Beyond the Bench: Promise of Indian Legal Tech Startups
- With 650+ startups, India ranks 2nd in terms of the number of legal tech startups in the world. The USA ranks 1st with over 2500 startups.
- The legal services market size in India is only USD 1.3 billion – less than 1 percent of the USD 437 billion USA market.
- Legal tech in India mainly encapsulates four product categories – Legal Service Delivery, Process Efficiency, Access to Legal Recourse and Do-it-Yourself (DIY) tools – that service three customer segments – citizen, legal service providers and judiciary.
- While Artificial Intelligence is believed to hold promise for many legal tech models, the vernacular nature of documentation currently poses a challenge.
- The opening up of a large domestic market to tech interventions, increasing investments and acquisitions of startups, and validation of new technology led models like Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) are making the sector buoyant.
- The next wave of legal tech startup growth could potentially come from ODR, Succession Management, Litigation Finance, Court Management, Due Diligence Management and Legal Transcription and Translation.