The Ideal Partnership: Combining AI And Lawyer Expertise
AI is far from infallible. How you guide AI-driven workflows, monitor AI’s performance, evaluate its output, and make all final decisions in legal matters is critical.
When I wake up, Siri gives me the day’s weather forecast, and I plan my outfits and activities accordingly. One day, while browsing online, I saw a golf club I’d been eyeing for a while. Before I scrolling away, a notification told me its price had dropped significantly. Thanks to this, I saved money and felt more confident about my purchase.
AI-driven technologies seamlessly integrate into our lives, offering relevant information and recommendations that help us make wiser daily decisions.
Legal departments can now harness the same power of AI. Lawyers fill a central role that evolves as a department’s use of AI matures. Because AI is far from infallible, how you guide AI-driven workflows, monitor AI’s performance, evaluate its output, and make all final decisions in legal matters is critical.
Generative AI In Legal Work — What’s Fact And What’s Fiction?
Foundational AI Tools Support Traditional Legal Processes
In-house lawyers are overwhelmed with legal requests, contracts, regulatory requirements, and more contracts. All these areas are where foundational AI tools can shine under your careful direction. This is how AI becomes your supportive ally at the initial adoption stage, with foundational tools complementing and enhancing traditional legal processes.
For example, legal research tools like Westlaw Edge can quickly analyze vast amounts of case law and statutes. Pinpointing relevant precedents and tailoring legal insights to specific situations saves time and provides higher levels of accuracy and consistency in legal analysis than humanly possible.
Other examples include standardized, automated contract templates and intake forms that minimize human error and ensure every document adheres to established standards. As a result, contract uniformity streamlines workflows and enhances reliability across the organization. Other foundational AI tools can review contracts for potential risks, inconsistencies, and missing clauses, and also make recommendations based on company policies, best practices, and industry standards.
Sponsored
How Transactional Lawyers Can Better Serve (And Maintain) Their Clients
Generative AI In Legal Work — What’s Fact And What’s Fiction?
AI’s Impact On Law Firms Of Every Size
AI’s Impact On Law Firms Of Every Size
Risks Involve Over-Reliance On AI And Data Quality
However, blindly accepting AI outputs and recommendations without human analysis can lead to inaccurate legal advice and misinformed decisions. Stay mindful that a risk of errors or biases is always possible in the algorithms that power AI systems, making it vital to validate and verify their outputs.
Also, be vigilant about data quality and reliability. Know where AI derives data and ensure its sources are unbiased, accurate, and reputable. Potential biases in AI training data can negatively influence AI decision-making processes. Thoroughly vet data sources to mitigate the risk of relying on flawed or misleading information.
Test, Validate, Verify, And Focus On Accountability
AI can suggest, recommend, or advise, but the ultimate responsibility for legal decisions rests squarely on your human shoulders. AI is a tool to enhance your decision-making processes, not one that replaces your legal analysis and reasoning. From the foundational stage of AI adoption forward, you must exercise your professional judgment and legal expertise to critically evaluate AI outputs, keeping legal and ethical obligations in mind.
Sponsored
Law Firms Now Have A Choice In Their Document Comparison Software
The Business Case For AI At Your Law Firm
Regularly compare the accuracy of AI-generated insights with results from traditional methods to evaluate an AI system’s effectiveness and assess its strengths and limitations. Also, consider quantifying the time saved in routine legal tasks after integrating AI to tangibly measure AI’s benefits. A data-driven approach helps to inform future decisions on technology integration and resource allocation.
Just as Siri and other AI-driven technologies have transformed our personal lives by providing relevant information and recommendations, the same can be true for AI systems and in-house lawyers. Embracing foundational AI technologies helps enhance your department’s productivity, accuracy, and decision-making capabilities. The future of law lies in harnessing AI to drive innovation and efficiency, ultimately benefiting legal professionals and the organizations they serve. We can all work better together when everyone knows whether to stay inside out of the rain or make hay while the sun shines.
Olga V. Mack is the VP at LexisNexis and CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. She founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat, Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security, and Blockchain Value: Transforming Business Models, Society, and Communities. She is working on Visual IQ for Lawyers, her next book (ABA 2023). You can follow Olga on Twitter @olgavmack.
