Week in Review (18 August)

It’s been way too many weeks since I’ve written a Week in Review – the weeks seem to be getting shorter and moving faster…at this rate, I’m worried I’m going to miss the end of the year!

Legal Generative AI Summit 2023

For CLI, the big news this week was the launch of our Legal GenAI Summit 2023 on October 24-25 – two days, 10 sessions and a 30+ global faculty line up that is amazing. I’ve had the great pleasure of seeing presentations by many of our faculty online or in person before but not all of them at one event!

Do come along – you can register now . Thanks to the generosity of our fabulous faculty and sponsors Actionstep and Smokeball , it’s all VIRTUAL AND FREE. We’re going to be all about ?connecting, sharing, and learning - woohoo! And yes, we will be recording and making everything available again for free, on demand on video and podcast about a week after the live sessions but please, please don’t let that deter you from attending live!

A super quick sneak peek of the individual plenary sessions (I’ll be sharing info about the panel sessions next week) and this comes with a HUGE thank you...drum roll...we have innovation gurus Mary O’Carroll , Chief Community Officer at Ironclad; ?Jordan Furlong , Principal at Law21; and Mark Cohen , CEO & Founder of Legal Mosaic and Executive Chairman at The Digital Legal Exchange joining us – such a treat to have you all together at one event! Full program is here .

The AI vs human vs integration journey

This week+ was a bit of a rollercoaster on the AI vs human vs integration journey…

It kicked off with a report from TechCrunch about London-based 11xAI ?receiving seed funding to build “automated digital workers that can be used in lieu of human employees.”

It moved from that to news about Allens launch of Airlie, a version of OpenAI's GPT models . In their words, “Airlie, will facilitate the controlled use and integration of generative AI technology to drive efficiencies and enhance client service, while maintaining the confidentiality of the firm's and its clients' information” – nice to see more law firms jumping into this space!

While these organisations occupy different seats on the rollercoaster, they are both part of its construction and point to the depth, breadth and relentless pace of change that is now our BAU. ?Lawyers, like everyone else, cannot work the way they used to – it’s now about using the tech tools well to get the job done faster, cheaper and better then, taking the extra time to apply professional experience and enhance the client experience too.

These are different skills or an expansion/refocus of old ones at the very least. This new reality was discussed in an excellent recent article from Mark Cohen on Who Will Train Digital (Legal) Talent At Scale? (Forbes, July) . In legal alone, we’re talking digital and human skills education for an entire industry – law students, legal educators, lawyers, allied legal professionals (some of these specialists, not all) – and having to restructure, with humanity, through the 4 Rs (retraining, recruitment, retrenchment and retirement) at scale too. That’s legal education and talent management like we have never seen it before. ?

With that in mind, it was great to see Google jump in with a suite of free foundational courses in AI. CLI has also been there since June with our AI for Legal Series (we wrap that up next week with a peek at Microsoft Copilot stuff ). And, we saw a great example of a new, contemporary approach to education – content and collaboration - with Orrick’s responsible use of GenAI and prompt engineering program for summer associates developed with AltaClaro .

There is so much happening right now, I could go on but I won’t…I’ll just drop back next week!

Have a fabulous weekend everyone.

About the Author?

Terri Mottershead is the Executive Director of the Centre for Legal Innovation (Australia, New Zealand and Asia-Pacific) (CLI) at The College of Law . Terri collaborates internationally with leaders of legal businesses supporting them in identifying trends, developing strategies, and transforming their capabilities and practices to deliver legal services/products in the new legal ecosystem. She is the instigator, designer and developer in chief of CLI’s global initiatives, networks and programs including the Legalpreneurs Lab and its podcast series, The Legalpreneurs Sandbox . Prior to joining CLI, Terri was a practising lawyer, founded start-ups on three different continents, and established or led the in-house talent management departments for global firms and associations in Asia and the US including Lex Mundi, the Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA) and DLA Piper LLP (US).