Since 1952, Queen Elizabeth II has served as the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom and numerous other realms and territories, as well as head of the Commonwealth, the group of sovereign nations that includes many former British territories.
Her 70-year reign has been punctuated by an unprecedented series of milestones. Her Majesty’s jubilees and birthdays have provided cause for celebration and reflection throughout the remarkable years since her Accession.
Throughout this tenure, there have been a vast number of technological breakthroughs that have directly or indirectly affected the legal sector. Here is a timeline of some of these momentous and world-changing tech firsts…
1953 – Dictation machines were first directly supplied to law firms
1954 – Colour television was introduced to consumers
1971 – Store and forward messaging over networked computers evolves into email
1973 – The first mobile phone was invented by Motorola
1973 – Lexis invented the red “UBIQ” terminal to let lawyers search case law online
1979 – Commercial rollout of Wang laboratories’ microcomputer devoted to word processing
1981 – IBM released its “Personal Computer,” the first widely selling office desktop computer
1984 – The first Apple Macintosh computer is released
1989 – Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web
1992 – The first text message was sent
1994 – Automated speech-to-text dictation systems launched by several companies
1998 – Google search engine was launched
1999 – The first Blackberry device (850) is introduced as a two-way pager
1999 – eBay and web-based review platforms (such as RateItAll) come to the market
2000 – Broadband was invented
2001 – Apple launched the iPod
2002 – FisherBroyles LLP becomes the first pure ‘virtual law firm’ relying exclusively on cloud-based apps
2003 – The professional social networking platform, LinkedIn is launched
2005 – YouTube first aired online
2006 – Google and Amazon began citing hardware & software services over the internet as ‘Cloud Computing’
2007 – Apple launched the first iPhone
2007 – Netflix launched its streaming service
2008 – Samsung announced the first Galaxy device
2011 – Siri was launched on the iPhone 4s
2011 – Uber was launched in San Francisco
2012 – The inCase mobile app was launched by Lavatech to the UK legal market
2014 – Use of blockchain technology to execute terms of a contract (aka ‘smart contracts’)
2014 – Amazon releases their smart home device Echo with Alexa (followed by Google Assistant launching in 2016)
2014 – Announcement of the Apple Watch
2016 – Launch of the world’s first artificially intelligent lawyer, ROSS by IBM
2016 – The first commercial legal chatbot, Legal Intelligence Support Assistant (LISA) is launched
2019 – New age of video streaming with the launch of Disney Plus and Apple TV
We appreciate some of these are tediously linked to the legal sector, but the likes of eBay, Amazon, Uber and even Netflix all influence the digital customer experience your clients expect from you today.
Since 2019 there has been tremendous growth in lawtech developments in the legal sector, accelerated by the Covid pandemic – when we needed to communicate and engage with clients virtually.
Lawtech as a term has also evolved, covering a wide range of tools, helping to achieve competitive advantage via document automation, e-discovery software, data analysis and extraction, smart legal contracts, chatbots, and many others. Firms now have access to systems to draft documents, undertake legal research, disclose documents in litigation, perform due diligence, provide legal guidance and resolve disputes online.
When her Majesty was crowned queen and her coronation was broadcast on black and white TV in 1953, it would have seemed unbelievable that in her same reign we can order a taxi, stream TV and even manage your legal case all from a handheld telephone. Not to mention talking to your wireless radio and asking “what local law firms specialise in conveyancing?”
What technology has influenced your law firm that’s not on this list…? Let us know by messaging us on your preferred social channel.