In mid-2023, the legal industry was hit with the news that a New York lawyer got in trouble after what they filed cited legal cases that didn’t exist. And this was said to occur because the lawyer’s firm had used OpenAI’s ChatGPT for legal research. And that seemed to define how generative AI was dismissed by many as being ineffective or troublesome. But, is this throwing the baby with the bathwater? Could that have been an outlier case with generative AI and technology, in general, having the ability to evolve and get better? How should the legal realm look at the increasingly transformative power of technology, even more so in what’s being called “the golden age of AI”?
According to Justin North, Strategic Advisor & Founder at Pickering Pearce, “To me, what’s happening is not transformation, it’s evolution. Evolution is triggered by circumstances and a reaction has to occur due to circumstances, be it macroeconomic or societal or tech-related. While the market is transforming, the hope is that people’s skill sets transform even faster. At the moment, the legal industry is slightly dazed and confused, like a lot of other industries. And we’re at an inflexion point for technology, but I don’t think there’s cause for concern, because there’s a sophisticated client base, sophisticated tools and lawyers with evolving lawyers… It’s not just the larger institutional clients with substantial legal functions that are evolving and maturing, but it’s, also, the smaller in-house legal functions that are bringing tools in through necessity, due to a higher level of demand and expectations”.
And how could technology help law firms in 2024 and beyond?
North remarks, “There’ll be firms that would find ways to leverage technology to reduce the administrative burden on their staff… This could, also, get time back for lawyers and liberate them to be creative by taking away the burden of some tasks… In the legal service delivery area, if technology can drive productivity, that would be great. And that could be the trigger to challenge the billable hour valuable proposition that drives the legal industry… At the moment, the hope is that technology provides greater access to justice. Advances in technology shouldn’t be seen as necessarily focused on increasing margins, revenue and profits, but it should, also, be about how technology can be harnessed to give greater access to justice”.
According to Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner – Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, “I think the real changes are coming from the client’s side not just in terms of their business needs, but also the way internal legal departments are demanding services from external lawyers. The ‘more-for-less’ challenge continues to drive a lot of thinking, maybe because they’re exposed to the same tools, including AI. And the state of the competition from new-age suppliers, like the Big 4 who invest a lot in technology is causing quite a deadly cocktail. When it comes to technology, India may be coming into its own and while it may be one step behind, it has the advantage of leap-frogging as technology becomes more affordable and robust”.
Shroff remarks, “Law firms would need to add experts in terms of how they would mine AI, like prompters, which would be a whole new genre of experts. I think AI will find space in the delivery model, but I don’t think it would substitute the lawyer”.
“Tech skills are important, but one can’t get away from the fundamental skills of being a lawyer, like being analytical or having the ability to solve problems or being creative”, quips North.
Watch the full interaction here:
