By Marco Imperiale.
With over 240,000 lawyers and a long history in the legal profession (remember, most of the civil law we deal with comes from Roman law), Italy is a country with a passion for the legal profession. A closer look at Italy’s legaltech industry reveals that it covers a field as rich and complex as Italy’s renowned legal tradition. However, explaining Italy’s legaltech environment to an international audience presents unique challenges due to its unique nature and pace of technology adoption that differs significantly from the UK and US.
The current state of legal tech in Italy
In Italy, the legaltech startup ecosystem is still nascent but vibrant, consisting of just under 100 startups working in a variety of areas, including contract lifecycle management (CLM), document automation, privacy and GDPR compliance, legal investigations, and digital forensics.
However, the total revenues from these ventures remain modest. Total amount up to 50 million eurosThis highlights that the market is still in its early stages.
The Italian law firm landscape presents a similar picture of cautious experimentation: while Italian offices of UK and US law firms often adopt international software solutions for cross-border consistency and incur implementation costs in certain countries, only a handful of Italy’s top law firms are integrating technology platforms or innovating on their own.
The majority of lawyers are primarily in boutiques or solo firms, and their involvement in legal tech has been sporadic. It’s hard to talk about widespread movement, given that experimentation has been driven mostly by solo lawyers or small groups of lawyers.
The corporate sector reflects the cautious approach seen in law firms: around 80% of Italian companies are classified as small and medium-sized enterprises, Having in-house legal counsel is also not the normMoreover, multinational companies typically implement global technology strategies that, with notable exceptions, ignore the unique needs and opinions of their Italian offices.
Barriers to adoption
The slow adoption of legaltech in Italy is due to several factors, including the complexity of the civil law system (high variation in the range of documents, from contracts to judicial opinions), the language (Italy is the only country where Italian is spoken as a major language), a strict code of ethics for lawyers, a general reluctance towards digital transformation and, according to the Italian Lawyers’ Pension Fund (Casa Forense), a frequent lack of funding. More than 40% of Italian lawyers report an annual income of less than €20,000..
All these factors create a challenging environment for widespread adoption of technology. Additionally, a lack of necessity and traditionalist thinking further impede progress.
Despite these challenges, the situation is slowly changing. The emergence of platforms like ChatGPT and increased interest in generative AI in the post-pandemic era have prompted legal professionals to reflect on the value they provide to their clients. This reflective trend is supported by initiatives from local and national bar associations, as well as an increase in the provision of legal tech education by universities and private providers.
The future of legal tech in Italy
Looking to the future, the question of what the future of Italian legaltech holds is certainly a million dollar one.
Some may predict the rise of platforms uniquely tailored to the Italian and broader continental European context. But making predictions in the legal tech space can be dangerous. What we see at the moment is that while the Italian legal tech scene is still in its infancy, growing curiosity and engagement with AI and other technologies suggests a vibrant and transformative future.
As Italy continues to balance its rich legal traditions with new technological possibilities, it is on the brink of potentially major advances in how legal services are delivered and experienced.
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About the author: Marco Imperiale is the founder and managing director of Better Ipsum, a consultancy focused on legal design, legal innovation and legal integrity.
Marco is also a mediator, mindfulness trainer and a long-time advocate of innovation and wellbeing in the profession.
