20 years in Law: how technology changed legal practice

Over the past two decades technology has fundamentally transformed legal practice. In 2026, lawyers are increasingly being assisted by Artificial Intelligence (AI), court proceedings often take place in hybrid formats, with some hearings conducted entirely online. Many legal professionals are now able to work remotely from home, a very radical departure from where we were 20 years ago. 

Being a lawyer in 2006

Change started in the early 2000s, when law firms began moving away from paper files and dictation to word processing, email and case management systems. Ironic, considering that in 1990 Professor Richard Susskind was accused of ‘bringing the profession into disrepute’ when he suggested that email would become the main form of communication!^[1]

But 2006 marked a significant turning point in legal practice. On 9 August 2006, Google CEO: Eric Schmidt is said to have first used the term ‘cloud computing’ in its modern sense at a conference. Schmidt said:

“I don’t think people have really understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing—they should be in a “cloud” somewhere”^[2]. 

The development of cloud-based technologies would prove highly significant for the legal sector. 

As internet infrastructure improved throughout the 2010s, with faster download speeds and greater connectivity, larger law firms increasingly adopted e-discovery tools to support document review and litigation. At the same time, case management systems incorporating time recording, billing, and document management functions became standard across much of the profession^[3].

In 2016, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) launched one of the most ambitious programmes of reform, with a plan to radically transform the courts and tribunals system in England and Wales. The premise was to re-think how justice could be delivered in a digital age to make it simpler, more efficient and accessible for court users. The programme ended in 2025 and brought about important changes to court processes^[4]. Remote hearings are now commonplace, meaning greater flexibility and accessibility for court users. This was critical to enabling courts to keep functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. We now have digitisation of court bundles, online case management and fourteen new court digital services, including online small civil money claims and online divorce proceedings. Since April 2019, 4.1 million cases have been submitted digitally^[5].
In the next twenty years, we should expect improvements in remote technologies, which should improve the experience of virtual hearings and will facilitate a greater shift towards online courts.

Alongside this increase in the use of technology within the courts and an increase in online court hearing, there has been a programme of court estate reform. The programme, which started in 2010, aimed to centralise courts and between 2010 to 2019, 295 court facilities were closed^[6]. There have been concerns raised about the closure of physical courts on both open justice and access to justice particularly for rural communities, people dependent on public transport and people who are digitally excluded

Being a lawyer in 2026

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated important changes in working practices across the legal sector^[7]. Remote and hybrid working has become normalised, with shifts towards online meetings, flexible working arrangements, and geographically dispersed teams. More recently, the emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) has been one of the most significant developments affecting legal practice. While AI tools were already being used within law firms before the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, GenAI is now transforming the delivery of legal services in new and far-reaching ways^[8].

The growth of AI has attracted substantial venture capital investment into the legal sector^[9], contributing to the rapid expansion of legal tech companies and the emergence of platforms such as Harvey and Spellbook. Large law firms are increasingly adopting AI-driven technologies to enhance productivity, improve client service, and maximise profitability. With the development of agentic AI systems and predictive analytics, AI is evolving beyond a tool that supports due diligence, legal research, and document drafting; it is increasingly capable of undertaking more complex and autonomous tasks.

Technological change has also created new professional roles within law firms, including legal engineers, legal data analysts, and legal technologists^[10]. However, it is important to recognise that the legal sector is far from homogeneous. Technology adoption remains uneven, and much of the discussion surrounding AI has focused on large commercial firms. Smaller and regional practices often lack the financial resources, technical expertise, and organisational capacity required to take advantage of AI technologies. Consequently, the benefits of legal innovation are not yet being experienced equally across the profession, that does bring risk to some parts of the legal profession, but there also opportunities for the development of new types of legal services.  

Where next?

There is no doubt that technology has fundamentally reshaped the delivery of legal services and legal practice over the past twenty years. The past two decades has seen the digital transformation of the legal sector. It is hard to imagine what the next 20 years might look like, but there is no doubt that AI is going to reshape the role of lawyers and the administration of justice in the future.   

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