The legal industry seems to have many exciting ventures to come. The rise of AI has definitely become a topic of focus in the industry, and this will also be the focus on the upcoming LawtechUK event that promises to get into the potential of GenAI in legal services. Scheduled for March 4th, 2024, “GenerativeAI: Roadmap to 2030” aims to explore how GenAI can completely change legal services and access to justice by 2030.
With leading figures such as Christina Blacklaws and Richard Susskind chairing panel discussions, the event is set to offer invaluable insights into the future of LawTech, showing the role of GenAI in shaping legal services. With that being said, a few more experts have also weighed in, and shared their predictions for the 2024 year, below:
Our Experts:
- Ben Michael, Attorney, Michael & Associates
- Alana Gibson, Chief Operating Officer, DGR Legal
- Collen Clark, Lawyer and Founder, Schmidt & Clark LLP
- Adam Ryan, VP, Litera
- Jonny Halpern, Software Engineer and Co-founder, CompetitionAI
- Jill Schornack, Vice President of Product, NetDocuments
- Charlie Bromley-Griffiths, Corporate Counsel, Conga
- Brian C. Stewart, Litigation Attorney and Manager, Parker & McConkie
- Dan Hauck, Chief Product Officer, NetDocuments
Ben Michael, Attorney, Michael & Associates
“You can’t discuss technology being used in the legal field without mentioning AI. However, firms need to follow that with enhanced security measures, especially when AI is involved.
“Generative AI is at a very tricky point right now. Law firms handle very sensitive client data. Using generative AI with that data puts your clients at risk.
“Law firms need to have security measures in place when implementing new technology to ensure the privacy of their clients.”
Alana Gibson, Chief Operating Officer, DGR Legal
As the Chief Operating Officer of DGR Legal, my perspective on the future of law technology in 2024 is shaped by our firm’s commitment to leveraging innovative solutions to enhance legal process services. The legal industry stands on the cusp of a technological revolution that promises to redefine how legal services are delivered.
In 2024, I anticipate a significant shift towards more integrated, AI-driven platforms that offer predictive analytics for case outcomes, risk assessment, and legal research efficiency.
Blockchain technology will also play a pivotal role in enhancing the security and transparency of legal transactions and document authentication. Furthermore, adopting smart contracts will streamline the execution of legal agreements, reducing the time and costs associated with traditional contract management.
Another area poised for growth is virtual legal assistance. As remote work continues to be normalized, virtual platforms will become increasingly sophisticated, offering more immersive and interactive ways for legal professionals to consult with clients, conduct mediations, and even participate in virtual courtrooms.
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Collen Clark, Lawyer and Founder, Schmidt & Clark LLP
“I predict a significant increase in legal tech spending. Post-pandemic, legal departments are expected to triple their investment in legal technology by 2025. This is driven by the need to adapt to an increased workload and flat staffing levels.
“As a result, we’re seeing a surge in the adoption of legal tech tools that can automate routine tasks, streamline workflows, and improve collaboration. Creating a multiyear legal technology strategy that evolves with changing landscapes and market advancements will be crucial for success.
“It’s not just about investing in the latest tools, but also about ensuring that we have the right processes and training in place to effectively leverage these tools.”
Adam Ryan, VP, Litera
Not using GenAI in legal will become ‘malpractice’
“It will be surprising to see a dramatic shift in how lawyers practise law in 2024, due to the rise of Generative AI. However, it’s more likely that the industry will gain confidence in GenAI as it continues to have a positive impact on how we work.
“Explicitly, GenAI does not remove any of the responsibility of the lawyer to be diligent and follow their ethical obligations. Instead it offers the ability to potentially start from an accelerated position in their workflow or shift duties as GenAI can take the first pass on many tasks.
“When it comes to M&A or document review, NOT using GenAI and LLM tools will put firms at a serious disadvantage as they will not be able to work nearly as quickly, accurately or efficiently as firms that are leveraging these game-changing tools.
Law Firms will abandon cheap AI plug-ins in favour of more robust tools
“Lawyers don’t have time to learn prompt engineering, and they won’t start in 2024. Law firms should prioritise evaluating technology that uses large language models to understand what a user is asking, by teaching it cognate words and synonyms, producing accurate responses without the need for a perfect prompt.
“At Litera, we’ve already produced successfully written code to understand significant grammatical errors, which is beyond similar or dissimilar terms.
A new priority: Holding onto mentoring culture in the face of AI and remote work
“Within the realm of lawyer education concerning Generative AI, there are a few concerns. Many firms have been challenged with figuring out how to train associates in an environment where many of a firm’s partners will be working from home.
“This, combined with Generative AI taking away key tasks from first year associates can result in a loss of mentoring culture. It is in the firms and its partners’ best interest to take a proactive approach to training and mentorship for young lawyers.
2024 will be the year of vendor consolidation for legal tech
“Law firms will continue to migrate away from myriad legal-specific solutions and where possible leverage legal-specific integrations (ex: CAM for Teams, Upper Sigma for Salesforce).
“Firms will look for the niche solution on industry-standard technology, which means we’ll likely see more firms move away from DMS to a legal-specific Microsoft solution.
“As a technology company we’re doing the same thing internally – we’re gravitating to big providers and trying to standardise our tech stack while maximising our investments.
Building popularity for a new role: Client-facing practice innovation
“Many firms will beef up their client-facing practice innovation teams to provide GenAI education as part of standard client service. Firms need to own the narrative around legal AI usage, and how that aligns with the clients’ initial expectations about AI whether it’s about work product, legality, or costs.
“With technology changing this quickly, it will behove firms to proactively educate their clients on their AI strategy.
Finally – the death of the billable hour
“New research from Litera shows that more firms than ever before are shifting from the billable hour to alternative fee arrangements.
