A moment like no other: Law firm leaders discuss AI’s impact on the legal profession

November 02, 2023

As if the past few years of disruptive events were not enough to challenge the status quo, the introduction of widely available predictive Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) are poised to wreak havoc on the legal profession. Williams Lea CEO Clare Hart joined a panel of law firm leaders and technology experts at Sandpiper Partners’ Seventh Annual Disruption and Innovation in the Delivery of Legal Services Conference for a timely discussion on the impact of AI on the law, lawyers and law firms.

Here are the top takeaways from the event:

The AI transformation will be a bumpy journey, but firms who get it right will have a market advantage

“We are at the beginning, of the beginning of the beginning,” a partner of a large global law firm opined in their opening remarks. While all agreed that AI is, and will continue, to transform the legal profession, when and how was open to debate.

“AI is a different level of transformative technology,” said one law firm leader. “Instead of technology to help us work, this technology promises to do the work for us. This will have a ripple effect on how we manage ourselves, our firms and our work,” they added.

Clare Hart, Williams Lea’s CEO, expanded, “Generative AI allows us to finally see the day when internal and external data can be searched safely and simultaneously. Rapid access to detailed and specific information will allow lawyers to allocate their time to focus on more strategic activities.” Another panelist expressed a more conservative view: “AI will do good things in the medium and long term, but in the next six months to two years it will be a frustrating time, where the level of hype will not match the reality.” They added, “Today’s AI solutions are half-measures, that are not yet delivering on the full promise of AI.” However, even those expressing less optimism regarding the transformative promise of AI and the pace of change agreed that firms that don’t embrace AI will be left behind.

Today’s AI products improve efficiency but don’t replace human judgement

The session included several real-time demonstrations of emerging AI platforms including OpenAI backed Harvey and Thomson Reuters Precision, two built-for-purpose technology solutions that can query existing data sets. Both models use AI-assisted research to enable users to ask questions in conversational language and quickly receive synthesized and sourced answers. Thomson Reuters Precision draws from Westlaw’s content from across statutes, cases, and regulations to quickly resolve queries that used to take hours. Harvey is designed as a firm-specific solution that can provide AI-assisted queries of data behind a firm’s firewall.

The panelists agreed that based on the solutions that are in-place today, a human-in-the-loop approach will be needed on the front end and/or potentially the back end of AI-supported products to build and query models and to quality check the work. “AI assisted research gives you a much better starting point,” said one panelist. “It will accelerate research but will not [today] interpret the results.”

AI progress looks promising, but whether AI replaces or displaces talent remains unresolved

Whether AI replaces or merely displaces law firm talent is yet to be determined but it will likely impact new associate training and development. The tolerance for big law’s protracted apprenticeship model has already started to wane, with clients pushing back on fees for first and second-year associates’ work. Now, if AI is adding efficiency to those rote processes, associates will have to manage a new and faster learning curve, one that potentially uses the AI output quality checking process to gain back some of that experiential learning. The panel addressed the potential tension this might pose for younger associates, who, as one law firm leader said, “are likely the most comfortable using AI technology, but likely the least equipped to evaluate that AI’s output.” Gaining comfort and competency using AI is essential to lawyers’ development or, as Clare Hart opined, “AI won’t take your job… someone who understands how to use AI will.”

The AI of today won’t be the AI of tomorrow and firms should plan accordingly

Typically, technological transformation takes decades, even generations. This isn’t the case with AI, which is changing at an unprecedented pace, gaining scale exponentially and improving at an equally impressive rate. In three to five years, the challenges that are most prevalent in today’s AI solutions won’t necessarily exist.  Said one panelist, “In five years the technology is going to be better than humans in many areas, the quality of the models, the search refinement capabilities and the data sets will all have significantly improved. Law firm leaders need to confront this reality and create [and fund] strategies now.” These investment strategies need to include data and tech infrastructure but also hiring practices, training and development programs and real estate footprint.

There are still more questions than answers regarding AI’s potential impact on the legal profession. However, firms that don’t embrace AI in the short term and embed AI in their strategies will find themselves at the back of the pack.  Learn more about AI’s influence on the future of the legal workplace to stay abreast of the factors constantly shaping the industry.