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How Can Conveyancers Avoid a Kodak Moment?

Written by

Simon Seaton

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Conveyancing innovation is no longer optional. A venture-capital director once told me that only two types of industry remain: those that have already been disrupted and those that are ripe for disruption. The legal sector, and conveyancing in particular, cannot assume that established working practices will protect it from significant change. 
 

Why Kodak remains a warning for conveyancing firms

The legal industry will, sooner or later, witness significant change regardless of how loud the naysayers are. Concluding that because disruption hasn’t happened yet, that it will never happen is a high risk approach.
 
Simply repeating the statement “It won’t happen to us” again and again did not prevent disruption to newspaper publishers, telephone utilities, stockbrokers, record companies, bookstores, travel agencies and retailers.
 
The reason Kodak failed, was not due to a lack of corporate strategy (the top brass saw digitisation coming), and nothing to do with poor technology (in 1975 Kodak built one of the first digital cameras and held more patents than its competitors). Kodak failed because it was a chemical company and a bureaucracy, filled with people eager to do what they did yesterday.
 
Like Kodak many of the owners of law firms that I talk to recognise that change will happen but want to hold on to existing processes for as long as possible.
 
It would be wrong to assume that law firm managers don’t care about doing things better or quicker. But overseeing and paying for change for the benefit of the next generation of lawyers isn’t what they signed up for.
 
Law firms must make sure they are not falling into the same trap as Kodak. There are a number of potentially disruptive developments occurring at present which may have similar effects on firms as digital photography had on Kodak. AI is just one example. Since most owners of firms are lacking experience of how to detect and manage disruption they will have to be especially vigilant and prepared to go through one or two false alarms on their way to developing relevant experience.

2026 update: disruption has arrived

In 2017, artificial intelligence was one possible source of disruption. It is now becoming part of document review, client communication, compliance, identity verification and transaction management. The question for conveyancing firms is no longer whether the technology will affect legal work. It is how firms will use it without weakening the judgment and accountability for which the client retained them.

Refusing to engage with useful technology may still create the Kodak risk identified in this article. But uncritical adoption creates a different version of the same problem. A firm can invest heavily in automation while preserving an outdated operating model in which success is measured principally by speed, file numbers and lower unit costs.

Innovation is not the same as automation

Artificial intelligence can extract clauses, organise documents and identify apparent risks quickly. It does not necessarily understand the client’s objectives, connect information held across the complete transaction or assess how different mortgage lenders may treat a property problem. Our analysis of AI in conveyancing and professional judgment considers where assistance ends and substantive legal work begins.

Integration also requires care. A convenient all-in-one system may improve workflow while concealing weak controls or encouraging staff to accept automated conclusions without sufficient challenge. This is the risk considered in the conveyancing risk management integration paradox.

The danger is therefore not limited to firms that resist change. It also applies to firms that confuse buying technology with changing intelligently. Our article on the one-stop-shop illusion examines what can happen when speed and convenience replace meaningful risk management.

What avoiding a Kodak moment now requires

A resilient conveyancing firm should be able to explain:

  • which parts of its work technology assists or performs;
  • where professional judgment remains essential;
  • how automated outputs are independently checked;
  • how client circumstances and intended use of the property enter the analysis;
  • how confidentiality and client information are protected;
  • what happens when technology fails or produces an incomplete answer; and
  • whether efficiency gains improve the client service or merely increase individual caseloads.

The lesson from Kodak was not simply that an established business failed to invent or acquire new technology. Kodak helped invent the digital camera. The deeper lesson was that recognising disruption is not enough if the organisation remains committed to the assumptions and incentives of its existing model.

For conveyancing firms in 2026, successful innovation means using technology to create more time for investigation, explanation and client advice. If every minute saved is converted immediately into another file, the firm may have modernised its machinery without modernising its service.

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