Chapter 4 · People and value

People and value:
adaptation, efficiency and clients

The ultimate purpose of modernizing the legal sector must be to deliver better services in less time and with greater transparency. This chapter brings together three perspectives on people and the value they perceive: how professionals adapt to change, whether technology makes them more efficient, and whether that effort reaches the client.

The idea in one sentence

Respondents who report greater efficiency also perceive a better client experience. This is an association between study responses focused on perceptions of both efficiency and satisfaction. It is not a demonstration of causality or a direct measurement of client satisfaction.

Professional adaptation

By professional adaptation we mean the way people on the legal team absorb technological change: what role they give to human judgment versus technology, how much supervision they believe AI's work requires, and how they experience resistance to change within their organizations.

Professional adaptation (law firms vs. legal departments)
Law firmsLegal departments
Human connection and critical thinking remain more important than technology
4.15
3.97
Human oversight of AI work must be a core competency
4.65
4.26
Resistance to change is the main obstacle to technology adoption
3.54
3.64

The dotted line marks the neutral point (3 = neither agree nor disagree).

These three statements produce very high agreement in both audiences, but their real interest lies elsewhere: they are convictions shared by everyone, regardless of how advanced the organization is. Size, adoption level and training do not matter: firms and departments agree that human connections remain central, that AI work requires human oversight, and that resistance to change is a barrier.

Although they show little association with the index, the published calculation does include them. They are part of lawyers’ professional identity in relation to technology.

Efficiency and business facilitation

The five efficiency items measure whether technology increased operational efficiency, automated processes, freed up time for higher-value work, forced the incorporation of non-legal profiles, and streamlined communication with the client. It was the block with the strongest support in the study.

Perceived efficiency (Law firms)
Implementing digital technologies has increased our efficiency71% agreement
3.96
Automating routine tasks lets us devote more time to high-value work71.2% agreement
3.88
Automating tasks within digital processes has reduced costs50% agreement
3.35
Implementing technology solutions has required bringing in non-legal professionals47.7% agreement
3.15
Clients respond more quickly to our communications28.3% agreement
2.92

The dotted line marks the neutral point (3 = neither agree nor disagree).

Perceived efficiency (Legal departments)
Implementing digital technologies has increased our efficiency77.1% agreement
4.11
Automating routine tasks lets us devote more time to high-value work77.8% agreement
3.97
Automating tasks within digital processes has reduced costs56.3% agreement
3.62
Internal clients respond more quickly to our communications55.9% agreement
3.50
Implementing technology solutions has required bringing in non-legal professionals43.2% agreement
3.19

The dotted line marks the neutral point (3 = neither agree nor disagree).

What accompanies perceived efficiency

What relates to feeling more efficient (Spearman's ρ)

Law firms

Client experience
0.68
Adoption Index
0.63
Perceived impact
0.54
Training
0.49
Team knowledge
0.48
Tool usage
0.46
AI usage
0.41
Infrastructure
0.36
KPI maturity
0.35
Ethical practices
0.33
Professional adaptation
0.06
Digitalization (%)
0.05

Legal departments

Client experience
0.48
Perceived impact
0.43
Team knowledge
0.39
Adoption Index
0.33
Training
0.27
KPI maturity
0.27
Ethical practices
0.26
AI usage
0.26
Tool usage
0.24
Infrastructure
0.11
Professional adaptation
0.10
Digitalization (%)
-0.04

The virtuous cycle efficiency ↔ client experience

In law firms, those who feel that technology made them more efficient are also those who see more satisfied clients. It is one of the strongest associations in the study, and the most consistent across both types of organization. It is possible that efficiency improves client experience, that a good client relationship pushes toward operating better, or that both respond to the same management culture.

Training and learning

In law firms, training the team goes hand in hand with feeling more efficient: the firms that train more frequently are also the ones that report better operational performance. The team's accumulated knowledge moves in the same range, which suggests that both things are part of the same learning cycle.

In legal departments that connection does not appear as clearly. It may be because the link is genuinely weaker in a corporate department, or simply because the group surveyed was smaller and the study is unable to detect it.

Digitalizing is not the same as being efficient

The percentage of digitalized documents does not accompany greater perceived efficiency. Scanning documents, on its own, does not make an organization more efficient: without transformation of the processes, digitalization does not produce perceptible results.

