Legal departments in U.K. tech companies are looking to focus on more high-value work, and by extension, become a revenue-driver for their organization. But many aren't leaning on legal technology to achieve their goal, according to the 2020 Tech GC Report, a survey of 30 senior attorneys in "high growth" U.K. technology companies, conducted by contract collaboration platform Juro and law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.

Half of all survey respondents said their biggest priority for the year ahead is "adding value to the business," while around one-third also cited improving legal processes. When asked how they intend to add value, around two-thirds pointed to enabling self-service legal processes and supporting the organization's commercial strategy.

However, around two-thirds cited limited budgets and resources, and being buried in low-level legal work, as the biggest challenges to adding value. Still, most have yet to turn to technology to automate all of their low-level work. Slightly over half, for instance, noted that the largest pain point in managing their contract processes were the manual processes they had in place.

To be sure, limited budgets is likely to inhibit how much technology and automation these legal departments can bring in-house. But many are not eyeing tech solutions in the first place. Only less than 40%, for instance, were looking for tech platforms that enable self-service legal processes.

"Technology helps, but often we see the priority being [first] people, followed by process, followed by technology," said Richard Mabey, co-founder and CEO at Juro.

Mabey added that legal departments are asking themselves more holistic questions beyond just how they can deploy legal technology. For instance, "Have you built processes that enable you to scale the value that is being delivered, and do you have the technology that facilitates and enables the implementation? Of those, you can do one and two—people and processes—without technology."

As an example, he noted that something as simple as creating a shared email address can be a way to share requests among the legal department without implementing any new software.

But not updating technology is also holding back these legal departments' broader evolution, especially when it comes to contract processes. "There is still a huge reliance on Microsoft Word as the primary current through which to assemble and negotiate documents. And the issue with Microsoft Word is that it's not particularly collaborative in the way which it works," Mabey said.

When they are bringing in new technology, survey respondents noted they want platforms that can seamlessly hit the ground running. The survey found that around 80% look for ease of adoption in a new technology, while around 60% prioritize system integration.

However, Mabey noted legal technology isn't as flexible and easily adopted as general tech products. The problem, he explained, is that while many legal tech tools are "being kind of designed by lawyers for lawyers, the recipients and the users of a lot of legal software are people who aren't lawyers." In fact, many departments besides legal, such as sales and HR, for instance, may regularly use legal tech platforms, including contracting solutions, he noted.