You can deposit a cheque from your phone, review your medical file online, and file your taxes in minutes. But if you need a lawyer? You're likely dealing with paper forms, hourly billing, and processes that haven't changed in decades.

In 2016, James J. Sandman, then President of the U.S. Legal Services Corporation, identified ten barriers keeping technology out of the legal profession. Nearly ten years later, every one of them still applies here in Canada. Here's what's holding the industry back — and why, in most instances, things are not about to change.

The Barriers

• Self-regulation and ethical rules. In every province, law societies set the rules for who can practise law and how. That system tends to protect existing ways of doing things rather than encourage innovative ones. Lawyers worry that using new technology might run afoul of professional conduct rules around confidentiality, competence, or supervision. When the rules aren't clear, the safe choice is to do nothing.
• A deeply conservative professional culture. Law is built on precedent — doing things the way they've been done before. That mindset is valuable in a courtroom, but it makes firms resistant to changing their own operations.
• Too many jurisdictions, too many rules. Canada has ten provinces and three territories, each with its own registry, courts, regulations, and law society. A technology solution built for Alberta may not work in Ontario without major changes. Worse, most registries operate in silos and require different types of connections with modern software, when available at all. The web interface of many of these registries is older than the lawyers interacting with them.
• Not enough money flowing into innovation. Compared to healthcare or financial services, legal technology attracts a fraction of the investment capital needed to build and scale new tools. Worse, the legal structure of most law firms is much more conducive to distributing the annual income of the firm to partners than to investing in the firm. Lawyers simply don't invest in their business.
• Hourly billing punishes efficiency. When lawyers charge by the hour, a tool that cuts a ten-hour job down to two means the firm earns less. The financial incentive runs in the wrong direction. Where accountants have relied on fixed fee arrangements for years, only a minority of lawyers effectively propose fixed fees.
• Law school doesn't teach technology. Most Canadian law graduates have never used modern legal technology tools. Worse, students are not trained and encouraged to think that they can build processes and their own innovations to improve their work. Then, they enter a profession scared of the word 'process' and unfamiliar with what's possible.
• No common standards or systems. Courts, law firms, and government agencies often use incompatible technology to complete several tasks. Without shared standards, even filing a document electronically can vary wildly from one jurisdiction to the next.

Is It Finally Changing?

Despite these barriers, is the tide turning? The short answer is 'not really'.

Several client surveys show clients expect their law firms to operate with the same digital fluency they experience in every other aspect of their lives.

As such, they want seamless online-first interactions rather than being limited to phone calls and in-person meetings. Younger clients want information and the ability to do more self-service options for simple tasks. Clients want real-time status updates on their matters without having to chase their lawyer for information; transparency in billing and the ability to understand what they're paying for; flexible service delivery models that blend remote and in-person touchpoints based on the stage of their matter, not the firm's convenience.

More importantly, clients want their lawyers to leverage technology to work more efficiently, translating those efficiencies into better value and faster turnaround times. Ultimately, clients want to feel that their law firm is forward-thinking and invested in continuous improvement.

Only a minority of forward-thinking firms are truly building around this model, which unfortunately explains why clients are increasingly resorting to non-legal service providers to get those services. This ultimately puts everyone at risk when legal services are effectively provided by non-trained and unlicensed service providers, causing many expensive problems down the road.

So why can't lawyers think of, design and build more of these tools for their clients? Why can't lawyers lead legal innovation?

Why It Matters to You

If you're a business owner or anyone who has ever felt that legal services were too slow, too expensive, or too hard to understand, these changes are being built for you. Technology won't replace the judgment of an experienced, qualified lawyer, but it can make legal help faster, more transparent, and more affordable. It helps lawyers focus on the part of the problem that can't be automated or support their advice. The firms that embrace that future are the ones worth hiring.