Have We Reached Peak Innovation in Legal?

We are lucky to have Graeme Grovum, Head of Innovation at Corrs Chambers Westgarth from Australia to present on the stage at the inaugural Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Johannesburg this year. With his deep understanding of legal processes and love of new technologies, Graeme is well positioned to comment and share insights on some of the hottest topics in legal tech right now. Ahead of his presentation on open innovation at Corrs, Graeme shared some of his insights into the current state of innovation in the legal space.

The New Frontier: Artificial Intelligence & the Implications for Legal

We are lucky to have Milos Kresojevic, Founder of AI.Legal Labs (UK) presenting at the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Johannesburg this year. We caught up with him to hear more about his experience in the legal industry and something he’s particularly passionate about – embracing artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal industry.   Milos, we can’t wait to have you on the stage at the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest this year. Tell us a bit about your journey in the legal space. What do you love about working in this industry?  My major legal journey started with Freshfields and American Express. At Freshfields, I started and co-led their innovation effort. The most exciting aspect of this role has been having the ability to make a significant impact on some of the most complex and largest matters in the world. The ability to “play” with the explosive mix of top-end lawyering and the top-end of technology (AI and ML) is a dream come true. In reality these innovations have resulted in amazing new revenue models and streams for clients, the firm, partners and lawyers. We’ve worked on developing completely new types of legal services and on a completely different scale, not humanly possible. Being a pioneer and part of such the efforts is a privilege and a thrilling experience. For me though, the best part of these new technologies is that they allow for the democratisation of legal services – allowing law firms of any size, as well as society at large to enjoy the benefits. Legal playing fields are being redrawn and there is a lot of talk about the future benefits of artificial intelligence in the legal industry.  What excites you about developments in AI and why should we be embracing this new future as the legal industry? There are two aspects of AI – the threats and the opportunities. AI is disruptive technology by nature, and that means potential disruption of the value chain of the legal industry altogether. AI-enabled work currently done by lawyers might be performed by smart machines and taken over by your corporate clients, accountants or even – strange as it sounds – regulators (for example, the Roll Royce case in the UK where regulators used AI to audit the case). So you definitely don’t want to be the last one to the game since “legal lunch” might be eaten by some other players. Think of Deloitte, who is starting to enter the legal market. However on opportunity side, law firms and the legal industry should play to their strengths and assess how and where AI can and should extend their strategic play or barrier to entry. Pursue pure AI-strategic play and see where they can create new legal services that never existed, or were previously prohibitively expensive.   What excites me is thinking of “AI as new electricity.” Just think for a moment how industries, lives, quality of life, services and societies at large looked before electricity. This will be the major shift of the business (and legal) world we live in, how we live and the kind of services we will provide and enjoy. And to be truly outlandish, how about new regulation being generated, reviewed and monitored by smart AI machines…in real time. Or to bring it home for legal firms, smart machines being able to store the legal expertise of your top partners and lawyers, so that you can own, maintain and use their expertise beyond their retirement or tenure within the firm. Let alone predicting profitability or partnership chances of your pool of newly graduated lawyers. That is what I call “new legal.”  Tell us a bit about the AI initiatives you’ve worked on  Two of the most exciting projects have been: Using AI for new anti-bribery regulation in Germany. It was first of a kind in the world for training new anti-bribery provisions in a matter of weeks, so we were able to review tens of thousands of documents, previously humanly not possible. Once trained our lawyers were able to acquire a significant new number of clients. Using AI on one of the largest class action suits in the world – assessing, categorising claims and court judgements, generation of appropriate arguments and documentation based on automated assessment and all within comprehensive and holistic view of information about claims, claimants, judgements and status across all representative law firms.   What are your top tips for companies/firms looking to embrace “AI here and now!”  My top advice is – for every large and medium client matter/project within your firm, ask yourself how and where AI can help and secondly how would you approach the matter/project if you adopted an AI-first approach from the outset. AI is not supposed to be just the back-office, lab play for techies but an actual major “tool set” for your lawyers and your top current client matters. And don’t just look into doing the same tasks better or faster but asking what other services and value-adds AI can provide to your clients. And that is the point at which your actual AI innovation starts – innovation of client services. AI innovation leads, and is at the core of innovation of client services.   How do AI enabled client services equal value creation for clients and lawyers?  Primarily at the moment, it’s an increase in depth and breadth of legal insights (information), that in turn means an increased depth and breadth of legal advice, legal risk assessment and provision of legal services. For lawyers it means the ability to focus more on the strategic, top end lawyering, expert-level type of work while being able to draw their conclusions from much deeper pool of legal information. It gives the lawyers the ability to take on more high-end lawyering type of work. It moves the lawyer up the legal value chain.   For clients it is the ability to take full advantage of those deeper legal insights based on larger and deeper information pools.  And secondly it means cost savings because of the lower cost of automated legal services – a factor that may drive more access to and demand for legal services. In one of the largest matters I was involved in, the estimated savings to the client was measured in millions of euros.    About the Speaker Milos Kresojevic is the Founder of AI.Legal Labs, and is a thought leader on the use of AI in the legal industry. From Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to IBM Research Lab and Silicon Valley. Milos has an MBA Degree from Columbia University and London Business School and a MSc. Aerospace Engineering from the University of Belgrade. Milos contributed to the Law Society’s report on “Technology Innovation in Legal Services”, and regularly speaks on AI and Big Law globally – from New York, to London, to Toronto, to Sydney. He is the winner of the 1st European LegalTech Hackathon, and he presented at ICAIL 2017 at King’s College. Milos’ current primary focus is researching the impact of AI and wider disruptive technologies on Big Law and Access to Justice.

