Lawyer Monthly - June 2023

About Jan Van Hoecke Jan Van Hoecke is a highly experienced computer scientist with a passion for technology and problem-solving. His work is concerned with the ever-growing amount of information contained within organisations, and he is resolved to build solutions which help them explore, discover and learn from this knowledge as best they can. About iManage iManage provides an intelligent, secure and cloud-enabled knowledge work platform, enabling organisations to uncover and activate the knowledge that exists inside their business content and communications. Its artificial intelligence and powerful document and email management creates connections across data, systems and people while leveraging the context of organisational content to fuel deep insights, informed business decisions and collaboration. Contact Jan Van Hoecke Head of Data Science iManage 1 Phipp Street, London EC2A 4PS, UK Tel: +44 02038 796080 www.imanage.com over the Outside Counsel Guideline folder, the AI bot provides the answer, significantly speeding up this internal process. Beyond improving client-facing aspects, generative AI could even help legal organisations on the back-office side of things, by providing an easier way to interface with the IT help desk and provide answers to IT questions or product queries quicker than ever. These types of front-office and backoffice operational efficiencies, taken together, can have a powerful impact on the organisation. From Scepticism to Success It is understandable for the legal space to view generative AI with a certain degree of hesitancy and to wonder how – or even if – it fits into the picture. But to write it off as having no practical application for legal professionals would be a mistake. It is early days yet for generative AI, but use cases are already starting to emerge in the legal space, and principles like grounding are helping ensure that its outputs are on point and trustworthy. Law firms and corporate legal departments would be wise to explore areas where this new technology can potentially be put to use within their own organisations, to help them work smarter, safer, and more efficiently. then keep or discard the file accordingly. Alternatively, generative AI could help streamline the eDiscovery process by automatically generating summaries of contracts, legal briefs, deposition transcripts and other discovered items. This can help busy legal professionals quickly understand the key points and relevant information contained within large volumes of text in a short amount of time. Operational Efficiencies There is room for generative AI to tackle other, smaller tasks within a legal organisation too, especially in the workflows surrounding matter management. Think how much time is spent on client reporting, or on summarising what was discussed during a conference call or in-person meeting. This is essentially grunt work – but fortunately, it is an excellent candidate for generative AI. As with the drafting assistance for legal documents, legal professionals can hand generative AI some key points or notes, and AI will expand that into fully written paragraphs. The result? Lawyers can spend more time on the thinking activities that they enjoy rather than uninspiring tasks like reporting or summarising meetings. For instance, what if users could ask the AI interface in the firm’s DMS a question pertaining to e-billing requirements or data handling issues for a particular client? Rather than the lawyer poring SPECIAL FEATURE 49 The key, of course, is to make sure that the generative AI leverages what the organisation considers to be the best standards when it comes to writing.

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