Personal injury law: How to win more cases with artificial intelligence
US firms are embracing AI to boost their competitive edge and redefine their limits
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By Lucy Saddleton, Managing Editor, ADB Insights
The legal landscape in the US is constantly being reinvented to align with societal shifts, technological advances and market dynamics. Forward-thinking personal injury law firms are increasingly innovating and implementing artificial intelligence to stay ahead of the competition and boost the bottom line in a saturated market.
AI technology allows legal teams to work more efficiently, and deliver high-quality results to their clients, ultimately redefining what's possible in legal practice.
Leading players in the personal injury space from across the US convened at the Legal Innovation Forum’s recent webinar, Personal injury law: How to win more cases with AI, to discuss the transformative potential of AI and to reveal how they are using it to uncover critical insights and ultimately win more cases.
Panelists agreed that client communication is key when it comes to implementing an AI strategy within the firm.
COMMUNICATION
Matt McCarren, Director of Business Affairs, Bey & Associates
“As a society, people want results immediately and they want information, and it all has to be smartphone compatible, which is a big change I've seen over the last five years,” said Matt McCarren, chief operating officer at Georgia-based Bey & Associates.
The team at Bey uses case management software to send templated SMS messages directly to the client as each case progresses, and to file client responses, McCarren said. They are also experimenting with making videos of attorneys talking about the different stages of litigation.
Allowing AI to take on some of the more repetitive tasks frees up time for lawyers to focus on relationship building, McCarren added.
Ryan McCollum, personal injury and mass tort attorney at North Carolina-based Whitley Law Firm noted that personal injury is a uniquely personal practice area, as many clients are experiencing the justice system for the first time.
“For the vast majority of my clients, I'm the only attorney they've ever worked with,” said McCollum. “They don't have a profound or even, in many cases, a basic understanding of how the legal system works, so we need to go out of our way to guide them through this process, and manage their expectations throughout.”
Ryan McCollum, Personal Injury & Mass Tort Attorney, Whitley Law Firm
Panelists agreed that clients are not only looking for instant gratification, but they also demand a human connection - particularly with regard to the intake process.
Edward Kirk, Head of Partnerships, Supio
“People want to have that immediate conversation with a human, to get a sense of whether they can trust the firm they're dealing with,” said Edward Kirk, head of partnerships at Supio - an AI platform focused on helping personal injury firms by reviewing, extracting and organizing medical data.
STAFFING CHALLENGES
While pandemic-driven technology can help firms to solve staffing challenges with regard to geographic reach, new AI models add another layer in terms of simplifying tasks.
“We're in a very rural area so finding people who are capable of performing job duties at a more advanced level is extremely difficult,” said Amber Fernatt, senior paralegal and pre-litigation manager at the Northern California-based Law Offices of J. Chrisp. “Having AI allows us to hire more entry-level people able to take on tasks that they may not have been able to do without having the use of AI,” she added.
Kirk agreed that AI can standardize processes to improve the quality of staffing. For example, Supio’s technology will generate timeline summaries and help with case review, thereby simplifying processes for staff.
EXPERT WITNESSES
Amber Fernatt, Senior Paralegal & Pre-Litigation Manager, Law Offices of J.CHRISP
Using AI to summarize records makes experts better at doing their job despite the potential for fewer billing hours, according to McCarren.
“When the records are just dumped in mass in a Dropbox file, the experts don't want to deal with that,” said McCarren. “They're going to want the records organized and summarized so that they can be effective in their job because if they're not able to give us a result, we're never going to call them again. I don't think we're gonna get much pushback from the experts,” he said.
Kirk agreed, adding that AI-enhanced experts can use the Supio platform to access the case timeline, ask questions about it, and cross reference against the source document.
“Many experts have told me that they charge more if they're spending time in the drudgery of these documents, like trying to navigate a Dropbox file, and nobody wants that, so I think they're far happier,” said Kirk.
TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIAL
While cost-cutting is a significant benefit, the transformative potential of AI goes far beyond the obvious financial advantage, according to our panelists.
“In my opinion, AI today is the biggest advancement that law firms will see since email was introduced over 30 years ago,” said Kirk. “I see it as a paradigm shift in the way we practice.” In fact, Supio’s technology can help simplify numerous tasks such as organizing records and creating summaries, records and digital medical timelines that can be easily navigated.
“As we go forward, and we're learning more about this technology, what it really can help with is helping us to spot issues in cases,” Kirk added.
As a paralegal, Fernatt finds AI to be a tremendous help with trial preparation due to its ability to quickly identify the required treatment, as opposed to waiting for a human being to examine medical records.
“Having the ability to see trends and symptoms throughout those medical records early on is helpful in being able to build that case from the very beginning,” said Fernatt. Rather than going through thousands of pages of medical records and putting them in chronological order in a binder for the attorney to examine, Fernatt now uses AI to export records in the correct order, saving a considerable amount of time.
McCollum noted that AI has allowed his firm to take on smaller cases and files that previously may not have been seen as financially viable in terms of the number of hours of work required.
“If we can generate medical summaries instantaneously and analyze those summaries and those records in a few hours, then it makes economic sense to take those on,” said McCollum. “It's as simple as requesting the medical records. and having the AI do the legwork on the factual analysis because those types of cases aren't legally complex. It just doesn't make much economic sense to take them on if you're dumping 10 or 20 man hours to make a couple of thousand dollars in the backend,” he added.
Reducing the timeline of a case also makes for a better business model, and a happier client, according to McCarren. Bey & Associates is also experimenting with using Supio for the screening process with complex medical malpractice or mass tort cases.
“It's labor and time intensive and costly to screen a medical malpractice case with voluminous records that have to be summarized,” said McCarren. Rather than paying an expert to spend hours looking through records, the firm provides the expert with the Supio account login details to significantly speed up the review process.
From a paralegal’s perspective, Fernatt uses Supio to isolate specific records when she is preparing an attorney for depositions of an expert.
AI can reduce repetitive tasks for the paralegal, making the job more enjoyable, and thus helping firms to attract and retain talent.
“Taking away some of those very time consuming tedious tasks definitely makes the job more enticing because it allows me to do things that I enjoy,” said Fernatt. However, AI will not replace humans in law firms, in Fernatt’s opinion, because the human eye is still needed to review and analyze data.
McCarren agreed. While AI reduces timelines and minimizes human errors, he said: “I don't see it replacing the practice of law, it's more like a tool that allows you to understand the damages that your clients are dealing with faster and more efficiently.”
With the constant evolution and refinement of generative AI models, the potential to transform the personal injury space is limitless. Supio stays close to partner firms to understand how they are using the technology, while also running standardized prompts through medical records to highlight issues and insights in cases.
“We started to learn more about how we can mine and leverage the use of this technology to find other ways to reduce pain points in their practice,” said Kirk.
The webinar was chaired by Andrew Bowyer, CEO and founder of ADB Insights.