No legaltech provider is an island, integration is paramount

As I look forward to ILTACON 2023 I always look back and see what the trends of the previous events were. A big theme at ILTACON 2022 was one of integration & interoperability. Workflows and the tools that support them should not remain siloed in point solutions and where possible be integrated into the wider tech stack to provide more value and enable the sharing of data and outcomes.  

There are many benefits to integrating your tech stack together, not least removing the need to manually re-key work, streamlining workflows and reducing context switching for the end users who navigate from one technology to another. 

There is a lot of evidence to show that vendors of all sizes are delivering against the integration requirement. Recognising the importance of building a tool with interoperability in mind and the ability to deliver integrations quickly for your clients is a must. You need to provide the mechanism and solutions that allow you to work nicely with your clients’ other technology providers and partners and allow them to add value across the top of your technology.  

Integrations or ‘Bricolage’  

I recall in 2017 or 2018 Ryan McClead of Sente Advisors (before Sente Advisors was but a glint in his eye) coining the phrase ‘bricolage’, which effectively was describing the ability to bring different technologies together to deliver a more seamless process or workflow. In his use case back then it was a combination of three different technologies to complete a document review process. It’s a classic example of how often different systems are needed to deliver an optimised legal workflow. 

Integrations today play a pivotal role in empowering legal professionals to solve the problem at hand, leveraging the full potential of their tools and achieve their desired outcomes. As software vendors we have to provide the services, the end points and the framework for our clients to integrate with different tools without the need for development as much as possible. 

The importance of data.  

We’ve seen a lot of focus on data since the start of the year, and in particular the need for structured data. The rise of the LLM conversation and access to GPT has forced many to think about the data needs for even the simplest of legal workflows. From standardising the data you capture using an intake form, to how you design and interact with document automation systems, to thinking about what data needs to persist across you tech stack; data is at the heart of it. We’re obsessed by structured data here at Autologyx and enjoy discussions with our clients and prospects about how to design best in class applications and tools with data at the heart of your integrated solution. 

Security 

At Autologyx we understand that sensitive client data and confidential information are at the epicentre of every use case, and as such the importance of security in integrations cannot be overlooked. Integrating different software tools inevitably involves sharing data between applications, and any weak link in the integration chain could expose law firms and legal departments to potential cybersecurity risks. By implementing industry-standard encryption protocols at the heart of your integration framework, busy professionals can confidently adopt cutting-edge technology while upholding their commitment to client confidentiality and data protection. 

Integrations at scale allow orchestration 

Often we see integrations being fairly simple in nature. Usually a manual right click here to move something there. We have to think about things differently to enable frictionless workflow automation at scale. Our workflow engine is always live, just waiting for the next trigger in a sequence to enact the next phase of a project or provide the next deliverable.  

Playing nicely with other technologies in the context of repeatable workflows is a key consideration of ours, it allows our clients to not just integrate a single workflow but build a whole playbook and orchestrate end to end workflows. 

In summary, integrations and interoperability are not going away. How we connect to services, how we authenticate, how we enable innovation teams to deliver integrations are all part of the story. Integrations will become even more important to customers of all sizes and we’re focused on delivering the right tools to enable our customers to orchestrate whole playbooks, not just single workflows.