While 2020 showed that the best-laid plans can be quickly thrown for a loop, it also proved that there is an adaptability in the legal industry that few believed really existed. We don't want to jinx 2021, but we're starting to feel like it's "safe" to start making plans again, taking the lessons learned and changes made in 2020 and applying them to strategic efforts. To get a sense of where the legal industry is focused for 2021, we took some time to talk to professionals in various roles to hear what their strategic plans include for this year. We learned of three major initiatives that organizations across the legal industry will focus on. Long known as the department of "no's" focused on mitigating risks, legal teams will have the chance to re-position themselves as facilitators of commerce.

Traditional law has paved a trail of stagnation, but now that AI and ALSPs have broken into the industry, suddenly nothing is certain. My research on the NewLaw industry unraveled the two biggest sectors of Alternative Legal Service Providers; LPOs and Alternative Staffing Providers. Together, the two sectors cater perfectly to the legal market; one arm focuses on completing menial legal labour with cost effective outsourcing, and the other arm focuses on insourcing experienced legal talent for projects that necessitate expertise in a certain area. Soon though, these two arms will become one fully functioning limb, homogenizing the industry to achieve versatility and supersede the benefits of turning to a traditional law firm. It seems masochistic to abide by TradLaw standards when law firms and in-house counsels finally have the option to automate tasks or outsource/insource various legal work. We are seeing the tide of the legal-sphere turn, and I've made certain predictions as to who will stay afloat, and who won't.

In the future, self-driving cars may become the norm on roads rather than the subject of promising reports from the tech industry's leading companies. What first seemed impossible has now progressed into the realm of believability. A similar evolution is happening in the legal industry and, while the rate of change may seem slower in law than in tech, the legal industry isn't far behind. Not long ago, law firms were the go-to providers of legal advice. Today, alternative legal service providers (ALSPs) like Deloitte are competing for the same clients as law firms--and winning.

Artificial Lawyer recently caught up with Adam Nguyen (pictured above), co-founder and COO of US legal AI company eBrevia, which in March announced that it had been chosen by Thomson Reuters (TR) to provide AI-driven document review for the global company's managed legal services clients. We discussed what the landmark deal means, how AI will be increasingly used in the legal world and where the company is heading. How significant is this both for TR and for eBrevia? This is an exciting time for TR and eBrevia. TR had carefully evaluated a number of AI-powered contract review softwares and selected eBrevia because we produced the most accurate results, not to mention the ease of tailoring eBrevia to specific industry needs.