Generative AI can help streamline legal processes if adopted with caution
Generative AI technologies continue to gain momentum and mark their stamp on almost every sector. The legal industry is no exception and is frequently cited as an industry that will be most affected by its adoption. Nearly three in four lawyers say that they plan to integrate AI within their work, and 84% of legal professionals expect to use AI more to streamline workflows. From speeding up routine legal activities, like summarising and drafting documents, to drawing on insight from the firm’s previous cases, generative AI has huge potential to become an essential productivity tool across the legal profession.
Mistakes of Over-Relying on Generative AI
Yet despite the many benefits, the legal industry has hesitated to jump on the AI bandwagon for client work as quickly as other sectors due to ethical and security concerns. The need to validate AI-generated outputs and ensure reliability and accuracy is more crucial for legal than many other sectors. It’s impossible to miss the news stories about hallucinated legal case citations. In the past year, we saw the first major sanctions on lawyers for using AI in the legal field for using ChatGPT to cite non-existent judicial cases and there have been more since then.
When AI fails to perform, law firms are faced with huge consequences including risks to client confidentiality, incurring severe court sanctions and causing damage to their, and their client’s, reputation for compromising legal integrity. But ultimately the responsibility lies with the lawyer for failing to review the content and understand how the technology works, not the new technology.
Most generative AI tools are not legal research tools, because they do not have access to proprietary case data. This serves as a reminder that AI is still in its infancy – the legal industry cannot rely completely on any technology to understand nuance and provide accurate outputs at all times. Legal firms must take what they’ve learned about technology use in the past and implement solid testing and review frameworks with responsibility at the core.
Paving the Way for Successful AI Integration
Here are four steps that law firms should take to maximize AI success
1. Educating all legal staff on AI usage
Legal firms should provide training on fundamental generative AI concepts for staff at all levels, to ensure they understand AI capabilities, proper uses for the technology, oversight and review processes, how to talk to clients about the technology and mitigate any concerns people may have about its use. At this stage, it is crucial to allay fears and position AI as a tool to improve workload efficiency, freeing up time for lawyers to focus on more strategic tasks, not as a means to downsize. Establishing clear internal generative AI policies will maintain responsible usage, in line with the firm or department’s commitments to clients and stakeholders.
2. Adopt a Logical AI Approach
Firms should not rely on a pre-defined solution to meet their intricate workflow needs. Instead, they should view AI as an enabler. This starts with workflow mapping, identifying high-value use cases, and creating custom AI tools to help unlock the true potential of generative AI. Law firms should also establish a generative AI committee to establish guidance, identify and test tools, judge the benefits of new processes, drive adoption and assist with identifying further use cases for development.
3. Ethics-First Approach
Recent legal news and social media have been filled with discussions about some legal technology companies getting sensitive content review exclusions from Microsoft and how difficult that same exclusion will be for individual law firms to get. Missing something like this in contracts with LLM providers is problematic but to be expected with new technology. Therefore, firms should ensure they are working with vendors who have achieved the necessary filtering and monitoring exemptions to guarantee that sensitive client data will remain confidential.
There are many similar discussions to be had about how courts and other regulatory bodies are approaching the use of generative AI in the practice of law. In the meantime, law firms must take into account potential biases in the training data used to develop AI models and ensure that all staff understand that they are responsible for validating any AI-generated material. Developing comprehensive guidelines that encompass processes for continual monitoring and mitigation of bias, privacy or reliability concerns will reduce the risk of AI misuse.
4. Measuring Results and Building on Feedback
Once all generative AI strategies are in place, it’s essential not to lose momentum. Processes need to be measured both before and after the use of generative AI to truly quantify the gains. By gathering data on key performance metrics such as time savings, error and cost reduction and employee and client satisfaction, law firms can validate the impact of generative AI. Part of this process should also be embracing feedback. Baking comprehensive feedback cycles into AI integration will ensure law firms understand where AI is working and where it can be improved. Embracing both the challenges as well as successes is the key for successful adoption.
Embracing Generative AI with Confidence
Focusing on implementing solid frameworks for AI adoption enables law firms to reap the benefits of generative AI, without compromising on ethical guidelines. AI has the potential to transform legal practices, but failing to understand the complexities and failing to build complete confidence and competence throughout the firm will jeopardize legal and professional integrity.
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