Building the law firm of the future requires embracing diversity, harnessing data, and unleashing AI

October 20, 2023

The legal sector is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by changing client expectations, new technologies, and the need for greater efficiency and sustainability.

How can law firms adapt to these challenges and create a future-proof workplace that attracts talent, fosters collaboration, and delivers value to their clients? What opportunities and risks will Artificial Intelligence (AI) bring to the legal industry? These were some of the questions explored at Williams Lea’s inaugural Law Firm of the Future Symposium, hosted at Dentons office in London. The event covered a range of topics exploring the trends and challenges of reimagining the legal workplace and the role of AI in law firms and featured keynote presentations on “Reimagining the Way We Work: Digitally, Physically and Virtually” and “The Promise of AI for Law Firms.” Each keynote was followed by a panel discussion with leaders from a glittering array of leading international law firms.

Here are the top four takeaways:

Law firms need to redesign their workplace to encourage greater diversity and attract talent

In his presentation on the workplace of the future, Philip Ross, Founder and CEO of UnGroup, postulated that that to attract talent, law firms need to incorporate greater diversity in future law firm office designs, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to the workplace. He argued that diversity is not only about gender, ethnicity, and so forth, but also about cognitive diversity, different life stages, and personal preferences. Law firms should use personas and indices to understand the different needs and work styles of their employees and clients, and design workspaces that cater to them, “What strikes me is we don’t really celebrate diversity in our thinking about our new law offices,” said Philip. “Law firms embed diversity in their corporate values, but when I walk around law firms’ offices, it’s all one-size-fits-all…The rooms are the same, the lighting is the same, the experience is the same, everything’s identical. Yet when you look at diversity in its true measure, whether it’s how you identify your cognitive diversity, your neuro diversity, celebrating differences, and what you’re trying to do as a corporate value, why put people into a same size box? There is a huge opportunity in the future of work to truly celebrate diversity and create workspaces that allow choice.” He also advocated for the use of data and evidence to inform decision making, and to measure the impact of workplace interventions on performance, well-being, and collaboration. He said: “We need to be much better at data and evidence. We can now measure what’s happening in meetings. Law firms can look at not just what kind of room, but that room sentiment, the number of people, temperature, humidity, and how a meeting is performing, and who’s contributed. There’s a whole range of interesting datasets… and the way that we’re going to sense the office environment will be huge.”

Data and technology will help drive better in-office, virtual and hybrid working experiences

During the first discussion on reimagining the way law firms work, the panelists agreed that having reliable and user-friendly technology is essential for connecting and collaborating with in-office staff, remote workers and clients. They also highlighted the value of using data and staff feedback to inform their decisions on how to shape their office and monitor workplace changes. One panelist, who is spearheading the move of a major global law firm’s London office, explained how data is playing a big part in delivering an optimally designed workplace, “We’re busy collecting data. We are really digging into our occupancy data and how we’re using what we have today in terms of our amenities, our gym, our canteen, as well as our conference rooms. We want to make sure that when we move into our beautiful new home, have right-sized rooms, are taking advantage of new technology, making sure that it’s the right mix for us, and just keeping that flexibility going forward with how we use our space.”

Another top law firm recently moved its Bristol office to one of the most sustainable office buildings in the UK. The Chief Operating Officer of the firm spoke of the importance of designing a workplace that would delight staff: “The key message has been that to bring people back into the office, you’ve got to produce an office environment in which they want to be in. We spent a lot of time talking to our staff about what they were looking for. Sustainability is a key driver, as well as collaborative working and having different work environments for different people. So, when our people get to the office, it’s worth the effort to get there. That’s far easier than telling lawyers they just have to come to the office.”

Denise Reid, Global Managing Director at Williams Lea, added “We’re supporting what law firms go through when reimagining what their offices will look like, and what that could mean for our business support services. We are helping many of our clients make data driven decisions to determine what services need to be on site, what services could be at another lower cost location, or indeed, hybrid working. A lot more Williams Lea colleagues are now working remotely for many of our clients. Considering that pre-pandemic most of our teams were still working in our clients’ offices, that’s been a big change for us. But we’re using data to make sure that we’ve got the right support staff in the right place, and we’re also helping our clients to reimagine some of the support services that are in the office.”