“This is likely due to a need to stay competitive with declining M&A as well as how AI has improved efficiency. We see AFA’s as a win-win, with more focus on client experience and care and better-managed expectations around budgeting and costs.”
Jonny Halpern, Software Engineer and Co-founder, CompetitionAI
“In 2023, Goldman Sachs predicted that 44% of work done by lawyers could be automated using AI. This doesn’t surprise us, as in our testing, we’ve seen that we can build AI-powered software that makes legal tasks more accurate and ten times faster.
“Thus, we anticipate 2024 to mark the beginning of AI’s transformative influence on the legal sector. Successful LegalTechs will be those aiming to turbocharge lawyers, not substitute them. AI won’t replace lawyers, but lawyers who use AI will replace those that don’t.
“2024 will see barriers to entry drop for LegalTech firms as advancements in technical infrastructure simplify offering AI services with the stringent data security law firms require.
“Venture capital firms will continue to make substantial investments in LegalTech, encouraged by major M&A activity such as the $650 million acquisition of CaseText.
“Meanwhile clients will expect law firms to use AI which will further drive demand. Having spent much of my career developing software for banks, I’ve witnessed firsthand the digital revolution in financial services. We’re now seeing a similar transition in law driven by AI. Just as banks have started to look more like FinTechs, law firms will start to look more like LegalTechs.”
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Jill Schornack, Vice President of Product, NetDocuments
“We already have legal professionals becoming citizen developers and prompt engineers, and they’re playing with chatbots and experimenting already. That’s really exciting. But from an organisational perspective, that is a little scary.
“What happens if you put that kind of power into the hands of so many people at once? The way I see organisations trying to mitigate that risk is to identify a smaller group of people who can really educate themselves around this rapidly evolving technology.
“These people will design apps that are purpose-built for your legal workflows, test them and roll them out to just the right and relevant users in the organisation. You’ll need guidance, guidelines and lots of education to get things ramped up.
“Where someone had to draft from scratch, they’ll now review for accuracy. There will be lots of opportunity to upskill and shift the types of tasks people will spend their time on. So we’ll see an evolution of the organisation and the roles within that organisation.”
Charlie Bromley-Griffiths, Corporate Counsel, Conga
“We are witnessing a paradigm shift in how AI is being used throughout the legal sector.
“Of course, we need to be cautious, but it won’t be long until AI applications are more widespread throughout the industry.
“AI can extract data at speed – hundreds or thousands of contracts and help you make a business-critical decision based on the data that is presented – an attorney can only do so much in real-time.
“Naturally, there are some concerns. AI is known to hallucinate; in the absence of citations the source of the data is unknown creating doubts about provenance.
“Data ownership is also subject to challenge and in the absence of human interaction, no Intellectual Property rights can be established.
“GenAI doesn’t necessarily know the clauses or data which is exclusive to your organisation, business partner or customer, but it presents an exciting opportunity.“
“From a business perspective, legal teams need to educate AI on the items that are proprietary in their organisation and of high interest, such as non-negotiable terms or conditions nuanced to the nature of the business.
“For the time being at least, we will likely continue to see AI-assisted attorney workflow, with lawyers acting as a copilot.”
Brian C. Stewart, Litigation Attorney and Manager, Parker & McConkie
“As we look ahead to 2024, the landscape for law and legislation technology startups appears promising yet challenging.
“With advancements in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data analytics, startups in this space have the potential to revolutionise how legal services are delivered and how legislation is crafted and interpreted.
“However, navigating the regulatory environment will be crucial for these startups to thrive.
“As laws and regulations struggle to keep pace with technological advancements, startups must be proactive in engaging with policymakers and regulators to ensure compliance and foster innovation.
“Furthermore, privacy and data security concerns will continue to be at the forefront, especially with the increasing reliance on data-driven technologies.
“Startups that prioritise robust privacy measures and transparency will likely gain a competitive edge and build trust among consumers and regulatory bodies alike.
“Overall, while the road ahead may present challenges, the opportunities for law and legislation technology startups to make a significant impact are immense.”
Dan Hauck, Chief Product Officer, NetDocuments
“Thinking about the future of AI, it’s going to be much more about how it gets integrated into workflows and actually becomes less visible. A task like profiling a document is very valuable, but now there are ways to automate it.
Imagine having, for instance, broad scale classification of all your content so that you really have an understanding of what’s in your repository and having that happen automatically as part of the workflow. That’s incredibly valuable.
And over time, we’ll get away from people thinking about AI as a chatbot. It will be built into the interfaces you already interact with, and the AI will facilitate a number of things that you’re already doing.”
Tom McKechnie Ward, Customer Success at Everlaw
“This year and beyond, GenerativeAI (GenAI) promises an opportunity for truth to transform legal outcomes by being able to interrogate even more data, as the volume of data requiring review continues to increase.
“GenAI will change the way legal professionals work – especially for trainees and NQ litigation lawyers, who will likely use GenAI for first drafts and summaries to speed up their work – and lower the volume of the mundane document review that has characterised the work of their predecessors.
“This year, we’ll also see AI misused but it won’t stop progress. Indeed, we’ve already seen examples of lawyers submitting ChatGPT-drafted pleadings to court, complete with hallucinated case law, and this will be a particular issue for litigants in-person who lack the legal skills to identify false sources.
“The coming year is likely to see court resources strained as some litigants turn to generalist GenAI tools to do their legal work – often with dismal results.
“But there’s a positive corollary: 2024 is also likely to see the first truly significant applications of GenAI for both contentious and non-contentious work, and the increasingly powerful models, combined with lowering costs, will provide a significant advantage to legal practitioners with the expertise and desire to be early adopters.”
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