Tara Faqir, left, and Leah Del Persio are co-founders of Fiduciary, a new legal technology firm that recently launched a platform that automates asset management. (Featured photo)
While the Covid-19 pandemic has forced law firms to develop new ways to conduct business realistically, it has also helped firms reduce the time it takes to complete some tasks — and help them scale.
“COVID was a big accelerator,” said Zach Posner, co-founder and managing director of the Legal Tech Fund, a venture capital firm with US headquarters in Seattle. “Historically, you mainly had lawyers leaving their offices every day, which meant a lot of filing and processes were done using archaic methods like pen and paper. When Covid hit and everyone started working remotely, that was like a wake-up call, it was time for law firms to go into the cloud.”
Innovative software is making its way into law offices nationwide.
Trust, a new legal technology firm, recently launched a platform that automates asset management. According to the New York-based company, Trust’s technology means that a task that previously took 570 hours of administrative work will now take only a fraction of that time.
“Now we have less than 25 hours, and we want to continue to reduce that even more,” said Tara Fakir, co-founder and COO of Trust. What it means for the lawyer is that they can work on (more) sophisticated legal matters rather than having themselves or their team work on a number of non-legal, often unpaid, asset management tasks. There are approximately 120 tasks associated with each management, regardless of the size of the property.
Typically, determining a decedent’s assets and liabilities requires family members to wait until bank statements and bills arrive in the mail, Faquir said.
Now, with Testate’s new technology, Faquir said, “by entering a few key correct details and uploading supporting documents, trustees and estate owners can access information about the deceased’s vital assets and liabilities with the click of a button.”
The company’s new asset management platform reduces the potential for error, said Leah Del Percio, president, CEO and founder of the trust.
The new platform already has about 100 law firms and wealth management firms as active users, according to Del Percio, a former estate attorney at DLA Piper.
The trustee did not receive financial support from the Legal Tech Fund, according to the fund’s website.
Posner said his company has invested in equipment that transcribes videos and automates the process of closing links. He said the technologies are intended not only to help lawyers and law firms, but also to help clients.
“We think it benefits everybody,” Posner said. “To a large extent, if technology is deployed properly, it will increase access to legal services for everyone.”
The technologies being adopted by law firms are not new innovations, they are new to the legal world, Posner said.
“I think you’re seeing artificial intelligence being applied in the legal field. “I don’t think new technologies are necessarily being invented around this. I think it’s the use of technology in space.