Embrace AI as a powerful tool for legal work, but not as a replacement for human legal expertise

AI is no longer a futuristic concept, but a present reality that is reshaping the way law firms operate and deliver value to their clients, as Matt Leach, Technology Strategist for the Legal Sector at Microsoft, pointed out when presenting on the latest developments and opportunities of AI for the legal sector. The large language models (LLMs) within AI that can understand and generate human language can improve efficiency, productivity, accuracy, and customer satisfaction, as well as create new services and revenue streams. AI can now be used for chatbots, document analysis, transcriptions, report generation, content creation, and more. Although there are some risks and barriers, such as security concerns and resistance to AI, law firm leaders should embrace AI and explore its potential, while also being mindful of its limitations and implications. He said, “There is a lot of concern around AI… but there’s probably more risk to not using it because everyone else will.”

AI is set to transform the way law firms work, “I don’t think we’ve seen a change like this since the release of the internet, or Google search. There is so much momentum behind it,” said Matt. However, he also emphasized that despite its advantages, it will not be a replacement for human expertise and judgement: “AI is brilliant. It can speed you up. You can do a lot with it, but is it ever going to replace you? I highly doubt that within my lifetime… When calculators were invented, accountants didn’t all get made redundant. They just learned to use them and got a lot faster.”

Law firms are already launching AI tools while training staff on how to use AI effectively and responsibly

During the panel discussion on AI’s opportunities, risks, and challenges for law firms, the speakers discussed how AI was affecting law firm staff, and how they were managing its cultural and ethical implications. “We needed to establish guardrails and parameters,” said Nick Morgan, Chief Technology Officer at Williams Lea, when talking about Williams Lea’s approach to effectively enabling AI. “Firstly, we put a policy in place, then we created an awareness campaign. We wanted to make people comfortable with AI because the services we offer will absolutely be disrupted and we want to be the people that can help shape that disruption rather than just let it happen to us. We could only do that by getting our people on board.”

Another panelist who heads up innovation and legal technology at a multinational law firm said they took a similar approach: “When Chat-GPT came out 11 months ago, we saw all our partners and lawyers using it. We very much agreed that (Chat-GPT) isn’t a no, and we shouldn’t stop people from using it. The genie’s out of the bottle and people are already using it, so let’s provide some guidelines around it.”

Another law firm leader on the panel added that they too had to overcome concerns, “We wrestled with all the risks and concerns around Chat-GPT. My personal view, which we ended up adopting, was let’s just put those to one side because it’s here and we need to get on with it. So that’s what we did, and we found some safe ways of doing that.”

Law firm leaders on the panel described how they have quickly innovated with AI to help their staff and clients, while being careful not to compromise on any confidential data. One law firm formed an AI steering committee in early 2023 and recently rolled out their own bespoke AI interface using GPT-4 from Azure which allows their lawyers to chat with AI and get answers and guidance on various legal topics and documents. “We now have 1500 people with our AI interface on their desktops…because it’s in Azure, it’s safer for clients, which is a big differentiator,” pointed out the panelist, an innovation leader at a global law firm. At around the same time, another leading law firm launched their own GPT tool, which they use for various use cases such as legal research, reviewing contracts, and drafting, while another law firm leader on the panel talked about the launch of their own internal system, which uses Chat-GPT to answer questions about the firm’s policies and procedures, and this was launched on the back of a winning idea from an in-house competition, and has freed up valuable time for staff. “What we have seen is a big drop in the contacts coming in to our teams because people are now asking our tool the question rather than trying to contact someone in HR or finance.” Said the panelist, “So, from that perspective, it’s delivering on the problem statements.”

The panelists also stressed the need to educate and raise awareness among their clients and employees about the myths and realities of generative AI, and to make them comfortable and confident with using it. “We very much found there were certain use cases that worked for certain tools,” a law firm leader said. “Everyone says legal research is the best use tool for lots of use cases for large language models. Right now, if you don’t point it to the right information, it will make things up. The answer can be amazingly written, perfectly plausible, yet totally wrong. But if you feed it the actual section you’re referring to, it gives you the right answer. It’s been really interesting to see what people think these tools will do and how they use them… we’ve been working through it slowly, and it’s changing every day.”

Law firms are facing constant change with emerging AI products and solutions and the evolving workplace. However, there are great opportunities law firms can seize and build on to keep pace with technology, forge a stronger culture, and attract talent. Learn more by downloading the future of the legal workplace to stay up to date on the factors reshaping the industry.