Legal Tech

Expert Analysis

• AI Is Reshaping Lawyering: What To Expect In 2024

  The future of lawyering is not about the wholesale replacement of attorneys by artificial intelligence, but as AI handles more of the routine legal work, the role of lawyers will evolve to be more strategic, requiring the development of competencies beyond traditional legal skills, says Colin Levy at Malbek.

• How AI Legal Research Tools Are Shifting Law Firm Processes

  Although artificial intelligence-powered legal research is ushering in a new era of legal practice that augments human expertise with data-driven insights, it is not without challenges involving privacy, ethics and more, so legal professionals should take steps to ensure AI becomes a reliable partner rather than a source of disruption, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

• Data Source Proliferation Is A Growing E-Discovery Challenge

  With the increased usage of collaboration apps and generative artificial intelligence solutions, it's not only important for e-discovery teams to be able to account for hundreds of existing data types today, but they should also be able to add support for new data types quickly — even on the fly if needed, says Oliver Silva at Casepoint.

• Bracing For A Generative AI Revolution In Law

  With many legal professionals starting to explore practical uses of generative artificial intelligence in areas such as research, discovery and legal document development, the fundamental principle of human oversight cannot be underscored enough for it to be successful, say Ty Dedmon at Bradley Arant and Paige Hunt at Lighthouse.

• Why I Use ChatGPT To Tell Me Things I Already Know

  The legal profession is among the most hesitant to adopt ChatGPT because of its proclivity to provide false information as if it were true, but in a wide variety of situations, lawyers can still be aided by information that is only in the right ballpark, says Robert Plotkin at Blueshift IP.

• How ALSPs And Generative AI Can Work Together

  Alternative legal service providers can marry the best attributes of artificial and human intelligence to expedite turnarounds and deliveries for contract review, e-discovery and legal research, says Tariq Hafeez at LegalEase Solutions.

• How Firms Can Stop Playing Whack-A-Mole With Data Security

  In order to achieve a robust client data protection posture, law firms should focus on adopting a risk-based approach to security, which can be done by assessing gaps, using that data to gain leadership buy-in for the needed changes, and adopting a dynamic and layered approach, says John Smith at Conversant Group.

• How To Thrive As A New Legal Operations Manager

  To make their first 90 days on the job a success, new legal operations managers should focus on several key objectives, including aligning priorities with leadership and getting to know their team, says Ashlyn Donohue at LinkSquares.

• Resume Gaps Are No Longer Kryptonite To Your Legal Career

  Female attorneys and others who pause their careers for a few years will find that gaps in work history are increasingly acceptable among legal employers, meaning with some networking, retraining and a few other strategies, lawyers can successfully reenter the workforce, says Jill Backer at Ave Maria School of Law.

• Law Firm Guardrails For Responsible Generative AI Use

  ChatGPT and other generative artificial intelligence tools pose significant risks to the integrity of legal work, but the key for law firms is not to ban these tools, but to implement them responsibly and with appropriate safeguards, say Natalie Pierce and Stephanie Goutos at Gunderson Dettmer.

• How In-House Counsel Can Prepare For Generative AI Risks

  To safeguard against the many risks posed by generative artificial intelligence legal tools, in-house counsel should work with their information security teams to develop new data security questions for prospective vendors, vet existing applications and review who can utilize machine guidance, says Diane Homolak at Integreon.

• Opinion

  We Must Continue DEI Efforts Despite High Court Headwinds

  Though the U.S. Supreme Court recently struck down affirmative action in higher education, law firms and their clients must keep up the legal industry’s recent momentum advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the profession in order to help achieve a just and prosperous society for all, says Angela Winfield at the Law School Admission Council.

• Law Firms Cannot Ignore Attorneys' Personal Cybersecurity

  Law firms that fail to consider their attorneys' online habits away from work are not using their best efforts to protect client information and are simplifying the job of plaintiffs attorneys in the case of a breach, say Mark Hurley and Carmine Cicalese at Digital Privacy and Protection.

• Why Process Management Is Critical To Legal Tech Adoption

  Corporate legal departments looking to implement new technology can avoid hiccups by taking steps to define the underlying business problem and to identify opportunities for process improvements before leaping to the automation stage, say Nadine Ezzie at Ezzie + Co., Kenneth Jones at Xerdict Group and Kathy Zhu at Streamline AI.

• Law Firm Cybersecurity Should Not Get Lost In The Cloud

  A recent data leak at Proskauer via a cloud data storage platform demonstrates key reasons why law firms must pay attention to data safeguarding, including the increasing frequency of cloud-based data breaches and the consequences of breaking client confidentiality, says Robert Kraczek at One Identity.