Juro: Legal and Business Alignment a Concern for Tech Companies

Juro has surveyed UK in-house lawyers at fast-growth tech companies, finding budgetary constraints hampering legal and business goals, with 73% of new in-house lawyers saying their training lags behind private practice colleagues.

73% of the businesses in the survey are growing their legal teams, valuing a commercial mindset and adaptability in prospective candidates. However 41% said finding lawyers with the right experience and business acumen is the biggest challenge.

The report noted an appetite to invest in technology. 54% of in-house lawyers have a defined legal budget, but 32% struggle to get buy-in from decision makers and 59% cite limited funds as an obstacle to improve contract processes.

Only one in five lawyers surveyed are happy with their contract processing. 58% of the survey use Word to agree contracts, down ten percent from Juro's findings a year ago.

65% saw smart contracts as an opportunity for their business. However, contract software tech implementation is still slow, with 76% taking between one and six months, compared to Juro's average implementation time of between 21 and 30 days.

Richard Mabey, CEO and co-founder of Juro, said: "In-house lawyers at high-growth tech companies suffer with low-value work crowding out strategic projects, but, lawyers are seeking quick-to-implement solutions like Juro to help them focus on driving business growth."

47% of survey respondents were open to leaving their jobs in the next six months, and 35% of the in-house lawyers said their business doesn't understand them. Leading concerns among General Counsel staff include aligning priorities with the business (65%), being buried in low-value work (65%) and a limited budget (49%). 66% of GC respondents do not track metrics, like time and cost per legal matter.

These KPIs track contract processing, measure turnaround and response times, and the valuable time spent on outside counsel. 81% of the survey believed legal teams should have their own KPIs, instead of the same KPIs as the rest of the business.

The Juro GC survey follows Juro's $23m Series B funding raise, increasing its market valuation by more than five times. The legal tech company is backed by Eight Roads, investors in Alibaba, and Union Square Ventures, backers of Twitter. Juro is used in over 85 countries and by 6,000 companies including Deliveroo, Cazoo, Trustpilot and TheRealReal.

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