As law firms prepare for an AI-driven future, they shouldn’t overlook the importance of two key factors: the structure of the data and the voice of the client
An effective strategy for artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of any legal practice will require a solid foundation in three key categories: expertise, tech tools, and data. We’ve discussed the imperative of taking a strategic approach to AI that will create a competitive advantage for your practice and the people who will make it happen. We also looked at the basics of the technologies that you will need to consider along with some standard nomenclature.
For example, we looked at the idea of fine-tuning an AI tool to meet your specific needs and how success in that endeavor will require a few hundred examples of a document type in order to actually conduct the fine tuning. And therein lies the bad news: It will be difficult for you to find that many documents of a given type if your data is not that good.
However, there is now some good news — you can use generative AI (GenAI) to clean up your data, but you will need solid taxonomies to code your data. And now even better news — a lot of smart and good people have spent considerable volunteer time over the past several years to develop a global data standard for the legal industry. This organization, the SALI Alliance, and — truth in advertising — I am the President of the Board for SALI and have been volunteering at the organization since its inception more than eight years ago.
Already, most industry tech and content leaders have adopted the SALI standard and are embedding it in their products and services. (On the SALI site, you can find a link to a GenAI tool that codes content to the SALI standards.)
Given that the tools now exist in AI and there is a convenient data standard, I highly recommend that you put a data clean-up project high on your GenAI to-do list. This effort will be foundational for the future success of most of your GenAI investments.
Send in the clients
A more general bit of counsel, but it is especially important concerning GenAI: Include your clients. It has been my experience that the best, most successful innovations will be tied not just directly to client work, but to a client.
This lesson came to me years back when I proposed an innovative pricing approach to a client that met their asked-for goal of saving 10%. The client flat-out rejected it. What I learned was to include the client in the development of the innovation. This not only gets their buy-in, but it also improves the outcomes, making innovations appealing to other clients as well.
GenAI presents some very interesting and unique ways to innovate how client services are delivered. However, I suggest any firm approaching this challenge make certain its clients are onboard with whatever it is proposing and include the clients as much as possible in the process. From experience, many clients will reward this behavior.
The treadmill effect
One more consideration while you’re on your AI journey is that one touch of AI is just the beginning. The firm’s AI team will define and execute the automating of a set group of tasks in the matter you identify as your practice’s greatest strength or potential strength. So, what comes next?
The team then should define the next set of tasks and repeat the process. Most likely a Phase 2 process will be born well before Phase 1 is done, because the project will identify adjacent tasks from the first phase that are amenable to GenAI.
Taking us back to the beginning of this exploration, this means your competitive advantage will grow as you delve deeper into a type of practice, and begin to more broadly deploy GenAI. And as noted previously, the underlying GenAI technology also will be evolving and iterating, further speeding up the treadmill you now find yourself on. This may sound exhausting, so think of it this way: Once you have momentum, it will be very hard for any competitors to catch up. Which is, in itself, a good reason to get started now rather than taking the typical wait-and-see approach most lawyers use so they can more comfortably rely on precedent.
Earlier in this series, I described a predecessor paper that described how law firms should choose wisely where and how to make their GenAI investments. You now have a better picture of why, because this will be a very involved and expensive adventure.
I would also note that GenAI is the first technology I have seen that has not met with broad resistance in the legal industry. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Firms are pressuring their COOs and CIOs to stay on the front edge of this technology.
It is coming — and it’s more a matter of which law firms and corporate law departments will make sound business decisions and strategic choices around their Gen AI programs. Those that do will possess tremendous advantages against their peers in the market, and they will reap the rewards for that.
This is the last in a series of three blog posts about how best you can build your legal practice’s AI future.
