Introduction: Legal Tech has proved inaccessible for most legal teams

Legal technology has reached an inflection point.

Not because of AI.
Not because of tooling proliferation.
And not because the market has finally “matured”.

But because the way the legal industry thinks about technology is no longer fit for purpose.

For years, in-house legal teams have been told that legal tech is about:

• platforms,
• stacks,
• categories,
• and vendors.

They have been encouraged to buy, implement, and “modernise” — often without a clear understanding of what success actually looks like, or why so many initiatives quietly fail.

At GLS, we came to a different conclusion.

The problem was never a lack of technology.
The problem was the absence of a legal-specific system of thinking about technology.

The GLS Legal Tech Line exists because the industry needed more than tools.
It needed a doctrine.

A Transformational Starting Point: Redefining Legal Technology

GLS begins with a deliberate — and disruptive — redefinition.

Legal technology is anything that measurably improves the productivity, predictability, or scalability of legal work.

That single definition changes everything.

It:

• removes fear,
• removes vendor dependency,
• removes artificial hierarchy between “high-tech” and “low-tech”,
• and makes legal tech accessible to every in-house legal team.

Under the GLS definition:

• a Legal Service Request Form is legal tech,
• a Playbook is legal tech,
• a spreadsheet-based workflow is legal tech,
• a CLMS is legal tech,
• AI is legal tech.

What matters is not what the thing is.
What matters is what problem it solves and how safely it does so.

This is the first transformational move — and it immediately moves legal technology onto safer, more rational ground.

The Second Principle: Technology Is Never the Answer

GLS is unambiguous on this point:

Technology does not define good answers.
It amplifies the efficiency and productivity yield of good answers.

This is where most legal tech strategies go wrong.

When technology:

• dictates process and procedures,
• defines risk posture,
• or substitutes for operational thinking,

failure is inevitable.

GLS deliberately reverses the relationship:

1. Legal intent first
2. Operational design second
3. Technology last

Technology must boost what you are doing — not define what you do or how you do it.

This principle alone explains why so many legal tech implementations disappoint.

Why the Industry Needed the GLS Legal Tech Line

The legal industry has no shortage of:

• vendor maps,
• category frameworks,
• and “best of breed” lists.

What it lacked was:

• a legal-specific operating system for technology,
• grounded in real in-house constraints,
• designed for hybrid models,
• and built around how legal teams actually work.

The GLS Legal Tech Line is not a stack.
It is not linear.
And it is not aspirational theatre.

It is a complete system of thinking, built around eight conceptual capability buckets that together form a closed, defensible model for legal tech engagement. Each Station on the GLS Legal Tech Line falls into one or more of these eight buckets. 

The Eight Buckets That Redefine Legal Technology

These buckets are not sequential steps.
They are capability domains that together explain how legal technology can be planned, governed, implemented, and sustained — successfully.

1. Reframing Legal Technology

Redefining the Concept Itself

This bucket exists to do one thing: reset mental models.

Legal teams cannot succeed with technology while they:

• equate tech with software,
• confuse sophistication with maturity,
• or believe progress is measured by licences purchased.

By redefining legal tech as productivity infrastructure, GLS:

• demystifies the space,
• removes intimidation,
• and allows teams to engage rationally.

This is where confusion turns into clarity.

2. Re-Defining Legal Tech Needs

User-Led, Ecosystem-Aware, Reality-Based

Most legal tech decisions fail because they are:

• vendor-led,
• peer-pressured,
• or copied from incompatible environments.

GLS insists that legal tech needs must be:

• user-led (how lawyers actually work),
• process-led (how work actually flows),
• ecosystem-aware (finance, procurement, ERP, CRM).

Legal does not operate in isolation.
Technology that ignores the wider enterprise will always struggle to survive.

This bucket replaces “what should we buy?” with
“what capability do we actually need?”

3. Core Systems (With Discipline)

The Inevitables — Without Letting Them Dominate

GLS is realistic.

