ON THE GROUND WITH GENERATIVE AI
preparing for the rise and transformational potential of gen ai
By Lucy Saddleton, Managing Editor, ADB Insights
More than 150 attendees joined the Legal Innovation Forum’s fifth annual forum in Vancouver last month for a series of insightful panel discussions on the most pressing topics on the minds of legal professionals, including generative AI, digital risk, the human equation, strategy & operations, and the new business of law.
Our opening panel shone a light on the unprecedented disruption currently facing the legal ecosystem as new generative AI technologies emerge, offering enhanced capabilities and time-saving advantages across sectors - and potentially transforming the operating structure of the legal ecosystem.
Our expert speakers discussed the importance of having policies and guardrails in place around the use of Gen AI, and the need for cross-collaboration between departments, involving cross-functional committees.
They also explored the ways in which Gen AI is poised to change the structure of the legal ecosystem, as relationships between law firms, legal departments and legal service providers start to shift.
“I foresee a shift away from traditional organizational structures in law firms,” said Danielle Gifford, director of AI at PwC. “The hierarchical model will evolve to become more flexible and cooperative, so firms will need to be adaptable.”
Danielle Gifford, Director of AI, PwC
While all our panelists agreed that generative AI will be hugely disruptive, some felt that billing structures in law firms will be slow to change, potentially creating challenges.
Ryan Black, Partner, DLA Piper
“Canadian law firms in particular are about the most resistant to systemic change as any organization has ever seen,” said Ryan Black, a partner at DLA Piper. As AI frees up time and allows tasks to be completed far more quickly, the idea of a billable hour becomes increasingly antiquated, in Black’s view.
“The model has to change, and we have to think about how we're going to do that,” said Black. He fears that lawyers will continue to leverage the hourly model, and use their free time to bill more instead of seeking ways to provide better value for clients.
Black also voiced concerns that articling students will have fewer opportunities for much-needed human mentorship.
Michael McGinn, senior manager, artificial intelligence solutions at Fasken agreed, noting that the billable hour is still increasing in US law firms.
Michael McGinn, Sr Manager - AI Solutions, Fasken
“It's not about more billable hours. It's about training those lawyers and having more free time to learn and communicate the human side of that institutional knowledge that the AI will not be able to address in the future,” said McGinn.
While Canada previously lagged significantly behind the US with new AI product launches, the gap is starting to close, offering more opportunities for Canadian firms to catch up to their US counterparts and take advantage of new innovation and efficiency-building tools. LexisNexis is helping firms to leverage their own content, for example.
Felix Evans, Sr Sales manager, LexisNexis
“What we've seen with generative AI is the ability to leverage content in a completely different way,” said Felix Evans, senior sales manager at LexisNexis. “Whereas before, the content was the starting point, I think now the workflow and the work product will be the start point of what is being produced, with the content underlying that.”
Through Gen AI, lawyers will be able to access proprietary Language Model content, as well as the firm's own content, which can be used for many different tasks.
“It's really about meeting lawyers where they are in terms of the tools and places that they are already working in, and helping them to generate work products,” added Evans.
Black noted that “walled gardens” are likely to become increasingly important at law firms as untapped data can be used to create long-term growth for AI tools. Tools such as LexisNexis will allow firms to turn that “walled garden” of data into a format that allows it to be leveraged by everyone at the firm in order to improve their work.
“That's going to be the huge differentiator. Only your firm will be able to take the stuff that's in your firm's knowledge and put it into a product,” said Black.
Speakers agreed that a top-down approach is key for firms and legal departments as they formulate a flexible and innovative AI strategy. As Black stated, lawyers need to overcome their fears and start using AI as it is set to become “as ubiquitous as electricity, internet or email.” Education is essential to demystify AI tools and ensure an understanding of how they can be used to benefit different parts of the business.
Budget considerations are also important for firms and legal departments as they explore AI tools available to them.
“It's not cheap. It's very much like a strategic investment, so you want to really try and understand how much money you want to put forward to this,” said Gifford. She emphasised that while you don’t need to be an expert on AI, it is important to work with trusted partners, and to be entrepreneurial in your approach.
McGinn agreed, adding that testing AI tools with small low-stakes administrative tasks will allow you to measure the return on investment and build trust in technology, before tackling bigger-ticket high-risk items.
McGinn also recommended being use-case driven, as opposed to just buying the latest technology product on the market.
In-house teams and smaller firms that are just beginning their AI journey should focus on collaboration, McGinn advised.
“You need to break down those silos of not only practice groups, but also operational teams and the lawyers themselves, and get them all in the room to work together,” said McGinn. “We’ve had very successful initiatives come out of literally having practice groups sitting in with us, focusing on these technologies with business development, for example, to come up with some really interesting, innovative ideas of how to utilize this technology appropriately.”
When selecting a vendor, be sure to find out their policies around data security and privacy, and how their models are trained, Evans advised.
“What are they doing with your data? Where is it stored? Some questions may be more important to you and your use cases than others, but these are questions that at the end of the day, any vendor that you work with should be able to answer,” Evans said.
Gifford added: “If you're not paying for a product, you are the product, so everything that you're putting into a system - whether it be ChatGPT Perplexity or another system - if you're not paying for it, you can assume all of that information is being used to train.”
Stay tuned for details about the Legal Innovation Forum’s six-part Generative AI Masterclass series, coming in 2025.