Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Law, Social Media, Technology

Social Media and Lawyers: Why so afraid?

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I’m an attorney in my mid-forties.

Every day, I tweet and retweet. I go on LinkedIn to comment on articles. I go on Facebook. I’ve written my own articles and published them on Medium, LinkedIn Pulse and then tweeted them.

Social media. When I mention it to many colleagues who tend to be my age or above, I get a blank stare. “Why I am tweeting?”. What is the point of digital marketing? Do you really get clients from it?

I don’t really know. Not yet. But that’s not to say I perhaps won’t. And I shouldn’t try.

The Rise of Digital Marketing in the Legal World

Millennials. Those who were born in the 1990s, broadly speaking. The use of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. are all their ways of communicating. Emails are becoming gradually pre-historic in their world, let alone using the….. telephone.

I’ve already written about the rise of AI and legaltech generally in two separate articles. For instance, will lawyers still exist by 2050 as a result of AI? In 2017, certainly the term “Artificial Intelligence” has become a new buzz catchphrase and rightly so. Because it is the future.

And therefore, so is legaltech. And so is the use of social media. In fact, the latter is really the present.

Many law firms are already very effectively using social media. Tweeting appropriately, understanding the proper use of hashtags, such as how many to use in a tweet to gain as many retweets, followers and engagements as possible. The proper use of LinkedIn. Search engine optimization (SEO) for Google. Having a Facebook Business page. Instagram. Pinterest. Google Plus.

Many law firms are also not.

Moore’s Law

Before long, emails will become like faxes became 10 years ago. The exponential growth of the use of this kind of technology — essentially, the sharing of data — is going through an equivalent of Moore’s law. That is to say, the amount of information which is being amassed and then shared is doubling every year.

Gordon Moore was one of the founders of Intel and as noted on their website:

“In 1965, Gordon Moore made a prediction that would set the pace for our modern digital revolution. From careful observation of an emerging trend, Moore extrapolated that computing would dramatically increase in power, and decrease in relative cost, at an exponential pace.”

In essence, the processing power for computers would double every two years — and over time, become cheaper. Buying a new iMac with the power it has today would have been (a) impossible 20 years ago and even if it was (b) would have taken up an entire room in your house.

Exponentially, this has led to the rise of artificial intelligence.

I think back to 25 or so years ago in the early to mid-1990s. Faxing took over a method of communication known as telexing (and if you remember telexing you are officially old). Faxing soon became the common way of sharing information. That method transformed to emails as well as texts on cell phones in the late-1990s, followed by Blackberries in the mid-2000s to iPhones in the late-2000s and then now to platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Currently, you can instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. You can even see when someone is available, where they are and when they are typing their response to you.

And at less cost.

Emailing someone may appear to be “normal” now but very rapidly, that technology should be replaced by instant messaging, if the Moore’s law trend regarding sharing information continues. Documents will be sent via instant messaging. Clients will see if you are or are not available and when you are responding to them. A new method of storing messages and documentation will replace whatever current method is being used in your organisation.

The use of programs such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp will make emails look like faxes are today — perhaps in less than 5 years time.

AI, legaltech and its relationship with social media

As a result, the legal world will also change. Clients will become more demanding and expectations for “instant responses” will rise. Looking back to the days of faxing, clients were happy for a response a few days after a fax was sent. Currently, with emails, many aim for a same/next day response. With instant messaging, many will likely want responses to queries even faster, as awful as that may seem.

And that is where automation and AI play a role.

For lawyers, unfortunately, the questions which clients will ask will become more demanding and require more logical thinking and judgment. That is because automation and more advanced AI will replace many of the more “basic” aspects of law which are currently being carried out today. Some firms are already providing this technology today, such as RAVN, LawGeex and Luminance.

Therefore, some of the queries which a client may send by email today, won’t need to be sent by them at all. The client will be able to obtain the answer through AI and their own research. The queries which paralegals or more junior lawyers research and respond to now could be moved “in-house”. Clients will also be able to draft their own basic legal documents without any legal input at all. That particular aspect being provided by law firms today will become obsolete.

An advantage to lawyers is that — hopefully — the queries coming from their clients will be more thoughtful… and as a result, the number of instant messages one receives in the course of a day will not equal the number of emails which are currently received today. Those range from complex matters which do require human empathy, thought and logic to basic matters which are simply time consuming but also require some form of a human element or creativity which AI simply cannot replicate. Or at least, not yet.

The flip side, of course, is that if you are not receiving as many client queries, then the ability to charge clients on a time spent basis should indeed over time also alter.

So, should lawyers be afraid of Social Media?

So, should lawyers fear the use of social media and scorn its use? Depending on where they are in the their career, they may be at a point where its use is unfortunately inevitable — for good or bad — and just cannot be ignored.

The use of social media is exploding amongst millennials. My generation and those older than me may scoff at its use. But the millennials who use Twitter, Facebook Business, WhatsApp and other social media avenues will, in 5 to 10 or so years, be the ones leading law firm strategies. They will be the leaders.

