Anyone who has worked a day at a law firm or at a notary office has for sure encountered a room filled with hundreds upon hundreds of folders bursting with legal documents. The legal industry uses a vast amount of printed paper, and with the raising awareness for embracing sustainability and environmental conservation, many industry players are making efforts to lower the paper-footprint of the legal practice and adopt legal technology.

The legal tech in essence entails the digitisation of legal services. There are now websites and apps that cater to anything from providing a marketplace to connect clients with lawyers, guides for clients to conduct legal matters by themselves, e-discovery and more. All of these technological developments generally result in a more environmentally friendly approach to business in the legal field, despite the slow embrace by the legal practitioners.

Referring to US data, in 2018, only 59 law firms used 4073.45 tonnes of paper. That’s approximately 407 million sheets of A4 paper,* and this is merely a small fraction of the law firms that operate in the world – so the tip of the iceberg. Millions of trees would be saved if even a portion of all the legal documents were electronic. In this regard, the legal tech has the potential to significantly reduce the paper-use footprint and environmental impact of the legal industry.

*Read more at: https://zegal.com/blog/post/is-legal-tech-making-the-legal-industry-greener/