F1 teams work constantly on the variables that deliver success, often making decisions and adjustments in real-time during races. The Chief Technology Officer of the enterprise content management platform NetDocuments says firms should take a similar approach to legal tech.

What does a Formula One team have in common with legal tech? At first glance they might seem worlds apart but, in many ways, legal tech should operate like an F1 car: fast, secure and built around the user.

For example, a document management system must deliver a seamless user experience to keep legal workflows moving and reduce friction. And, like an F1 team, legal teams need access to technology that is agile, responsive and driven by real-time data.

But legacy legal tech tools are often reactive and siloed, unable to support the scale or speed required for modern legal work. Let’s dive into what legal firms can learn from F1 teams about how to win the technology race.

Harnessing data in real time

In F1, real-time data guides team strategy lap-by-lap. Every car generates hundreds of terabytes of data every race, from the driver’s blood pressure to air humidity and tyre vibrations.

This streams into the team’s systems in real time, allowing them to give drivers instant updates about the race, the conditions, and how to improve their race performance. This is all for one purpose: to win the race by shaving milliseconds off the driver’s time.

In F1, real-time data guides team strategy lap-by-lap. Every car generates hundreds of terabytes of data every race, from the driver’s blood pressure to air humidity and tyre vibrations.

In contrast, most traditional legal tech systems are fairly static and passive – they are used for simple content creation and management, and little else.

But AI promises to change this. If firms and legal teams can harness the power of AI, for instance as part of their document management systems, they can harness data in real time to surface insights, automate tasks and streamline decision-making in the moment.

This enables speed, flexibility and intuitive user experiences. Use cases could include:

• Intelligent search that allows users to ask a question to hundreds of files and get instant, accurate answers, with AI remembering past questions and other pieces of context

• AI-powered summarisation to generate detailed, context-aware summaries of legal documents tailored to document type.

• Issues list generators that automatically compile key issues from contracts or case files for focused review.

AI can turn everyday document management tasks into opportunities for efficiency and insight by harnessing the huge amounts of data and knowledge within an organisation.

Of course, as with an F1 car, AI should not be used solely as an assistant. It must be woven into everything a system does and be part of the feedback loop that helps teams continuously improve.

Constant improvement

F1 teams dedicate enormous resources to R&D: not just to build faster cars but to explore marginal gains that shave off those precious milliseconds. This continuous investment in innovation is what keeps them ahead. Cars are tweaked from race to race, and they even respond to real-time data during races to make minor adjustments at each pitstop. Every cycle, the team is trying to make things better.

The legal sector needs to have a similar mindset. Legal technology is evolving so rapidly that taking months or years to update their software is no longer a viable option for firms. To stay ahead, they should be updating their technology as frequently as possible, and that means having an F1-like mindset that technology can always be improving.

Legal technology is evolving so rapidly that taking months or years to update their software is no longer a viable option for firms.

SaaS and cloud-based systems are fast becoming the new normal in the legal sector. By running automatic updates regularly, legal teams can be certain they are always using the latest release. Also, with services being delivered directly from the cloud, firms can avoid costly and time-consuming upgrades.

The legal sector is moving away from an era where major but infrequent updates to tech are sufficient. Being intentional with frequent, incremental updates is now the true path to staying ahead.

Taking the chequered flag

Time is a valuable resource, and saving even a few minutes can have a big impact on client service. Like an F1 team, legal professionals need technology that delivers speed, precision and continuous improvement.

By embracing AI, real-time data and flexible cloud-based systems, law firms and in-house legal teams can stay ahead of the pack and focus on what matters most: delivering excellent legal services.

Visit

• NetDocuments

• Connect with John Motz via LinkedIn