Marisa Borsboom, a Portuguese lawyer with over 20 years of experience spanning general counsel, data protection officer, and contract manager roles across multiple industries, shared her insights on legal tech literacy for law firms. Currently serving on the board of the European Legal Tech Association after becoming an ambassador in 2016, Borsboom provided practical guidance on how law firms can develop the knowledge and capabilities needed to navigate the technological transformation of legal practice.

The Maturation of Legal Tech Understanding

Borsboom emphasised how the legal tech landscape has evolved significantly from its early days when universities offered virtually no relevant courses and the industry was “flying the plane while building it.” The sector has reached a new level of maturity, with pioneers now understanding both what they previously didn’t know and how to approach complex topics more effectively.x

“We are all much more mature now,” Borsboom observed. “Having conversations with pioneers, we understand what we didn’t understand before, and even how to grasp the best way to enter with some topics.”

This maturation has coincided with a dramatic improvement in available tools. Where early legal tech made promises it couldn’t deliver, today’s market offers genuinely effective solutions, though this abundance creates new challenges around selection and implementation.

Starting the Legal Tech Literacy Journey

For law firm leaders beginning their legal tech education, Borsboom recommended a structured approach beginning with broad contextual understanding before diving into specific tools or implementations.

Content Consumption First The foundation should be engaging with quality educational content through platforms, podcasts, and industry discussions. “You need to do a little bit of exploration before you even buy tools,” Borsboom explained. “You should try to engage with content. Nowadays we have really interesting content.”

Understanding the Professional Landscape Firms should invest time in understanding the different types of professionals available in the legal tech ecosystem—from platform providers to consultants to tool vendors. This knowledge helps organisations make informed decisions about partnerships and implementations.

Step-by-Step Progression Borsboom cautioned against rushing the process: “You should not be too eager, and you should take your time to understand what kind of professionals are there.”

The Essential Trio: Tools, People, and Processes

Central to Borsboom’s approach is recognising that successful legal tech implementation requires three components working in harmony: good tools, good people, and good processes. She illustrated this with a memorable analogy: “If I have a Ferrari and the road is a dusty countryside road with no asphalt, that Ferrari is going to be useless.”

Process Foundation Effective processes require legal design thinking capabilities that many law firms lack internally. Borsboom drew parallels to data protection work, where mapping data flows and understanding organisational architecture becomes essential. “You need to understand the structure within, and what was the data, what was the people—all this architecture of thought comes before.”

Enterprise Mindset Law firms must shift their perspective to view themselves as enterprises requiring the same systematic approaches as other businesses. This mindset change enables firms to bring in professionals who can adapt enterprise methodologies to legal practice contexts.

Addressing Small and Medium Firm Challenges

Borsboom acknowledged that while larger firms may have resources for comprehensive legal tech strategies, small and medium firms face particular challenges reminiscent of GDPR compliance difficulties.

Resource Constraints Smaller firms often lack the capacity to understand their own needs, let alone implement solutions. “Most of the time small and medium companies will say, ‘What do you think I need? Look at my business and please help me because it’s too big for me to stop and invest time and money.'”

Service Design Solutions The solution lies in reimagining service delivery to provide comprehensive packages that include training and design capacity alongside tools. This approach helps smaller firms overcome the burden of determining their own requirements whilst managing cost constraints.

Market Gap Recognition Borsboom highlighted a concerning trend where legal tech focuses primarily on commercial applications for large firms, leaving criminal justice, pro bono work, and sole practitioners underserved. “There’s so much potential to do good with legal tech, and we continue to only do big legal tech for the big firms.”

Managing Risk and Overcoming Fear

When addressing common concerns about AI hallucinations, copyright risks, and confidentiality issues, Borsboom advocated for honest assessment of client capacities and creative solution design.

Capacity-Based Solutions Rather than prescribing universal approaches, consultants should evaluate each firm’s capacity for investing time, money, and ongoing maintenance. This assessment enables creation of “building blocks of capacity” that allow incremental progress rather than overwhelming comprehensive implementations.

Supportive Guidance The role of advisors extends beyond tool selection to ongoing support through compliance and implementation paths, avoiding the “drop and run” approach that often leads to failure.

The Opportunity and Challenge for Young Lawyers

Borsboom identified a paradox facing junior lawyers in the current environment: unprecedented opportunity combined with significant risk to traditional career development paths.

Skills Development Concerns Senior partners are beginning to recognise that AI tools may eliminate tasks that traditionally served as “cement of knowledge” for junior lawyers. These small tasks, whilst seemingly mundane, provided essential learning opportunities about the broader context of legal work beyond technical elements.

Generational Alliance The solution lies in building alliances between established lawyers who entered the profession wanting to change it and new graduates bringing fresh perspectives. However, this requires conscious effort to ensure AI augments rather than replaces the workforce.

Corporate Responsibility in Legal Tech Borsboom called for legal tech companies to demonstrate corporate responsibility by supporting the legal workforce rather than simply automating jobs away.

Returning to Core Professional Values

Looking ahead, Borsboom emphasised the opportunity for lawyers to return to fundamental professional roles while AI handles routine tasks. She referenced Thomas More’s “Utopia” and the historical role of lawyers as “safeguards of the rights of people” rather than merely contract processors.

Professional vs. Legal Professional Distinction Borsboom distinguished between attorneys connected to bar associations with ethical obligations and legal professionals without such constraints. As AI handles more technical work, these distinctions become increasingly relevant.

Legal Tech for Good The challenge for the industry is producing legal tech that serves broader social good, brings standards to the market, and augments professionals rather than replacing them.

Implementation Essentials

Borsboom stressed that successful legal tech adoption requires ongoing human interaction and support, not just tool deployment.

Hands-On Engagement “If you go to a law firm or legal department and sit with them and play around with the tool, you will make these people engage with the tool really fast. If you keep sending them videos online or instructions to read, it’s not appealing.”

Continuous Learning Culture The pace of technological change requires continuous learning and adaptation. Organisations need dedicated professionals who can serve as bridges between technology and traditional legal practice.

University Integration Starting legal tech education at university level, allowing students to experiment with tools, creates benefits for all stakeholders and builds foundational literacy for future practitioners.

The Future Outlook

Borsboom predicted that law firms will increasingly need partners dedicated specifically to legal tech aspects of practice, whether in small boutiques or large firms. She noted a trend of senior lawyers leaving large firms to establish boutiques, creating highly skilled professionals eager for legal tech training.

The key to success lies in identifying individuals within organisations who have the right talent to serve as bridges between traditional practice and technological innovation.

Conclusion

Borsboom’s insights demonstrate that legal tech literacy extends far beyond learning to use specific tools. It requires fundamental shifts in how law firms view themselves, their processes, and their role in society. Success depends on building comprehensive understanding through quality content consumption, developing systematic processes informed by legal design thinking, and maintaining focus on augmenting rather than replacing legal professionals.

The message for law firm leaders is clear: the change is already here, not coming. Whilst it’s never too late to begin the journey, firms must step up their engagement with legal tech literacy to remain competitive and serve clients effectively. The future belongs to those who can successfully integrate technological capabilities with core professional values and responsibilities.