How is generative AI disrupting legal workflows?

In a recent episode of the Legal Talk podcast, Belle Jing, Partner-Marque Lawyers, and Katherine Llewellyn, Executive Director, Practical Guidance, LexisNexis®, discuss the transformative impact of generative AI on legal workflows and the evolution of existing roles and the emergence of new ones as organisations prepare to navigate this technological shift. This blog post unpacks some key points of the discussion. To listen to the full episode click here.

It goes without saying that being a lawyer involves all sorts of different tasks. But what those tasks have in common is that they all take up a lot of time and brainpower. Every day, lawyers have to go through a tonne of information, often doing the same things over and over again - and this is all before we get to the big-picture strategising that's involved. This is where AI is shaping up to be a game-changer in the legal industry. “It's like having a super-smart assistant that can crunch through data, make predictions and help us make decisions, and generate deliverables that are specific to the audience,” says Belle Jing, Partner in the Corporate group at Marque Lawyers and AI enthusiast. “And it does it much faster than a person could do it on their own.”

As AI continues to surge into industries across the globe, awareness of its capabilities and nuances is growing quickly. But while the focus stays firmly on Large Language Models and the Geminis, Claudes, and GPTs of the world, there are actually a number of different AI types that can be of assistance. Some learn by themselves using algorithms, others need input from humans. In the legal field, the most advanced AI products that are available at the moment are Natural Language Processing tools. “They help us do the research faster and more accurately by understanding how we think and speak, and then sifting through seas of data to find - hopefully - what we really need,” says Belle.

“To me, the more exciting part of AI technology is Machine Learning,” she continues. “It's like teaching computers to learn on their own without us telling them what to do. And it could really revolutionise the analytical aspects of legal practice. But for that to work in law, we really need good data. If the data is bad, the results will be too.”

There are also expert systems. These are programmes that mimic human decision-making by following a set of rules to solve particular problems. Currently, their capabilities are limited; they need a lot of human involvement to determine what data to process, what rules to apply, and then what decisions will flow. But in time, they could really transform how legal advice is generated, especially when combined with the other AI technologies such as Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning as they mature.

When it comes to the application of AI in the legal industry, some commonly performed tasks lend themselves well to AI. Legal research is undoubtedly one of the most prominent because it pervades all areas of law. AI has the potential to change the way lawyers conduct research. Legal research has until now relied on humans to input search terms that hopefully match the language that the courts or the legislatures had used. However, AI can understand human thinking in a way that predicts what outcomes they are after – enabling it to not only sift through large volumes of information, but to actually get to the core of the issue under consideration.

“Litigation and Corporate are probably the most obvious areas of law, outside of legal research, where AI can seriously speed things up,” says Belle. “There are tools now claiming that they can handle tasks like discovery and due diligence and preparing chronologies, even improving the wording of documents based on what the court authorities say; and sometimes preparing legal documents such as motions, advices, and the like.’ Tools like this stand to create significant time savings for lawyers, moving the whole profession towards the elusive work-life balance that has been a talking point for so many years.

“One of my partners joked the other day that when she saw the chronology function of one of the new tools out there, she said, ‘Look, I will give a kidney right now for that tool.’” says Belle. “So that gives you a sense of how much impact AI technologies can have for law firms now and into the future.”

It’s also important to remember in these conversations that AI in the legal industry isn't only for legal tasks. It can help in other areas, like budgeting or recruitment and employee training, even marketing initiatives.

But while the promise of AI is huge, like any emerging technology, it should be implemented with a degree of caution. And particularly in law, there are precautions that should be taken to ensure that AI is being used responsibly. One of the biggest things is making sure that the data that AI is using is reliable. There have been prominent cases in the US where lawyers have relied on AI for research and cited cases that didn't exist, and then got into trouble for misleading the court. This is an important reminder that lawyers are ultimately held accountable for the advice that they give and the documents they create. Lawyers need to hold themselves to the same high standard of care that they've always been held to and accept AI as a tool to be wielded - not a solution in and of itself.

For Belle, one of the most valuable aspects of AI is its ability to reduce the mundane and repetitive nature of legal practice, freeing up lawyers to focus on the finer skills of law. “No matter how much AI we bring into the legal field, we're still in a business where understanding and connecting with others, whether they be our clients or our colleagues, is key,” she says. “Even if AI can act super smart, we humans are still best placed to understand each other. That's why things like communication skills, interpersonal skills, collaboration, negotiation, will be just as important, if not more important for lawyers in the future, as that's what will differentiate us.”

“When it comes to substantive law, we need to keep honing those critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and the ability to make good judgement calls. AI does not replace human intelligence, it simply enhances it, but to achieve the excellent results that you're after, your ideas, and the way you express them still have to be excellent as well.”

Belle compares her approach to AI to her approach to a junior lawyer. It is something you have to train - the more practice you have, the more interactions, the better - but it must be mindfully and purposefully incorporated into your team. If you approach it that way, there will always be a role for human lawyers, and it will just be made all that much better because of the clear benefit of having technology on your side.

A common truth for lawyers (as with professionals in many industries) is that so much of the day-to-day work is not actually adding value to the client experience. And in law specifically, clients are becoming increasingly sophisticated and want their legal teams, external legal teams to act more as a business partner, and be providing that commercial view as well. In that way, AI stands to seriously revolutionise things - a prospect Belle is excited about. “I'm a keen advocate because I can see so much benefit in just removing a lot of the more taxing tasks that do not require human brainpower,” she says. “That will then leave us to really do the value accretive things that really matter to our clients and our staff.

Stay tuned as we explore more of the key issues and opportunities around generative AI in the legal profession in the Legal Talk podcast series.