From 5 to 7 October 2026, Madrid hosted GLTHDAY, one of the big LegalTech gatherings, with more than 70 speakers discussing artificial intelligence and the future of the legal profession. Following what was said there, I couldn’t help looking back at the road travelled by lawyers like me, who never imagined that our work, built on statutes, articles, procedure and paperwork, would change so dramatically.
At the same time, I realised something even more valuable: having lived through that transition from the inside is exactly what allows you to weigh up, with real judgement, the pros and cons of the new way of organising legal work. If you only know the tool, you don’t know what problem it solves. If you only know the paper, you can’t see what there is to gain.
To tell the story, I made a short reel, shot like a film. It’s called The Template.
Act I. The template
For more than 20 years I led legal functions at large international servicers and investment funds focused on debt recovery, NPLs and real estate assets. When I started, the legal work behind a debt portfolio revolved around one document: the Word template.
Claims were prepared in bulk. Copy, paste, change the debtor’s name, the amount, the court and the address. Check. Check again. And still, errors slipped through: a name from another file, an amount that didn’t add up, the wrong court district. Every mistake meant corrections, delays and, above all, hours of a highly qualified team spent on work that called for patience rather than legal judgement.
Act II. The court notices
Filing the claim was only the beginning. Then came the court notices, by the thousand. Each with its own deadline, and each deadline with its own risk. Everything was coordinated with the procuradores (the court agents who represent parties before Spanish courts) through emails, phone calls and spreadsheets that someone had to keep up to date by hand.
In 2016, LexNET, Spain’s e-justice platform, became mandatory for legal professionals. It was a huge step: digital had finally reached the courts. But the volume arrived too, and faster. Digitalising the channel did not, on its own, mean organising the work any better.
Act III. The twist
Today the picture is different. In a well-run legal department, claims are generated from the portfolio data, with automatic checks that catch inconsistencies before anything reaches the court. Notices are received, read and sorted, and deadlines are calculated automatically. The team sees the status of every matter on a dashboard instead of rebuilding it every Monday morning.
To anyone who lived through Act I, it looks like magic. It isn’t. It’s good work organisation with good technology behind it.
LegalTech for NPLs: the pros and cons of the new way of working
Precisely because I have lived both stages, I believe automation deserves to be looked at without blind enthusiasm and without fear.
What you gain:
- Consistency. If the data is right, the claim is right. Copy-and-paste errors disappear.
- Deadline control. Deadlines no longer depend on someone updating a spreadsheet on time.
- Traceability. You know who did what and when, which is essential when managing portfolios with thousands of files.
- Time to think. The legal team can spend its hours on what truly requires judgement: litigation strategy, complex matters and negotiation.
What to watch out for:
- Errors multiply. A flaw in an automated template or in the source data no longer affects one claim, but hundreds at once.
- Data quality. Automation is only as good as the information it receives. Without clean data, you just make the mess faster.
- Loss of craft. If junior lawyers never draft or review, who will spot tomorrow what the machine gets wrong?
- Confidentiality. Portfolios contain personal and financial data, and every new tool raises data protection questions that must be answered before it goes live.
- A tool without a process. Buying technology without redesigning the work usually ends in an expensive licence and a frustrated team.
Start with the problem, not the tool
For me, that was the most valuable idea at GLTHDAY 2026. Several speakers agreed that technology should be adopted starting from a specific problem rather than from a tool, and that success depends on redesigning processes, building trust and supporting the team. There was also a strong emphasis on training junior lawyers to review AI output with a critical eye.
I couldn’t agree more. The hero of this story isn’t the machine. It’s the legal judgement that decides what to automate, how, and with which controls.
That is the approach behind MBoada Legal 360: first, a diagnosis of how your legal department actually works (volumes, turnaround times, bottlenecks, and the split between your in-house team and outside counsel). Then, and only then, the technology that makes sense for you.
Is your legal team still stuck in Act I? Get in touch and let’s talk.
Source on GLTHDAY 2026: Empresa Exterior (in Spanish).