How can the legal sector be better prepared for GenAI like ChatGPT?

The GenAi Gold Rush will be upon us very soon. It’s going to change everyone’s lives and every vendor is getting on the bandwagon, that’s what we are hearing daily.?? I attended the recent British Legal Technology Forum with my colleagues from UP3 (www.up3.co.uk), and all the talk was about Ai and Chat GPT and the effect it may have on the industry.??

?Like anything new, there is always a spectrum of opinion on the difference it will make, some more positive than others. Let’s be honest, it wouldn’t be the first time a great technology failed to live up to the hype of its early promises.???

?Take RPA for instance, despite some great use cases of the technology that delivered clear benefit, I fail to see how it made for a fundamental change.? The same jobs were done faster, which is great, but did it really change the way any business was conducted? Were new markets created? Did any of the professions re-model the way they did their business as a result?? I stand to be corrected, but it certainly wasn’t wholesale.??

?Now if we are to look at the legal profession it is undoubtably all about knowledge and probably an ideal candidate to benefit from technologies like ChatGPT.? All those questions you would ask a lawyer, could conceivably be done by automation.? I know I’m oversimplifying it a bit but is it really beyond the realms of possibility that the legal profession could all be done on-line, just like buying something from Amazon? A ‘Prime’ Lawyer.? You heard it here first!?

?The point I’m trying to make is that change is on its way. The legal sector isn’t known for being early adopters.? I think this is one case where they need to be.? The focus is always on the shiny front end so to speak, but in order to make any level of fundamental change the legal profession, like everyone else, will undoubtably need to get themselves organised to get the full benefit.? ?

?I thought I’d get the opinion of someone, or something else to be more precise. ChatGPT itself.? The question I asked was,??

?“How can the legal sector benefit from ai like ChatGPT?”?

?Don’t worry, I’m not going to cut and paste the answers like a first-year undergraduate with a hangover.? What strikes me is that the answers are very generic in the sense that they could be applied to any sector not just legal.? (That in itself, tells me something about the infancy of the technology). For example, it came back with answers like 24-7 availability advice for clients, improved self-service, more personalised help etc. Much like any automation it’s looking to do things faster, with less human in the loop.? In that sense ChatGPT is very much like any automation initiative in its objectives.?? What can we learn from the expectation versus reality around automation that could help the legal sector make the most of new technologies like this?? Here’s a few that sprang to mind:?

• As I mentioned earlier, the legal sector tends to be a late adopter.? This could be for a multitude of reasons and doesn’t mean it’s not the right approach to take. Just thinking about it logically, the traditional nature of the profession and the regulations that it is driven by, makes ill-considered change a massive risk factor.?? UP3 believe that it’s important to look much further than the technical implementation of any technology.? Most people are reticent about change, so effectively managing the end-to-end change process will be key, whatever the direction that is eventually chosen.??

• If I had ￡20 for every conversation that starts with words along the lines of, “…if I had more time…”, and/or “…we simply don’t have the staff to do it….”.? This is probably no news to anyone in the legal sector.? The point is that this will always be a problem until something changes.? As I mentioned before, the speed of change we will see in next few years will catch you out if you don’t give yourself the headroom you need to investigate where the proverbial puck is going.? Have you considered outsourcing some of the day-to-day stuff?? So you can focus on core business priorities. ? I think it’s a ‘no-brainer’. Buyer beware though. Not all Managed Services are the same. You want a partner that will help guide you, not just do what you ask them to do. That’s a body shop.

• The technology silo is a killer of aspirations.? Technical products that don’t integrate to one other technology seems to me to be a concept out of the 80’s, yet they still exist today. No open AI?? Don’t even consider it, I would suggest. Why would a vendor not want you talk to other technologies these days. Either because there is a technical limitation or it’s more commercially expedient for them. Both, I would suggest are red flags.?

• At a business function level, we see silos too. People are spending time addressing the same problem from different directions.? A request for secretarial services is much like one for Facilities, or Marketing Operations.? Ask UP3 how they addressed this for legal using the ServiceNow technology platform. Where one solution was designed in collaboration with law firms that addressed common issues for multiple legal functions. This type of joined up thinking is what really moves the needle of effective change.??

?Call to Action

Keeping the dialog going, and sharing experience across the legal sector will benefit everyone. With that in mind, UP3 will be running a series of briefings with industry experts, round table sessions for execs and operational staff over the coming months, where we will be exploring the Art of the Possible with GenAi like ChatGPT.? No sales pitch, just looking to see how we can collectively make the most of what I believe is a once in a lifetime opportunity. We are all learning.?

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If you would like to be involved, or have some feedback, just drop me a message at [email protected] or add a comment in the post. ?

?P.S. None of the content above was generated by ChatGPT. Any inaccuracies, spelling mistakes or poor grammar is entirely human.??:-)