David Martins Cardoso
SPS PORTUGAL
The debate on technology and automation in the legal profession tends to swing between two equally reductive extremes: the technophobic view, which sees technology as a threat to the very essence of the profession, and the technocratic view, which presents it as a universal solution to structural inefficiencies. In the field of debt recovery, this tension becomes particularly acute.
It is undeniable that debt recovery is characterised by a high degree of operational complexity. It involves a wide range of procedures, repeated actions, the need for rigorous control of deadlines, amounts and procedural stages, as well as constant coordination between legal, financial and administrative dimensions. In this context, the absence of adequate technological solutions is not neutral and often results in dispersed information, loss of overall control of the portfolio, an increased risk of human error and, ultimately, a less efficient provision of legal services.
Automation therefore emerges not as a luxury, but as a pragmatic response to a real problem. Legal management platforms, structured data processing systems and mechanisms for automating repetitive tasks make it possible to gain efficiency, consistency and predictability. Above all, they allow lawyers to be freed from mechanical tasks that add little value to the legal substance of their work.
However, it is precisely here that the debate must be taken further and critically examined. Technology helps, but it does not decide. It automates, but it does not judge. It organises, but it does not interpret. In debt recovery, each case still involves relevant legal decisions: when to proceed, when to negotiate, when to suspend, when to persist. No algorithm can, on its own, replace the lawyer’s prudent judgement or the contextual assessment of human, economic and strategic factors that lie beyond the binary logic of machines.
The real risk, therefore, does not lie in the use of technology, but in its fetishisation. The belief that automation solves all problems can lead to a dilution of human responsibility and to an impoverished legal practice—excessively standardised and uncritical. Technology does not eliminate error; it merely shifts it, if it is not properly understood, configured and supervised.
In this sense, the challenge facing the legal profession is not to resist technology, but to master it.
The lawyer of the present—and above all of the future—is not made redundant by automation; rather, they are indispensable precisely because automation exists. It is their role to understand how the tools work, validate their outputs, identify exceptions, correct deviations and, above all, assume ultimate responsibility for the decisions made.
From a legal and regulatory perspective, this technological integration is not framed as an autonomous duty imposed by the legal system, but it finds support in the general principles of diligence, competence and good organisation of professional practice.
Automation in debt recovery is therefore neither a panacea nor a problem in itself. It is a tool—and like all tools, its value depends less on its technical sophistication and more on the human intelligence with which it is used.
