From billable hours to binary code: How law firms are navigating the AI (r)evolution

November 11, 2024

“We’re two years into what feels like a revolution, but it’s really more evolutionary,” noted one panelist, at Sandpiper Partners’ 8^th Annual AI Disruption and Innovation in the Delivery of Legal Services Conference, sponsored by Williams Lea.

In this recent gathering, law firm leaders and industry experts, including our CEO Clare Hart, shared insights into how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping both the practice and business of law. While the transformation is still in its nascent stages, clear patterns are emerging in how firms are adopting and implementing this technology.

Here are the key takeaways from the event.

Smart law: AI’s role in modernizing the legal industry

Unlike ChatGPT’s dramatic acceleration since its launch in 2022, as well as the technology’s rapid disruption in other sectors, law firms are taking a more methodical approach to this digital (r)evolution, carefully balancing innovation with business objectives and professional obligations.

AI has proven valuable in streamlining administrative functions. Key applications include document management, automated conflict checks, and billing optimization, allowing lawyers to focus on complex analytical work. As Williams Lea CEO Clare Hart explained, it’s about enhancing operational efficiency. “We focus on two things: Number one, quality, and secondly, turnaround time. When we’re looking at the work we’re doing for our clients, we think about, ‘How can we get that request back to our clients more quickly, but ensure we’re delivering the same or better quality?’” She continued, “For instance, we built Intake AI, because when our clients send us a request, there are a lot of detailed instructions, and it takes a workload coordinator a while to extract all the instructions from the request. It’s pretty boring and takes time that’s better spent completing the request, so if it can be done by technology, it’s more efficient and Intake AI does that.”

Some firms are leveraging AI for work beyond basic administrative tasks. A panelist for a multinational technology firm shared that they’re testing a chat capability, where a user can query specific legal text or policy. Another experiment they are working on is a policy deconfliction tool, where users can prompt the AI tool to do a comparative analysis between policies.

Regardless of AI’s applications or potential benefits, its deployment must adhere to core ethical principles. “Things like transparency, explainability… being able to explain how a tool arrived at a decision or output; this is something that should be implemented at a macro scale within an organization, but also on a micro scale,” one panelist said. “When I am developing a set of core questions to ask before using an AI tool to make sure that I’m always aligning with our (firm’s) overarching policy, the primary question is always going to be, what is the objective? What are you seeking to do with a tool? What problem are you trying to solve?”

Human oversight also remains fundamental to AI’s ethical implementation. AI systems and human oversight should function as complementary forces, with human judgment serving as the technology’s “compass” that guides development and deployment. In doing so, law firms are ensuring that lawyers maintain core legal skills while embracing AI and automation. As one panelist emphasizes, “You don’t draft a brief just to have a brief, you draft it to synthesize arguments, develop ideas, and prepare for broader legal discourse. These critical thinking skills must be preserved.”

AI in practice: Use cases from document review to privilege log creation

AI is transforming traditional legal workflows into streamlined intelligent processes. As leading law firms embrace AI, they are discovering unprecedented opportunities to enhance client service, improve efficiency, and deliver more sophisticated legal solutions. At the conference, several firms presented use cases, with some solutions extending far beyond basic automation, reaching into the core of legal practice, business innovation, and strategy. Use case examples included:

• Document intelligence – AI platforms, such as Harvey and Hebbia, are revolutionizing document analysis, going beyond simple text extraction. They understand complex legal concepts and contexts, rapidly processing legal documents, transcripts, and reports to identify crucial information and potential inconsistencies.
• Multilingual capabilities – AI-powered translation systems are outperforming traditional solutions, particularly in Romance languages, often matching or exceeding the quality of platforms such as Google Translate.
• Privilege management – AI is streamlining the creation of privilege logs, one of the most time-consuming legal tasks. Current systems achieve about 50% success rates, but human oversight is required for quality control. A good example of “AI + human” combination.
• Knowledge discovery – An AI-powered expert search tool analyzes public biographies and thought leadership content across a firm’s global workforce, with the tool efficiently matching specific expertise to client needs.

Leading firms are demonstrating that strategic AI implementation can significantly enhance service delivery while still maintaining the highest quality.

Walking the tightrope: Balancing innovation with client privacy

The legal industry stands at a crossroads as AI reshapes traditional practices. Legal and tech pundits have highlighted the risks and rewards of this emerging technology, particularly regarding data security, client confidentiality, and the evolution of legal work.

Data protection has emerged as a paramount concern. Major firms are taking decisive actions to protect their confidential information. A panelist from a multinational tech firm shared that they now require their law firm partners to use vendors and platforms that they’ve vetted. This approach reflects a growing trend where clients actively scrutinize how their outside counsel implements AI tools and manages client data.

However, one panelist cautioned: “We’ve all been educated on the surveillance economy, on personalization algorithms, everything we consume these days is mediated for us by a personalized algorithm… That’s a continuous learning model.” They continued, “GenAI is a fixed model of training. It’s expensive, it’s complex, but it’s not the same risk profile. Even in cases where OpenAI reserves the right to train on your data, they’re probably not. They’re probably putting it into a database. The key thing is, don’t let that be a smokescreen on the real risks that you have to address.”

Fully understanding AI’s actual capabilities and limitations has also become increasingly important. Clients expect the technology to drive more innovation in legal services, with some even expecting mandatory cost reductions from law firm partners that utilize AI tools. Law firms must manage these expectations while continuing to enhance their service delivery models. “I’ve had clients come to me, saying ‘Can you do this? Can we do this?’ That’s a really good thing,” one law firm panelist shared. “But the flipside of that is, there are clients who think, ‘Should we tell our outside counsel to slash their bills by 5-10%, because they’re using AI?’ Clients are asking for this innovation, but they overestimate the capability of this technology and its ability to impact the cost of most of the things we do for them.”

The law firm of the future can find the right balance between embracing innovation and preserving traditional professional values. While AI offers countless opportunities for efficiency and service enhancement, law firms must carefully navigate challenges around data security, training, and business operations. This tech (r)evolution will fundamentally shape how legal services are delivered in the coming decades, making it essential for firms to adapt while maintaining their commitment to excellence in legal practice.

Discover how Williams Lea is transforming client service delivery through AI innovation, starting with our groundbreaking end-to-end billing compliance solution with HerculesAI, which combines the power of AI and the accuracy of human experts.