Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace

The emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) tools specifically designed for the legal profession has touched off an important discussion about a lawyer’s duty of technology competence. Any practicing lawyer who is hesitant to embrace Gen AI would be well-served to take note of the arguments being made by the early adopters of this breakthrough technology.

With limited exceptions, 40 states have adopted Comment 8 to Rule 1.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, which says that “to maintain the requisite knowledge and skill, a lawyer should keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.” This requirement establishes that lawyers have an ethical duty to be professionally competent with the use of technology in the practice of law.

Some industry experts suggest that the “technology competence” mandate creates an ethical duty for lawyers to embrace AI in their practices. They note there was a time when email, computer-assisted research, and document redaction were considered novel — so perhaps AI is simply the latest example of a technology that is on its way to becoming standard practice in the profession.

• Moreover, consider two other ethical considerations:
  ABA Model Rule 1.5, which requires a lawyer’s fees to be reasonable, could be implicated by lawyers who decline to adopt new AI tools that materially reduce the costs of providing legal services, according to an ABA Journal article.
• ABA Model Rule 1.3, which requires a lawyer to act with reasonable diligence and promptness in client matters, could be relevant if a lawyer refuses to deploy an AI solution that drives efficiencies in court filings or contract negotiations.

The early adopters of Legal AI tools have avoided these potential ethical conundrums by embracing Gen AI technology in a deliberate manner that captures the upside of these tools developed specifically for the legal domain, while mitigating the potential risks associated with the first generation of the “open Web” Gen AI tools, such as ChatGPT.

Lexis+ AI is our breakthrough Gen AI platform that we believe will transform legal work by providing a suite of legal research, drafting, and summarization tools that delivers on the potential of Gen AI technology.

Here are some of the specific ways that Lexis+ AI is enabling the early adopters of this platform to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace by delivering faster and better outcomes for their clients:

• AI That Cites Its Sources
  Our work with extractive AI laid the foundation for our work with Gen AI products and features. Lexis+ AI leverages the strong foundation we have in extractive AI to feed these large language models with the best possible information. Better information means better and more reliable generative outputs, regardless of your research or drafting task.
• Instant Answers for Legal Questions
  Asking a legal question in Lexis+ AI feels more like engaging with a colleague than a more traditional research process. Just like a knowledgeable colleague, Lexis+ AI will frequently prompt users for clarifying information when necessary to return better and more helpful responses.
• Generate Documents That Reflect Goals and Strategies
  A lot of drafting depends on style, tone and the nuance that makes you unique as a legal professional. Lexis+ AI drafts a variety of legal documents and portions of documents, including legal arguments, memoranda, letters, emails and clauses, then is able to revise tone and respond to a host of different follow-up prompts. This includes prompting Lexis+ AI to summarize changes throughout the iterative drafting process.
• Summarize Materials Without Missing the Essentials
  Lexis+ AI’s “summarize a case” capability provides succinct, accurate overviews of specific cases. Summaries include key legal holdings, a list of relevant material facts, controlling law, the rationale of the court and the outcome of each case. Lexis+ AI will first look to see whether we’ve had an editor write a summary on the case in question but, if one doesn’t currently exist, we’re now able to generate them on the fly.
• Maximum Security for Searches
  Maintaining a high degree of security and privacy when using Gen AI products is of paramount importance, such as when using Lexis+ AI’s ability to answer legal questions or provide a summary based on a document uploaded by the user. We build all products at LexisNexis — including Lexis+ AI — with privacy and security in mind, and we recognize the imperative of maintaining attorney-client privilege.

The early adopters of Lexis+ AI are reporting tremendous gains in their day-to-day workflow, starting with extraordinary time savings. Users in large law firms report saving up to 11 hours per week using Lexis+ AI versus the current solutions they are using for various daily tasks. Across all legal segments: 88% save up to seven hours per week using Lexis+ AI to summarize case law; 80% save up to six hours per week on legal drafting; 76% save up to six hours per week on drafting client communications; and 74% save up to seven hours per week on legal research.

Early users also report satisfaction with the platform’s speed, as Lexis+ AI produces answers to legal research questions 2X faster than Westlaw. And more than nine in 10 (91%) of early adopters say that Lexis+ AI is easy to use.

Lexis+ AI pairs our unsurpassed legal content with breakthrough Gen AI technology in a way that could redefine the way that legal research is conducted and legal work product is created. Its answers are grounded in the world’s largest repository of accurate and exclusive legal content from LexisNexis with industry-leading data security and attention to privacy.

To learn more or to request a free trial of Lexis+ AI, please go to www.lexisnexis.com/ai.