Law offices have recently been “blessed” with a deluge of new tools that make working smart radically easier. How can that not be good news?
Feeding the Dog
Many years ago, I heard that the law office of the future would consist of a lawyer, a computer and a dog.
The computer is there to greet clients, interview them, do legal research and analysis, prepare documents, negotiate with counterparties, and argue before decision-makers.
The dog is there to keep the lawyer away from the computer.
And the lawyer is there to feed the dog.
(The last two kinda cancel out each other. But who doesn’t like dogs?)
Working Smart
You’ve heard the slogan “work smarter, not harder.” Seems wise.
The basic idea is to use tools and methods that let you accomplish desired results with optimal effectiveness while avoiding unnecessary wear and tear on humans. Minimize wasted effort.
Some have written books about this, including me. Mine, titled “The Lawyer’s Guide to Working Smarter With Knowledge Tools,” focuses on how legal professionals can leverage knowledge tools like artificial intelligence to work smarter.
In addition to the technology, my book covers the attitudinal and methodological aspects.
An Example
I once helped a large New York law firm automate part of its municipal finance practice. The pre-existing process was something like this: Clients would call or fax in a term sheet with the desired parameters for a financing, e.g., to build a new fire station or high school. The relationship partner would clarify the plan, recall recent similar transactions, and assign an associate to draft the needed documentation. The associate would dig out the relevant previous paperwork, mark it up with changes for the current client, and pass it to “word processing.” (This was a while ago!)
After a couple of iterations of corrections and additions, the work product would make its way up the chain, and the documents would eventually be executed and filed. A day or two of elapsed time would pass, and eight or so hours of time would be billed.
Using mainstream document automation software, I produced a little system that compressed this process into about half an hour. Answer a few questions and instantly generate all the needed agreements, certifications and so forth. Not only was it easy and fast, but it avoided the accidental remnants of prior transactional details someone forgot to “replace” in the executed examples I saw.
Smart. Less hard.
New Friends
Law offices have recently been “blessed” with a deluge of new tools that make working smart radically easier. Our machines have all kinds of new cognitive skills (the blue ones below).
How can this not be good news?
Let’s consider the downsides of all of these new tools. Here are 10.
Oh No! The Downsides
- The rewrites! If you happen to have updated a book about advanced legal technology before the end of 2022, without any mention of generative AI, you’re gonna need to do yet another edition. (This one is personal.)
- Speed is not your friend if you bill by the hour. And if your billings are decimated, how will you finance new expenses for subscriptions, training and support?
- You’ll likely need to engineer new billing and compensation systems. Is it time to let go of time? (There goes the pyramid!)
- If we delegate all the grunt work to machines, how will we train associates?
- Easier is not necessarily better. (Mechanical misinformation and confabulation present quality pitfalls.)
- Your competitors can also work smart, so any strategic advantage of your doing may be short-lived. (Get ready to “Dance With Cognitive Exoskeletons.”)
- We’re all susceptible to innovation fatigue. Only so much tool churn can be sustained.
- If we give machines all the easy work, that means more hard work for us humans. We’ll need to learn new skills. There will be new “people” to supervise.
- We’ll face a deluge of machine-generated content. More than machine summarization may be able to counteract.
- The flood of options for tools and methods can pose severe choice overload. And everything is changing rapidly. (I reflect on this in “Cacaphonautics: Navigating the Noise.“)
Going Meta
One answer to that last downside is to enlist tools about tools.
- There are good ones for learning about law practice tools, like the LegalTechHub and the LawNext Technology Directory.
- There are tools for selecting tools, like the choiceboxer system.
- There are also more tools for making tools (“machine tools”) than ever, many of which are low- or no-code.
(For an early look at this theme see “Knowledge Tools for Legal Knowledge Tool Makers.” Artificial Intelligence and Law, Vol. 10, pp. 295-302 (2003). With John Hokannen.)
Buckle Up! And Down
We’re often told to “Buckle up — it’s going to be a wild ride!”
Of course, we also need to buckle down and tackle the hard work in front of us.
The latest AI developments have profound implications for how law is done, how professionals are educated, and how clients are billed. Such issues have been simmering for a long time, but generative AI has brought them to a boiling point.
Don’t let the challenges I’ve itemized freak you out. Take it easy. Enjoy the ride!
Now back to work.
Ed Note: This piece began life as a keynote at the Future Lawyer conference in Boston in May 2024.
Image © iStockPhoto.com.
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