Alejandro Miyar, of Berger Singerman Alejandro Miyar, of Berger Singerman

2020 promises to be a significant year for the legal profession's growing adoption and reliance on technology. Innovation has become one of the buzziest priorities in law practice. As our world and clients evolve, there are increasing demands on our industry to lead.

Law is benefiting from contributions from forward-thinking and creative practitioners, administrators, firms, legal service providers, software developers and other stakeholders who are bringing their talents to bear to our marketplace of ideas and services. It's exciting; lawyers and innovative legal professionals are keenly positioned to help our industry change alongside the world and reap the benefits.

Our collective challenge is identifying and seeding those technologies that will increase access to business and justice. As individuals, we must adapt to better tools and differentiate. Just as new technologies are changing every aspect of our daily lives, the tools we use will transform how lawyers and legal professionals work as daily advocates, problem solvers and trusted advisers.

This article discusses five trends that will impact our profession this year—and beyond. Today's law tech includes, but (of course) is not limited to, data-driven analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain platforms, automated workflows and collaboration tools.

  • Analytics

The prevalence of our digital companions provides for the accumulation and analysis of data. Legal professionals intensely use computers, smartphones, tablets and other devices that are becoming more tuned to how we work and how we can be more efficient. My smartphone informs me how much screen time I've spent and is opining as to how I can increase my general well-being. From solo practitioners to Big Law and our courts, law-minded data analytics will be one of the major trends of 2020 to help increase human productivity alongside our digital friends.

  • Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence and machine-learning platforms are becoming more prevalent in all legal practice areas. In the litigation context, AI's reach is becoming more standardized in electronic discovery—such as technology-assisted document review or TAR—and legal research. At Berger Singerman, we have invested in our in-house electronic discovery capabilities and have a team of dedicated e-discovery attorneys and staff. We also provide our attorneys with an AI legal research platform that has yielded significant time and cost savings. Transactional work is also gaining from the growing adoption of tech-driven due diligence, contracting and deal-making. AI-based software platforms will continue to become more commonplace and prevalent in our market in 2020.

  • Blockchain

Blockchain and smart contracts stand as probably the major future disruptor for global commerce and our legal profession. In 2020, increasing regulatory and sovereign attention will be dedicated to blockchain and its crypto cousins. Beyond this year, blockchain's promise as a distributed, automatic and transparent ledger for transactions is enormous—affecting how deals get done and disputes may be reconciled from inception to the courthouse steps. Becoming better versed in understanding blockchain and its potentials should be one of your New Year's resolutions—it is a matter of time before blockchain impacts all industries. This author is particularly interested in blockchain-powered legal regimes, such as how the country of Sweden has been testing using blockchain technology for property sales over the last few years.

  • Automated Workflows

Systematized workflows and project management are being facilitated by technology platforms that increase predictability for lawyers and legal practitioners to get the job done. Lawyers and their teams stand to save time and become more efficient through software operations that allow us to focus on the sort of human critical thinking and information analysis that a machine will never be able to perform.

  • Collaboration Tools

The ubiquity of electronic communication will continue to evolve in 2020 just as it has every year since the introduction of the internet. It's a safe bet that all legal professionals will need to learn and adapt to a new software platform for communication and project action just as they've become comfortable with the last. For 2020, the hot names for collaboration software include Slack and Microsoft Teams. We will also be hearing more and more about the global Internet of Things (IoT) and increased product offerings designed for the legal profession.

Tomorrow's tools will be more sophisticated iterations of tools we use now at the intersection of law and tech. The good news is that each iteration should be easier to use with greater potential. For 2020, legal technology offerings will certainly be more accessible to all legal practitioners and their teams, regardless of composition.

Alejandro Miyar, a member of Berger Singerman's dispute resolution team based in Miami, serves as a trusted adviser to his clients by providing practical, responsive and effective legal counsel. He focuses his practice on complex civil litigation in federal and state court.