The Sunday BlindSpot: The Intention-Action Gap in Legal Tech
- David Langdon
- Oct 12
- 5 min read
12 October 2025
Every year we hear the same claim that firms are increasing their investment in legal tech.
Yet every year, most of them do not.
The newly released 2025 Legal Tech Review by Agile Market Intelligence takes a clear look at where the industry really stands. More than 1,200 legal professionals across Australia rated 38 platforms covering practice management, document management, AI, workflow, and collaboration.
The results tell a familiar story. Fifty-eight percent of firms plan to increase their legal tech investment, yet more than half have not adopted a new tool in over five years.
That contrast says more about the state of legal technology than any marketing trend ever could.
Talk versus Action
The gap between intention and action in legal tech is not new, but it is growing.
Firms know they need to modernise, yet too often they stop at good intentions.
Procurement cycles drag on. Approvals get stuck in committees. Competing priorities push projects further down the list. By the time a firm is ready to decide, the problem that prompted the conversation has often shifted.
Even forward-thinking leaders grow cautious. Many still carry the scars of past projects that promised transformation but delivered frustration.
So, they wait. They stretch old systems further. They talk about innovation, but they do not act on it.
Comfort becomes the default, and progress slows to a crawl.
Trust Beats Marketing
One of the most revealing insights from the report is how lawyers actually discover new technology. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they learn about tools through peers, not vendors.
That number tells you everything you need to know. Legal tech is not driven by sales. It is driven by trust.
Word of mouth still carries the most weight. It protects firms from risky choices, but it also keeps the industry cautious. When decisions depend on who a partner knows, the same tools keep circulating and newer, better options struggle to get noticed.
For vendors, this is a clear message. The winners are no longer the loudest marketers or those with the longest feature lists. They are the ones who build credibility, invest in relationships, and back up promises with genuine support.
Firms do not buy software. They buy confidence that it will work for their people, their processes, and the pressures they face every day.
Loyalty Comes from Experience
The report also highlights what really drives satisfaction. User experience, reliability, and onboarding support all outranked innovation or feature depth as the main reasons firms stick with a product.
That finding says a lot about where the industry’s priorities should be.
Too many platforms chase novelty over usability. Too many buyers get distracted by what is new rather than what works.
Good software in a law firm is not about clever design or advanced AI. It is about how well it fits into everyday work. Does it make tasks faster? Does it reduce frustration? Does it help people do their jobs better without extra effort?
When the answer is yes, adoption happens naturally. When it is no, even the most advanced system will end up gathering dust.
It is not the most sophisticated tool that succeeds. It is the one people actually enjoy using.
Old Tools, New Excuses
Another striking insight from the report is that more than half of current tools have been in place for over five years.
That level of stability might look reassuring, but it also signals inertia. Many firms defend old systems under the banner of reliability, when in reality they are avoiding the disruption of change.
Replacing core systems takes time and courage – and a lot of effort in between. It means retraining staff, rethinking workflows, and accepting a temporary dip in productivity. For busy firms, the short-term pain often outweighs the long-term gain.
The result is a cycle of postponement. Projects get delayed until “next year,” which quietly becomes the year after that. In the meantime, legacy systems continue to shape how firms work and what they believe is possible.
To break that cycle, new technology has to do more than look better. It needs to offer a genuine leap forward – something so clearly valuable that it justifies the effort to change.
Incremental improvement will not cut through. Firms are looking for transformation, not decoration.
What This Says About the Market
Australia’s legal tech sector has reached a point of maturity. The early wave of experimentation is over, and the focus has shifted from excitement about new tools to finding technology that actually works in practice.
Firms are no longer chasing every new platform that appears. They want solutions that deliver reliability, integration, and genuine usability – in short, technology that fits.
At the same time, a new generation of products is emerging that challenge the old way of thinking. These tools are more focused, more connected, and designed to work alongside existing systems rather than replace them entirely.
This signals a broader shift in mindset. Law firms are beginning to move away from the “big system replacement” mentality and towards an ecosystem approach, where multiple connected tools work together to solve everyday problems.
For vendors, that means success depends on more than technical capability. It requires empathy, understanding, and the ability to guide firms through real-world change.
For firms, it means viewing technology not as a project to be finished, but as part of an ongoing process of improvement.
The firms that get this right will not just modernise their systems. They will modernise how they think.
Final Thought
The 2025 Legal Tech Review highlights an industry full of ambition but still held back by hesitation.
Many firms say they are ready for change, yet few follow through. Vendors promise transformation, but too often focus on features instead of outcomes.
Technology itself is rarely the reason projects fail. The real problem lies in how people plan, communicate, and manage the change around it. When those elements are not aligned, even the best platform will struggle to deliver results.
The firms that succeed will not be the ones that spend the most on technology. They will be the ones that invest the most in clarity, leadership, efficiency, alignment, and results – the very foundation of my CLEAR Path Framework.
When people, process, and purpose align, technology stops being a project and starts becoming progress.
That is the shift the industry still needs to make.
At BlindSpot Solutions, I help firms make that shift.
I review existing tech stacks, educate teams on what is available and what actually works, and help overcome the fear of modernising ageing systems.
Most importantly, I work with firms to align culture, leadership, and objectives with the right technology so it truly supports the business. From change management through to a plan for continuous improvement, my focus is on turning technology from a burden into a genuine advantage.
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