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African Startups Modernizing The Legal Profession Through Tech

African Startups Modernizing The Legal Profession Through Tech

The legal profession is one of the oldest in the world, but its practices have remained very much set in the past.

Technology has not pervaded legal services in the way it has other industries, especially in Africa, where there remain huge issues with access to and affordability of legal services. With many Africans struggling to access lawyers or even know their basic rights, something has to change.

There are a small number of African companies – backed by international organisations – that are looking to propel that change with the use of technology. Kyle Torrington is co-founder of South African startup Legal Legends, and says it is pivotal that the industry modernizes.

“It is extremely important for the legal profession to be brought into the 21st century. The fact of the matter is, predominantly, legal services have only been available to the very rich or the very poor with the significant majority being left without quality legal services,” he said.

Legal Legends aims to address this access issue with its e-commerce platform upon which startups and small businesses are able to purchase quality legal services at fixed, up-front prices as easily as purchasing clothes or shoes online.

“Most of these services are also available by way of interest-free monthly instalments in order to ensure that the services are both accessible and affordable to those startups which are just starting out,” Torrington said.

“Our aim is to provide quality legal services in an accessible and efficient manner, that only the internet can provide, rendered to the 90 percent of small businesses out there which have traditionally not been able to afford such quality legal services.”

Tech innovation for the legal profession

Legal Legends, which since February of last year has assisted approximately 450 startups, was last year selected as one of the winners of the pan-African Innovating Justice Challenge run by the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law, gaining grant funding.

The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law is one of the only organizations backing legal-tech startups in Africa, with the organization’s businesses accelerator agent Connor Sattely saying startups and entrepreneurs had a huge part to play in the modernization of legal systems.

“Startups, entrepreneurs, and even individual innovators within justice systems can provide a much-needed boost to this process by developing new ideas, platforms, tools, campaigns, or apps that address key pain points in justice systems,” he said.

“We have found entrepreneurs around the world, both within and outside justice systems, that are creating innovative new ways to help people access justice – such as a journalist training paralegals in rural South Africa to build public support for cases to be resolved, or a web platform in Dubai helping people across the Middle East access legal information and affordable legal representation.”

Though Sattely says funding and support for legal-tech startups is on the rise globally, Torrington says he does not know of any such company that has secured outside equity investment, which obviously poses a challenge to the scalability of this new industry.

Yet he believes lawyers and other legal service practitioners need to turn to tech to reach wider audiences and obtain more clients.

“As internet access becomes ubiquitous, those in rural areas, provided that they have a mobile phone with access to the internet, will finally have access to quality legal services. This will increase the client base for both the legal service provider, and obviously increase access to justice,” he said.

Samuel Olabamiji is co-founder of Nigerian legal-tech startup LawStrive, which offers a variety of services around educating users in legal issues and offering access to advice and lawyers.

The startup is a semi-finalist in this year’s Innovating Justice Challenge, and Olabamiji agrees with Torrington that demand is increasing.

“The advent of social media, increasing changes in human needs and day-to-day business operations has made overall demand for legal services grow, though some legal areas are experiencing faster growth than others,” he said.

“Tech is the future of the legal industry, even though the transition seems faster in some parts of the world than others. The usage of tech is also bringing more convenience and lesser time to users’ access to legal services.”

Olabamiji said the industry has proven it is willing to adapt, with lawyers flocking to services such as LawStrive and Legal Legends. Now there is a need for a support ecosystem to develop around such companies, in the way the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law is trying to encourage, in order to spur further growth and access.

Tom Jackson is the co-founder of tech news and research platform Disrupt Africa and a journalist covering innovation on the continent from the Cape to Cairo.