The use of AI and social media will combine and work in conjunction with each other in the future. In 5 to 10 years time, no doubt some other form of messaging system will have evolved due perhaps to AI.

The legaltech world will continue to evolve, that is for sure, and it is not one a lawyer will be able to escape from.

So, if you don’t tweet and if you don’t have a WhatsApp account, consider getting one and also ensure you are ready to instant message and tweet away.

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Law, Legaltech, Technology

AI and the Transformation of Law: Goodbye Time Sheets

The AI Transformation begins

Every working day, I sit behind my desk and record what I do in increments of 6 minutes.

Time recording. Every qualified lawyer in private practice has been exposed to it, whether it be in the form of manually recording it via time sheets, or entering it directly into a specialized computer program.

Within the next five to ten years, the onset of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to a revolution of the legal industry that will likely transform that model completely.

The Billable Hour

For the most part, law firms make their revenue by billing their clients by the hour. Lawyers are accountable for their entire day. A “7” hour day is more or less a complete day, if one was to work from 9am to 5pm, take an hour for lunch and putting in the rest of their time as billable. In reality, lawyers work longer than that, but also devote a certain amount of non-billable time to marketing, administrative matters, training, etc. But ultimately in order for both the lawyer and their firm to succeed, then the more hours billed, the more money made for the firm.

Over the last ten years, this model has already come under increasing pressure from clients wanting to increase internal efficiencies and to reduce their administrative and legal costs.

AI Innovation and Legaltech

It is widely acknowledged that AI will eventually change the legal industry, and automation will over time replace certain functions: lawyers will be able to perform their current tasks far more accurately and effectively.

Within law firms, the collection of data and how it is processed is very important, but can also be quite straightforward. As such, various functions being carried out today by paralegals, less qualified associates or legal assistants, will be in time be replaced by robots and computers. They will become automated.

The Collapse of the Time Spent Basis billing model

As we move forward with more advanced AI and a more paperless regime, invoicing legal clients on the traditional “time spent” basis simply won’t work. Time won’t be spent the way it is now.

For example, things like paginating and bundling documentation, drafting standard agreements, simple legal opinions, precedents, resolutions, etc. Artificial intelligence one day will get to a level where it is able to carry out many human tasks, other than those requiring more complex, logical or judgmental tasks which absolutely require human intelligence.

And lawyers may, of course, still need to monitor much of the product that AI is producing, other than the automated tasks or those which are not complex.

But certainly, the way time is currently being recorded by lawyers on matters will have to drastically change. That is because everything will be done in less time and at less cost.

As a result, clients will not expect to pay the same amount for legal advice as are paying today. Based on current trends, and the AI technology which is already being implemented by some of the larger firms in both the UK and the US, it is likely the “time spent” model will disappear for most law firms within the next five to ten years.

The Darwinian Effect on Law Firms

The Darwinian idea is essentially that it is not necessarily the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive, but those who are the most adaptable to change. That idea certainly holds true when looking at the legal industry and how lawyers and law firms will need to adapt to take into account legaltech and AI.

Law firms will have to adapt their billing models to have any hope of either attracting new clients or retaining existing clients and to be able to compete with other firms that already use AI. Those other firms will quickly undercut the “tortoises” from a fee perspective and the firms which fail to adopt the new technology will be left in the dust.

The Knock-on Effects for Lawyers and their Clients

The result? It is hard to say, but I would expect that if robots or machines are carrying out the functions of, say, low level associates, then the path to promotion will possibly be longer for those lawyers. As automation will replace many of the tasks which junior lawyers are currently undertaking, new legal associates will, other than the exceptional few, likely have to expect lesser pay rises and a slower pathway to promotion. But an advantage would be that, because of increased efficiencies — meaning that the “time spent” model will no longer exist — the pressure exerted on those working behind their desks should lessen. Associates and partners in firms will not have to work as much as they currently do.

Indeed, if and when AI progresses to a very high level of intelligence, a large part of a lawyer’s work will shift from providing legal advice to instead marketing: trying to retain clients and attract new ones and working closely with them to understand their needs. From a lawyer’s perspective, the marketing of clients is one which very much requires a “human touch” and, particularly, a degree of empathy. Empathy is something which a robot, no matter how advanced, will likely ever be able to replicate.

Firms obviously need clients in order to generate revenue. From a client perspective, if the work which lawyers currently carry out shifts towards spending more time working on their relationships with them — including how to more efficiently and innovatively invoice them — then, ultimately, that will lead to greater value for clients.

The end result of the legaltech revolution should mean that, while some firms will be slow to embrace it and therefore struggle, it will lead both to the extinction of time sheets for lawyers, but also better, more effective and efficient client service.

And in the long term, everything in the legal industry as it relates to managing clients, will eventually be turned on its head.

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Law

AI and the Transformation of Law: Will we need lawyers by 2050?

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My 10-year-old son may never need to learn to drive a car. Instead, we may, at that stage in his life, all be driven around in driverless cars. All thanks to current advancements being made in automation and artificial intelligence.

