Over the last few months, I’ve had the privilege of hosting candid, practical and real discussions on legal AI. We’ve gone global, regional and local with these discussions. I’ve been immersed in the local ones in Australia this month as part of our Impact of Legal GenAI on Legal Practice Roundtables. These have been in person sessions and involved all stakeholders in the legal ecosystem.

We’ll be publishing key takeaways from all of these sessions soon (once they conclude later this month) but there are two (of many) themes we’ve discussed and have also hit the media this past week or so:

1. We need to develop methodologies and frameworks for assessing legal AI so we move beyond scepticism and defending the status quo to understanding the tech and integrating it into what we do and how we do it.

What does that mean? Many in legal are still grappling with the fundamentals of AI like terminology, functionality, and application. We need to do more and we need to do it now! To clarify, I’m not suggesting lawyers should panic or seek to become AI experts. What I am saying is we can’t ignore it, our clients are not ignoring it, our competitors are not ignoring it, and no one will be able to afford to work with us if we don’t use it (where we should). And, lawyers don’t need to be AI experts but they do need to be able to identify them and collaborate with them to provide solutions. BTW…those experts may already be working in your firm or organisation. It’s important, really important, that the legal industry does not get left behind.

Other professional services get this. As Steve Hasker, President and CEO of Thomson Reuters (TR) noted following the release of TR’s second annual Future of Professionals Report (9 July): “Professionals no longer need to speculate on the potential for AI to impact their work as they are now witnessing its effects firsthand.” Legal needs to be in experimentation mode now – that means already understanding fundamentals and working on the use cases – those well into the journey, inside and outside legal, are already focussing on metrics and a redefinition of value (See Bain & Company, Quarterly Executive Survey on AI - AI Survey: Four Themes Emerging, 20 June 2024).

So where do methodologies and frameworks fit into all of this? They help map the journey, customise it, and guide good decision making – they’re part of the process to identify pain points and solutions before a decision is made to or not to build, buy, or modify any tech. They also help ensure users understand the tech issues and can help determine if it should be integrated into the solution.

We’ve seen examples of both in the last month:

• The Ashurst Vox Populai: Lessons from a global law firm's exploration of generative AI (10 June) detailed the methodology used by the firm in three global GenAI trials to assess “how people would engage with and find value in GenAI.” Tara Waters spoke a about this in CLI’s Legal GenAI Around the World series: Europe and UK video and podcast (18 June).

• Tycho Orton (Artificial Lawyer, 11 July 2024) reported that tech vendors like Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis had expressed willingness to develop frameworks to “evaluate legal AI and its typology of error causes.” Frameworks founded in transparency inevitably make for better use and application of the tech with the additional, consequent and important benefit of improving trust and better risk management.

2. Digital literacy cannot be delegated.

This theme is intricately connected to the first…every person, in every role, at every experience level in every firm or organisation needs to acquire knowledge, understanding, and apply the tech in one form or another. Legal work – how we conceive it, how we do it, where and why it is done - is changing for everyone. The depth, breath, and scale of the education required to build these capabilities is unprecedented.

It’s also why tech education/training/learning/experience sharing needs to be at the core of every business and AI strategy, well-funded, and integrated into every capability map for everyone in a firm or organisation. Why? Because if people can’t access or don’t know how to use the tech, they can’t identify use cases, they won’t use it and you won’t realize a return on your investment in it! It seems simple, right? So, we’re about half way through or just started a new financial year (depending on where you are in the world) and my parting question is this…

How have you prioritised, dedicated time, made mandatory, funded or otherwise resourced tech focussed capability development at scale in your firm or organisation this year?

Terri Mottershead
Executive Director
Centre for Legal Innovation at the College of Law