What was tested and what did we find?

The three efficiency hypotheses were confirmed in both audiences: digital technology increased operational efficiency, automation reduced costs and, above all, freed up time to devote to higher-value work. The technical detail is in the methodology appendix.

Client experience

This section evaluates how frequently firms and departments assess the satisfaction of their clients (internal or external), as well as the tools they use to do so. Investment in technology goes beyond efficiency, since its ultimate purpose must be to deliver a better service, more transparent and in less time. If client experience is not measured, it is not possible to know whether or not technology has an impact, nor to fully justify the investment it entails.

Client experience (Law firms)
Transparency63.9% agreement
3.78
Client expectations56.9% agreement
3.65
Consistency in quality69.5% agreement
3.65
Perceived satisfaction50% agreement
3.43
Preference for digital interactions20.8% agreement
2.64

The dotted line marks the neutral point (3 = neither agree nor disagree).

Internal client experience (Legal departments)
Internal client expectations82% agreement
4.10
Transparency74.3% agreement
3.97
Consistency in quality69.3% agreement
3.85
Perceived satisfaction61.5% agreement
3.77
Preference for digital interactions35.9% agreement
3.23

The dotted line marks the neutral point (3 = neither agree nor disagree).

What drives client satisfaction

What relates to more satisfied clients (Spearman's ρ)

Law firms

Efficiency
0.68
Perceived impact
0.60
Adoption Index
0.56
Team knowledge
0.55
AI usage
0.47
Ethical practices
0.41
Tool usage
0.40
Training
0.40
KPI maturity
0.33
Infrastructure
0.31
Digitalization (%)
0.30
Professional adaptation
-0.06

Legal departments

Tool usage
0.57
Perceived impact
0.56
Adoption Index
0.56
KPI maturity
0.53
Team knowledge
0.50
Efficiency
0.48
Training
0.44
Ethical practices
0.42
AI usage
0.33
Infrastructure
0.23
Digitalization (%)
0.17
Professional adaptation
-0.06

In both types of organization, the factor that most accompanies client satisfaction is operational efficiency. But from there the paths diverge.

In legal departments, two things stand out just behind: using a broad range of tools and having measurement discipline. The departments that work with more technological tools, and those that track management metrics in an orderly way, are also the ones that report more satisfied internal clients. Training also appears, though with less weight than in law firms.

The business reading is direct: in a corporate legal department, internal client satisfaction seems to be built on operational discipline. Measuring well and working with the right tools weighs more than occasional team training.

Technology does improve satisfaction, and above all transparency

Both groups agree that technology improved their clients' satisfaction, although the effect is clearly more marked in legal departments than in law firms. One possible explanation is that a company's internal client shares the same systems and digital standards of the legal area, while the external clients of a firm arrive with much more varied expectations.

The best-valued benefit of the entire block, in both groups, is transparency: being able to show the client the status of their matter and how long it will take. This result says something important about the current moment of the LATAM legal market.

External clients still prefer in-person dealings

The external clients of firms continue to prefer in-person dealings over the digital. Internal efficiency can be completely digitalized, but the relationship remains fundamentally in-person. In legal departments the opposite happens: the internal clients move more comfortably in digital channels, something expected among colleagues of the same company already accustomed to corporate tools.

What was tested and what did we find?

  • Technology improves client satisfaction. Confirmed, with more strength in legal departments.
  • Technology increases perceived transparency. Confirmed, and it is the best-valued benefit in both audiences.
  • There is a growing preference for digital interactions. Not confirmed in law firms (their external clients still prefer in-person). In legal departments the difference is not conclusive.

The technical detail is in the methodology appendix.

In summary

People in the sector share firm convictions about the human value of legal work. Technology does help them be more efficient, and that efficiency translates into more satisfied clients (the strongest link in the study). But the benefit reaches the client above all by way of transparency, not by the digitalization of the relationship, which remains in-person in law firms.

How to cite

Prince Tritto, P., Villa Berger, P., Salmon, L., Muñoz Ponce, M., & Limón González, J. B. (2026). Technology Maturity Index for the Legal Industry: pilot study (data from Mexico, 2025). Law and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Universidad Panamericana; KermaPartners; Lemontech. https://labderia.up.edu.mx/en/legaltech-report