The Path To AI Adoption For Your Law Firm

By now, generative artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly on your radar. You’ve heard about the benefits it offers but have also seen headlines about false case citations. You’re curious about its potential but aren’t sure how and when to jump on the bandwagon. Should you adopt it soon or wait until it matures? If you decide now is the time, how do you ensure ethical implementation in your law firm?

Learning About Generative AI Is Part Of Your Competence Obligations

AI is advancing quickly and your ethical duties require you to stay on top of technology changes and make educated decisions about its adoption. Ignorance is not a shield, and compliance with competence obligations requires you to learn about new tools like generative AI and use them when appropriate. 

The challenge then becomes staying abreast of rapid changes without getting left behind and successfully implementing AI in your law firm when the time is right. The good news is that the path to successful AI adoption isn’t as difficult as it might seem.

Step 1: Familiarize Yourself With Generative AI

First, choose one or two consumer-grade tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity, and sign up for a paid monthly account. The typical fee is approximately $20 per month, and you can cancel at any time.

Paid accounts allow you to adjust the settings so that your inputted data does not train the AI model — make sure to do that right away. Then, use the tool daily for the next week or two for both professional and personal purposes. Avoid entering any confidential or privileged information. Think of the chatbot as a very intelligent, accommodating assistant who also happens to be a pathological liar. 

Whenever you encounter a task that you want to put off because it’s too tedious or unpleasant, consider whether generative AI can handle it for you. More often than not, it can. Whether it’s drafting an email to a difficult client, identifying how to approach a challenging conversation with an employee, brainstorming questions to ask for a particular issue on voir dire, or determining a wine that will go with your meal, your chatbot can almost certainly come to the rescue. 

You’ll be surprised at how useful it can be and how quickly it responds. But always ensure that you review the output for errors. Remember that its goal is to be compliant and provide you with helpful responses, even if it has to make them up. It’s your responsibility to ensure the response is accurate before you rely on it.

Step 2: Determine How Generative AI Can Benefit Your Firm

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with generative AI, establish your objectives and determine how AI can enhance efficiency and productivity.

Evaluate your firm’s daily operations and engage key stakeholders to identify the biggest challenges. Pinpoint areas in your workflows that need improvement.

Key questions to consider:

1. How will generative AI integrate into your firm’s processes?

2. What are your firm’s most significant challenges?

3. Which tasks consume the most time?

4. How can generative AI automate mundane and routine work?

By clearly defining your objectives, you’ll be better equipped to select the generative AI tools that best fit your firm’s needs.

Step 3: Choose Legal Generative AI Providers

Start by evaluating legal providers. These software companies are often the best choice because they understand law firm workflows and compliance needs.

Review the tools your firm currently uses, such as software for document management, law practice management, legal billing, e-discovery, or contract analytics. Enhancing existing legal tools with AI features can help maintain workflow consistency while minimizing disruption and shortening onboarding time.

Consider whether current tools include generative AI features, or if AI development part of their product roadmap. Are there integrations with those products that provide the functionality you need? If your current providers are enhancing their AI capabilities, adopting those updates or integrations may be more efficient than switching to a new platform.

Key stakeholders in your firm should be consulted. Make sure their voices are heard and give their opinions weight. They’ll be using generative AI, too, and keeping them involved ensures they’ll be on board during the implementation process.

Lastly, whenever possible, take advantage of free trials or demos to assess usability and ensure the platform aligns with your firm’s needs.

Step 4: Vet Legal Generative AI Providers

Once you’ve identified a product that is a good fit, you’ll need to vet the provider, even if it’s a tool your firm is already using. When your firm uses cloud-based generative AI tools, you are entrusting a third party with sensitive client data. Ethical obligations require a thorough vetting of the provider about both cloud and AI issues, including an assessment of data security measures, storage locations, access controls, and backup policies to ensure compliance with professional responsibilities.

You’ll also need to carefully evaluate the accuracy of AI-generated outputs, understand how user data is protected, and determine whether queries are used to train AI models.

Here’s a list of questions to ask providers that will assist in vetting cloud computing issues and issues specific to AI adoption.

The Time To Learn AI Is Now

Generative AI is here, and its impact on the legal profession is only growing. Keeping your head in the sand and waiting for the technology to “mature” isn’t a strategy, it’s a risk. Your ethical obligations require you to stay informed, and the best way to do that is by engaging with AI tools now.

Start small, experiment, and determine where AI fits into your firm’s workflow. The sooner you familiarize yourself with its capabilities and limitations, the better positioned you’ll be to implement it effectively and ethically. Technology is evolving rapidly — don’t get left behind.

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and Director of Business and Community Relations at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

The post The Path To AI Adoption For Your Law Firm appeared first on Above the Law.