France, Spain and the UK also invest much more in this sector. Not to mention the USA. Open AI, for example, recently released an application that deals with document analysis. In other cases, there are AI solutions that can predictably anticipate the outcome of sentences. «Where Artificial Intelligence still struggles, however, is in “advice” and in the creation of contracts», continues Lorusso. “Let’s say that today AI is like a brilliant boy in his third year of law school who manages to provide the professor or lawyer with a semi-finished product, nothing more.” Even if technology runs at a frenetic pace and we must necessarily keep up.
“Despite everything, I remain optimistic, as long as we change gear,” continues the lawyer. «There will have to be more and more data or cloud experts within law firms; the professionalism of new lawyers must go hand in hand with technological innovation because there will always be a need for lawyers.”
After Lorusso, Stéphane Béreux, CTO of Jimini AI told the story case history of his start-up specializing in legal questions, launched in 2023 thanks to a 3 million euro loan. “The legal market is facing many challenges,” reasons Béreux. «In the USA there are increasingly larger and more competitive studios that are putting European ones under pressure thanks to the massive use of generative AI which multiplies their productivity». Suffice it to say that 50% of the time spent by lawyers is consumed in routine tasks such as drafting documents and drafts, document research, writing and reviewing contracts. «Jimini’s AI – concludes Béreux – allows us to speed up all these phases of legal work, adding secure data storage»
