From Consolidation to Innovation: 2025 year in review
For the legal tech and broader tech industries, 2025 was a year of consolidation and AI-fueled investment. The pace of merger activity accelerated as the year progressed, with companies trying to strengthen their position in an increasingly competitive market. The volume of funding rounds and acquisitions overshadowed nearly every other announcement as venture capital and private equity firms poured record levels of money into legal tech.
Meanwhile, both established and start-up legal tech providers were hard at work, innovating and incorporating AI into their products at a rapid clip. Despite steady releases of feature updates, the improvements paled in comparison to the news of the latest multi-million-dollar valuations and seed rounds.
Legal software is the backbone of law firm operations, ensuring that work gets done, bills are paid and clients are happy. Choosing it is never easy, especially with all the additions of new AI products and features. That’s why my goal in writing these monthly articles has always been to provide legal professionals with an overview of available options and roadmaps for software adoption.
This year was no exception, and as I’ve done for the last eight years, I covered many different categories of legal tech products and even a few legal tech conferences as well. AI was often front and center, and applicable updates or new tools were mentioned in the articles, ensuring that, regardless of your focus, this column provided guidance on the latest software innovations for law firms.
January: How AI-Powered Software Helps Bridge Access to Justice
AI-powered tools are playing an increasingly significant role in addressing the access-to-justice problem. From AI assistants designed for legal aid lawyers and public defenders to consumer-facing platforms and court chatbots that simplify complex legal processes, software providers are exploring practical ways to help people navigate the legal system more easily. These offerings aren’t without challenges, including data security concerns and accuracy issues. Even so, the continued development of AI tools specifically designed to increase access to representation for underserved communities suggests meaningful progress toward bridging the justice gap.
February: The AI-Powered Evolution of eDiscovery Software
E-discovery tools are evolving as companies integrate generative AI into nearly every stage of the discovery process. After years of relatively modest updates, e-discovery is now experiencing a surge of innovation, with AI features that streamline document review, automate categorization, surface key information and even support natural language search. These tools promise faster and more efficient handling of electronically stored information, providing legal teams with better ways to manage large data sets and reduce the burden of manual review. With many established vendors introducing new AI capabilities, this category is once again driving significant innovation in litigation technology.
March: The 8am 2025 Legal Industry Shows How Firms Use AI, Financial and Remote Work Tech
The 2025 Legal Industry Report from 8am showed growth in generative AI adoption, especially among immigration, personal injury and civil litigation firms, while other practitioners continued to experiment cautiously. The report also outlined how financial management tools, legal-specific accounting software and online payment systems save firms hours each week, improving profitability. Remote and hybrid work data revealed that the majority of legal professionals now rely on cloud-based tools, with notable differences in preferences across various practice areas. Overall, the report offered data-backed insights into how firms are combining AI, financial software, and remote work technologies to streamline operations, strengthen financial stability, and ensure long-term success and growth.
April: Lead Intake and Management Tools for Law Firms
Modern client expectations have changed how law firms approach intake. Legal consumers require immediate, around-the-clock responsiveness and often seek help outside of regular business hours. To meet these expectations, firms have increasingly turned to virtual receptionist services, online forms and AI-powered chat interfaces. These modern tools enable firms to capture leads at any time—day or night—while reducing the administrative burden on in-house staff. Outsourcing intake is one of the simplest and most effective ways for solo and small practices to increase efficiency, enhance the client experience and ensure that no leads slip through the cracks.
May: A Roadmap for Implementing AI in Your Firm
May’s article focused on helping small firms make smarter decisions when choosing generative AI tools. With new products appearing constantly, the choices can feel overwhelming. The goal was to help cut through the noise and provide a clear roadmap for AI adoption. From market research and drafting AI policies to implementation and training, taking simple, clear steps can make all the difference and ensure that the chosen AI tools streamline your law firm’s operations, providing long-term results and value.
June: Choosing Immigration Law Software
Immigration firms have unique workflow requirements that often necessitate software custom-built for their specific practice area. The features that matter most when choosing software designed for immigration practitioners, include automated and up-to-date U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services forms, dependable translation options, and AI features that assist with document handling and case preparation. With the right tools in place, immigration lawyers can manage their caseloads more efficiently and support clients through an often complex, emotional and fast-moving process.
July: Software Options for Bankruptcy Firms
Bankruptcy firms have felt the effects of a volatile year, with rising costs, market swings, and widespread layoffs contributing to a noticeable increase in Chapter 7 filings. Busier practices require tools that will reduce inefficiencies and streamline operations. Because bankruptcy practices are document-intensive and procedurally rigid, they require meticulous management of petitions, schedules, proofs of claim, and court filings. Inflexible statutory deadlines must be carefully tracked, and clear and effective internal and client communication is essential. Bankruptcy software addresses these challenges by automating routine tasks and workflows, generating documents, supporting e-filing, and managing billing and processes.
August: The ILTACON 2025 Wrap Up
ILTACON 2025 revealed an industry caught between exciting progress and a chaotic rush to claim the next big AI breakthrough. Legal tech is in boomtown mode, with companies racing to stake territory even as norms and guardrails are tested. However, amidst all the noise, there were clear indications that vendors were focused on agentic AI, while also competing to become the central platform that lawyers rely on for research, drafting, and workflow automation. Overall, the event was polished and well-run, but the broader atmosphere felt unsettled, leaving me to wonder whether bombast and showmanship were becoming the norm, ultimately overshadowing substance.
September: Tools to Streamline Personal Injury Law Practices
Personal injury firms now have far more software options than they once did, thanks to the shift to cloud-based tools and the growth of practice-area-specific platforms. PI lawyers can sort through these choices by focusing on the features that matter most to their work, including medical-record management, insurance and lien tracking, settlement tools and support for building and negotiating demand packages. Many platforms are also offering AI features to automate drafting, create medical chronologies, and streamline routine litigation tasks. With so many tools developed with the needs of PI practitioners in mind, firms have lots of options when it comes to choosing software that improves their firm’s efficiency throughout the litigation process.
October: The Unanswered Promise of Legal Tech Software
Can legal technology, and AI in particular, actually deliver on long-standing hopes of expanding access to justice? The promise is that AI tools will reduce tedious work, streamline litigation, improve evidence handling and help legal consumers navigate the system more easily. At Relativity Fest, a panel discussion on access to justice made clear that AI can help, but it won’t close the gap on its own, especially in an industry shaped by profit-driven decisions. Ultimately, progress will depend on the choices and priorities of the individuals who develop and use legal tech tools.
This was a year of AI-driven volatility and unprecedented levels of investment and technological change. The breathtaking rate of advancement made it difficult for those of us whose job is to track the latest and greatest announcements. For legal professionals focused on their clients, legal deadlines and pending cases, keeping up was challenging, at best. My hope is that my columns provided actionable information that helped to cut through the noise.
Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York-based attorney, author and journalist. She is the principal legal insight strategist at 8am, parent company of LawPay, MyCase, CasePeer and DocketWise. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is a co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, both published by the American Bar Association. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com and Above the Law, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and she regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on LinkedIn, or she can be reached at [email protected].
