In a GenAI-enabled world, it may seem difficult to continue providing quality expertise while meeting client demands for greater efficiency; however, stellar performing attorneys are not only using GenAI, but they’re also confidently explaining to clients how it helps
Above all else, a law firm’s clients want one thing — high-quality advice.
This maxim has played out repeatedly over multiple arenas, through many shifts in the law firm landscape and across geographies. In fact, according to responses from in-house counsel about why they would favor hiring one law firm over another, there’s not even a close second. About three-quarters (75%) of corporate counsel at companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue cited expertise as a primary driver of favorability, while client service ranked second with just 33%, according to Thomson Reuters Market Insights data.
There is a new shift, however, that may change the idea of what it means to be a favored law firm. With the introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) comes a democratization of legal knowledge. While legal research and knowledge management tools have long been available — even those driven my earlier AI technology — GenAI now provides near-instantaneous access to top-flight legal knowledge, issued in plain language so lawyers work more efficiently and perform repetitive tasks faster and easier.
More than half of corporate clients actively want their law firms to be using GenAI, according to the Thomson Reuters Institute’s Generative AI in Professional Services report released earlier this year. Or to put it a different way, clients want their law firms to maintain high-quality performance above all else, but also bring forward the time-efficiency and other benefits that GenAI products provide.
Is it possible to exceed in time-efficiency while maintaining high-quality work? It’s certainly a fine needle to thread. However, according to those attorneys whom clients believe stand out from the rest, there is one key differentiator that will allow for marrying quality advice with GenAI use: The ability to explain what you’re doing.
Stellar performers are ready to talk
In another separate research report release in August, the Thomson Reuters Institute’s Stellar Performance Report tells the story of how law firms’ highest achievers often can gain the trust of clients. These clients nominate those attorneys with whom they work to be recognized as high achievers, then our analysts study the qualities that make these stellar performers stand out from the crowd. Unsurprisingly, these stellar-performing lawyers share a number of traits, including flexible communication skills that allow for improved client relationships, clearly defined goals to help grow the client relationship, and yes, high-quality and strong advice.
And that flexibility and planning also extends into the world of technology. More than three-quarters (79%) of stellar performing lawyers said that they are excited about the possibilities that GenAI opens up for improving client service. Roughly the same percentage (78%) also disagree with the idea that GenAI will adversely affect their role in the future. By and large, those attorneys identified as stellar performers are on board with GenAI’s increasing relevance to the legal industry.
The critical component of communication
However, what does that have to do with what clients say they want more than anything else —that top-quality advice? As our research has shown, there are a number of lawyers that are embracing GenAI and believe it should be used for legal work. However, it’s how the stellar performers talk to their clients about GenAI that may set them apart.
While previous GenAI reports have revealed that many law firm attorneys have not yet had frank conversations about GenAI with their clients, about two-thirds (63%) of the stellar performers said that they enjoy talking about GenAI with clients and colleagues. The combination of GenAI usage with standard communication skills, it turns out, means more confident explanations on how GenAI is being used at the firm, and thus better client service than average.
Of the stellar performing attorneys using GenAI directly on legal matters for clients, for instance, more than three-quarters of them (76%) feel confident explaining their firm’s GenAI use to clients than those who do not feel confident (20%). This trend also holds for different levels of interaction of GenAI, such as those legal professionals who have used it directly for client communications (74% feel confident explaining their firm’s use) or even those who use it personally (60%). Among even stellar performing attorneys, those who do not use GenAI at all have a lower rate of confidence (24%) explaining their firm’s GenAI plans to clients.
To stand out from the crowd, therefore, it’s not enough to just use GenAI. What we’re learning from our research on stellar performing lawyers is that they are not only using GenAI, but when they’re doing so, they’re thinking about it critically in a way that allows confident explanations how they’re using it to improve client service.
The future of quality advice
Looking at the Stellar Performance Report data, it’s interesting to see that many top-performing attorneys believe GenAI is progressing at the right pace — 61% said they believe adoption rates are about right, while just 26% believe it is going too slowly. (Meanwhile, 4% said they believe it is going too fast, and 9% are unsure.) These top-performing attorneys are not only keeping up with the pace of change but are capitalizing upon it to provide better service of their clients.
That feeling certainly isn’t universal among all attorneys, however. For some, GenAI’s introduction is moving quicker than expected, and questions about GenAI are appearing seemingly out of nowhere. GenAI has the potential to uproot how lawyers work on a day-to-day basis, and in times of great change, it’s understandable for some to feel overwhelmed.
It’s important to understand, however, that efficiency and expertise are not an either/or proposition. Clients expect — and in many cases demand — both. That will increasingly come to include expertise that is based on GenAI output, but with the expectation that their favored law firms will go above and beyond what the technology is telling them.
“We pay for work from legal minds, especially in the realm of litigation, we want the briefing to be completed with the trial strategy in mind,” one corporate counsel said in the Generative AI in Professional Services report. Another added: “When instructing outside law firms, we have a reasonable expectation of the professional competence of the lawyers we have engaged. Both individual lawyers and firms must remain responsible for their work output and advice.”
Clearly, corporate clients want quality advice from their outside law firms above all else, and the top attorneys will be able to deliver on that expertise in a quick and cost-efficient manner. The way to get there then, may just begin with a confident conversation about what GenAI is adding to the equation.
You can download a copy of the Thomson Reuters Institute’s Generative AI in Professional Services report here.
