State of the art of French legaltech

The legaltech market is growing every year. These technologies at the service of the law help lawyers, bailiffs, jurists and companies on a daily basis.

But what is a Legaltech? What are the services offered by these innovative companies? How has the market evolved? Who are the actors of the Legaltech in France? Hyperlex, a legaltech specialised in contract analysis for companies, deciphers this subject for you.

SUMMARY

Definition of legaltech

The word Legaltech comes from the English word Legal Technology and means in French: technologie juridique. These innovative companies came straight from the United States and the United Kingdom in 2008 with companies such as RocketLawyer and Legalzoom, the two best known legaltechs in the world.

Legaltechs are companies that offer digital services related to the law. For example: the creation of legal documents, the connection between legal actors and individuals or companies, the management of contracts or the creation of companies.

Legaltech is aimed at legal professionals such as lawyers, notaries and bailiffs, but also at companies and individuals. They disrupt traditional practices by taking advantage of technology. For example, many legaltechs use artificial intelligence (AI) to automate certain time-consuming tasks, such as contract management. AI allows to recognise, according to the context, key information such as: contract clauses as well as durations, amounts, dates.

Evolution of legaltech

Wolters Kluwer and Maddyness aim to map French legaltech and the evolution of the sector with the annual barometer of French legaltechs.

It should be noted that the barometer is established thanks to the legaltechs who wished to answer and therefore, the results are not always 100% representative of the sector. However, year after year, the Wolters Kluwer and Maddyness barometer gives an excellent overview of its evolution.

The following is a summary of the findings of the panoramas.

Source: 2020 panorama of French LegalTechs, Wolters Kluwer and Maddyness

Evolution of the amounts raised by French legaltech from 2017 to today:

    •  12.8 million in 2017.
    • 24.6 million in 2018.
    • 52.6 million 52.6 million 61.1 million, if we add the fundraising of LegalPlace and Yousign, which did not respond to the barometer but raised 6 million and 3.5 million respectively).
    • 17.8 million in 2020.

      5 conclusions from the panorama of French LegalTechs in 2020

        • If the health crisis had a negative impact on the turnover of legaltechs as 59.3% declared it, a majority of the actors (50.6%) recognizes that 2020 had a positive effect on the proposed services. In particular, legaltechs have released new functionalities and created specific services for crisis management. 
        • 13.6% of legaltechs have applied for financialassistance. 
        • 20.5% of French legaltechs want to export their solution to Europe in the coming months or years. 
        • French legaltechs are, on the whole, small structures, with 51% of them employing between 11 and 50 people. 
        • 42.2% of French legaltechs offer business process digitalisation services.

          Does this mean that the balance sheet for 2020 is negative? Not at all. Despite the crisis, the legaltech sector retains its potential, as we can see with Data Legal Drive's €2 million fundraising for its RGPD compliance software in 2021. Moreover, the year of the crisis has strongly accelerated the digitalization of companies and the need to use legaltech on a daily basis!

          Legaltech typologies

          What are the different types of legaltech in France?

          Digitalization of business processes
          Data protection and management
          Protection of intangible assets
          Analytical search engine
          Help in the process
          Data mining

          Putting people in touch with each other
          Creation and management of companies
          Legal watch
          Mediation and arbitration platform
          Creation of acts
          Defense of individuals' rights

          Legaltech players in France

          Here are 20 legaltech players in France.

          Blockchain

          Legal information

          Contact with lawyers

          Legal formalities

          Governance

          Digitalisation of business processes

          Predictive justice

          Contract Management

          Electronic signature

          Law for individuals

          Help with procedures

          Mediation

          The Legaltech Village

          When we talk about legaltech, it is impossible not to mention village-justice.comthe information website designed by the French legal community. The site offers numerous articles on the evolution of the market, academic training or studies published regularly on the subject.

          Each year, the Legaltech village organizes the meeting place for the transformation of law. This French LegalTech exhibition is held over two days and is aimed at LegalTech and innovation players, as well as legal professionals and companies.