{"id":997,"date":"2019-09-11T18:37:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T16:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/legal-tech-nerd.de\/2019\/09\/11\/software-platforms-in-the-legal-market\/"},"modified":"2019-09-11T18:39:59","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T16:39:59","slug":"software-platforms-in-the-legal-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legal-tech-nerd.de\/en\/2019\/09\/11\/software-platforms-in-the-legal-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Software platforms in the legal market"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Ever since Legal Tech ” was born to the world “, more and more providers of related programs advertise with the product description to represent an innovative “platform solution”.<\/p>\n

But what does “platform” mean in concrete terms and why is it so important as a software provider to provide such a solution?<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Term definition<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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“What is a “platform” in the context of digitization?
\nFirst, a difference should be made between the context in which the term “platform” is used.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Platforms in the B2C market<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In B2C (Business-to-Consumer) business, the term “platform” is generally used to describe a central ” one-stop shop” on the Internet where services of a specific category are bundled and offered.<\/p>\n

The best known examples outside the legal market are Amazon (as the “sales platform”) or comparison portals such as Check24.de.<\/p>\n

A number of such “platforms” have also been created for legal (advisory) services, e.g. flightright.de<\/a> for handling compensation payments in the event of delays in flight traffic or anwalt.de<\/a> and advocado.de<\/a> for mediating lawyers via the web. Most recently, Lexfox<\/a> drew attention to its investment in the mid-million range in order to establish a platform for legal advice in labor law, tenancy law and general consumer law.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Platforms in the B2B market<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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For providers of software solutions in the B2B (Business-to-Business) segment, i.e. with the target customers being law firms and legal departments of companies, the term “platform” means something different.<\/p>\n

In this area, the term is strongly technologically coined and is intended to express that, when using a platform application, either different solutions from one provider work together perfectly<\/strong> and that this software was designed and developed to communicate with programs from other manufacturers via standardized interfaces.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article focuses on platforms in the Business-to-Business market<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Relevance of platform technologies in the context of the digitization of law firms and legal departments<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Is it important at all whether a LegalTech solution can be used as a platform for other applications, or whether a program is “platform-compatible”, i.e. can work with platform offerings from third parties?<\/p>\n

Short answer: Absolutely yes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Explanation \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Not so long ago (…don’t worry that there will be no history of the Brothers Grimm) almost all software solutions for legal advice were developed as “monolithic blocks”<\/strong>, i.e. the user had to live with the functionalities which had been implemented by the manufacturer of the program. If something was missing, then users were dependent on the ” mercy ” of the provider to (hopefully) integrate the desired features in a later version.<\/p>\n

Even worse than the dependency on the function implementation, however, was the fact that due to the lack of standard interfaces<\/strong>, it was practically impossible to combine different programs. As a result, each application had its own “solution “, and in particular used its own data storage, keyword: “data silos<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

This caused, for example, that after creating a new mandate in the case management system of a law firm, the case data, processors and access rights had to be entered manually once more in the document management system (DMS) of another provider, since both solutions did not communicate with each other or did not communicate sufficiently with each other.
\nEvery change to the project data and\/or participants also had to be tracked manually in both systems.<\/p>\n

This not inconsiderable additional effort was so far mostly just justifiable, since the number of programs in use in the individual law firms or legal departments was “manageable” (mostly “only” file management programs and DMS).
\nSince in the future, however, different software tools with “pointed”, i.e. very special areas of use, will be used more and more frequently in the context of digitization, the additional effort for multiple data storage will become uneconomical and thus unacceptable.<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"platform check\"<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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As can often be heard and read at relevant conferences and in articles on the subject of ” digitizing the legal market ” on the web, the use of new technologies in legal advice requires a careful analysis of internal work processes<\/strong>, otherwise a “bad analogue work process becomes a bad digitized work process<\/em>“.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Identifying the status quo<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In addition to these analyses on an organizational level, I believe that the existing IT infrastructure and software landscape should also be examined with regard to “platform suitability”<\/strong> as part of the preparatory measures and, if necessary, possible solutions to any deficits discovered should be sought.<\/p>\n

A possible (very rough) checklist<\/strong> for determining suitability should include the following questions in particular:<\/p>\n