Fast-forward any legal function and there will be a small number of core systems:

• CLMS,
• DMS/EMS,
• matter management,
• e-billing,
• core compliance platforms.

GLS does not deny their importance — but it draws a hard line:

Core systems must never become the tail that wags the legal function.

They exist to serve:

• defined processes,
• clear data needs,
• and explicit outcomes.

When core systems start defining behaviour, risk tolerance, or operating models, legal loses control.

This bucket is about containment and discipline, not resistance.

4. Implementation Approach

Safety First. Always Succeed. No Big Bangs.

GLS rejects the mythology of transformation heroics.

Big-bang rollouts:

• overwhelm teams,
• destroy adoption,
• and burn credibility.

The GLS implementation doctrine is simple:

• incremental,
• adoption-led,
• proof-based,
• and designed to succeed at every step.

The safest legal tech strategy is one that cannot catastrophically fail.

This bucket protects legal teams from themselves — and from external pressure.

5. Implementation Support

Because Lawyers Should Not Have to Be Legal Tech Experts

This bucket is critical — and largely missing from the industry.

GLS explicitly recognises:

There is no reason why lawyers should be experts in the legal tech landscape.

Expecting them to be is:

• inefficient,
• unrealistic,
• and unnecessary.

Implementation support exists to:

• translate between legal and tech,
• guide sequencing,
• de-risk decisions,
• and shorten learning curves.

This is not dependency.
It is operational intelligence.

6. Legal Ops Reality

Surviving Inside the Enterprise

Legal technology does not exist in a vacuum.

GLS accepts hard truths:

• legal tech will never be the main enterprise IT priority,
• legal is a minority stakeholder,
• closed-wall systems create long-term pain.

Therefore:

• app-based tools,
• interoperable solutions,
• systems that sit across core platforms
  make far more sense for legal.

This bucket ensures solutions are survivable, not just elegant.

7. Governance & Decision Rights

Who Decides, Who Owns, Who Is Accountable

Many legal tech initiatives fail after implementation because:

• ownership is unclear,
• decisions fragment,
• accountability evaporates.

GLS treats governance as first-class infrastructure.

This includes:

• a legal tech agenda,
• decision rights,
• lifecycle ownership,
• and decommissioning discipline.

This bucket prevents entropy.

8. Performance & Value Realisation

Proving It Was Worth Doing

The final bucket closes the system.

In the GLS doctrine, legal technology must ultimately:

• reduce time,
• reduce cost,
• improve predictability,
• or improve risk outcomes.

If it does none of those things, it is noise.

This bucket connects legal tech directly to:

• performance metrics,
• analytics,
• contracting efficiency,
• workload visibility.

This is where credibility is earned.

Why This Is Genuinely Groundbreaking

What makes the GLS Legal Tech Line different is not any single insight.

It is the completeness of the system.

For the first time, in-house legal teams are offered:

• a redefinition of legal tech,
• a user-led needs framework,
• a disciplined view of core systems,
• a safe implementation doctrine,
• explicit support structures,
• enterprise realism,
• governance clarity,
• and a value realisation loop.

No organisation in the world has articulated — let alone operationalised — legal technology in this way.

Not vendors.
Not consultancies.
Not industry bodies.

This is not theory.
It is experience, codified.

Why In-House Legal Teams Find This So Compelling

Because it finally matches their reality.

• They are intelligent but time-poor
• Curious but cautious
• Under pressure but constrained

The GLS Legal Tech Line does not ask them to leap.
It shows them where to step.

It replaces:

• hype with structure,
• fear with logic,
• and experimentation with intent.

The Bottom Line

Legal technology is no longer about tools.

It is about whether the legal function can:

• think clearly,
• act deliberately,
• and improve measurably.

The GLS Legal Tech Line exists to make that possible.

That is why it is transformational.
That is why it is safe.
And that is why the industry is finally paying attention.

Make sense of your legal tech plans - explore the GLS Legal Tech Line.