That fact alone boggles my mind.

A Starting Point

Artificial intelligence (AI) is something we cannot ignore. But there are two areas where AI often gets incorrectly blurred: the areas of automation and actual AI itself.

Often, when one says the phrase “artificial intelligence” or “machine learning,” an immediate reaction is to think of hardware in a factory that makes humans redundant because humans are no longer required. Robots or machines will essentially steal jobs. There is some truth to this, particularly in the lower-to-middle class manufacturing sector, where automation and robotics will affect.

For instance, simple chatbots will replace humans in certain call centers. Cab or Uber drivers may be replaced by driverless cars. Machines and robots will replace industrial workers. And gradually, your smartphone will practically control everything in your house; this is already happening mostly in our new Internet of Things (IoT) world. We are at the beginning – or even middle – of a “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” Quite possibly the beginning of a Fifth (depending on who you ask or what you read.)

But there is also much speculation that automation will boost wealth, despite this job loss, creating new jobs in the digital and service sectors. That is to say, it will lead to greater efficiency within the workplace and lead us to work better.

AI

But automation is very different from actual AI itself. AI goes one step further than pure automation, which functions — as the name suggests — doing things automatically, merely without human input. AI is about trying to mimic human intelligence. It is artificial.

AI requires a lot more work than what is necessary to automate. Automation is easy to predict, while AI can be programmed in many different ways, just like the human brain. That is why the implementation of AI and machine learning will, possibly in some sectors of many industries, still take many years to accomplish.

AI is, however, already being used in your everyday life, and perhaps you probably don’t realize it. For example, you are going to Amazon and seeing what you might be interested in purchasing, turning on Netflix, and seeing it predict shows you might want to watch. YouTube’s recommendations. Siri. Alexa. Google Assistant. Even fraud alerts from banks. These are algorithms generated through the use of AI and big data.

The “deep learning” AI requires involves more than just new jobs in the service sector — it requires humans to learn, analyze, manage and ultimately train the machines and robots attempting to perform the human roles. That will lead to a whole new level of job positions requiring training in universities and starting in high schools. Coding is already becoming as relevant to your child’s education as English and Mathematics are today.

The Modern Legal World

So, what does this future hold for the legal industry? Will clients in, say, 2050 obtain legal advice from robots? In 2060? Or will clients need human lawyers? Will judges be making decisions based on AI?

Much of the “legaltech” world boils down to two concepts: (a) matters which require data input and export and (b) matters which require legal knowledge and analysis.

Legal Data

Simple matters:

– forming companies;

– simple paralegal type functions, such as bundling documents;

– basic research and due diligence;

– issuing straightforward legal opinions;

– drafting things like wills and basic court applications; and

– matters extending to the administrative functions within law firms, such as performing KYC on new clients and HR functions.

Many of these processes are form-filling exercises. Any process which is mainly basic and can be conducted in volume based on precedent will eventually be more or less automated, with the correct programming over time.

Will this lead to fewer lawyers? It will undoubtedly lead to greater efficiency in law firms — less reliance on human administrative functions (HR, KYC, paralegals, for instance). This is a combination of both automation and AI at work. There are some examples of firms already using AI technology, e.g., to weed out employee applications and due diligence platforms such as Luminance, which, amongst other matters, is being used for M&A transactions.

It will affect how firms invoice/bill their clients. When contracts and legal opinions can be reviewed using a high level of AI with little human input, the traditional model of billing clients on a “time spent” basis will become obsolete. Lawyers will need to adapt to AI technology as it spreads before they lose clients to other firms which have adopted the technology faster.

But the result here is a benefit to both the client (better, more efficient service) and the lawyer (the ability to work far more creatively and with less reliance on purely administrative tasks.)

Legal Analysis and Robotics

Robots and the law. Can a judge be a robot? Can robots give more detailed legal advice based on legal analysis? This isn’t automated — it is something that would require very deep learning by the machine and AI programmers behind it.

AI will be very, very intelligent in the future, that is certain. And there are examples of risk-assessment AI tools already being used in some courts in the United States.

But technology has its limitations.

For example, a matter that requires human intelligence, such as a matter in a court where human creativity and judgment are needed to obtain the correct result. Or a complex legal opinion with intricacies where a human touch must achieve an accurate piece of work.

That is not to say some of these limitations cannot be overcome in the very distant future. But it is not possible to predict the future. However, there is one thing that AI will likely never replicate, and that is empathy.

So yes, we should expect the increased use of AI, machine learning, deep learning, and robotics. Things that the world will need to prepare itself for during our lifetime. Steven Hawking has described AI as humanity’s last invention and could even spell the end of humanity. (PS: It won’t.)

For sure, the legal world will increasingly, rapidly change as a result of AI. But bear in mind that AI is programmed technology. And it will only be as effective and valuable as those humans programming it. So it is vital to ensure they have the sufficient skills and experience to do so, but also do so with the necessity of empathy and ethics.

[Author’s note: Updated June, 2021]

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