Law Firms Kick Against Innovation Tech

Law firms resist change – the only aspect that drives technology change in law firms is the external pressure from their clients, general counsel or legislation. Also, if they get burnt by something that technology could have prevented – like viruses, hacks, email snooping or server crashes. It seems absolutely crazy that law firms would resist innovation that would see their firms providing more efficient services to their clients, so why do law firms fight the changes that would help them down the line?

Lawyers of the Future: A Word of Caution

Never mind Latin, do you speak New Law? To stay relevant in the legal world you need to know your AI, from your LPO, ALSP and IG* – A language that I’m guessing wasn’t part of your law degree unless you graduated last year from a South African law school I don’t know about. While the majority of states in the US recognise that a duty of technology competence is part of the professional rules of conduct for lawyers, we’re a long way off from this in South Africa. In 2016 when asked to present on the Future of Law to a major South African university, I accepted their offer of a projector to show my powerpoint presentation, only to be directed to an overhead projector when I arrived. Enough said.

The 8 Hottest Topics Shaping Legal This Year

This year sees the launch of the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in South Africa, the first event of its kind in the country. You might be wondering how the agenda for this event is developed so as to be on point with the latest pressing issues in the industry. It’s down to a unique research methodology that really gets industry professionals speaking their minds and sharing real challenges, plans and trends. A series of roundtable discussions and interviews with legal professionals results in a list of hot topics that have been debated and discussed within the community. It is these topics that will shape the agenda for Legal Innovation & Tech Fest 2018. This Year’s Research This year’s research groups saw over 100 senior professionals from law firms, in-house legal teams and alternative legal service providers getting together for small face-to-face discussion groups facilitated by an industry thought-leader in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Discussions revolved around the challenges and ideas for improvement and innovation in the world of law. Key Themes The following 8 themes emerged from the roundtable discussions as being most important to the legal community: The legal ecosystem, legal business and the lawyer of the future Building the skills and capability for successful innovation Data-driven decision making – what you can measure you can manage The strategy, the ROI and the business case for innovation, change and collaboration Leveraging user experience to drive user adoption Demystifying artificial intelligence, automation and augmentation The vendor conundrum – sales, implementation and beyond Stakeholder, project and change management   The discussions around these topics were captured in an extensive research report which you can download here for more detailed insight. Legal Innovation & Tech Fest 2018 The inaugural Legal Innovation and Tech Fest will launch in South Africa in June 2018 and will demonstrate how legal innovation is being enabled by technology through a combination of case studies, thought-leader presentations, discussion groups, product demos and panels. All based around the key topics brought forward by the community in this report. We look forward to building the agenda and continuing the inspiring conversations around these themes. See you at Legal Innovation & Tech Fest 2018!

These 4 Disruptions are Changing the Future of Legal

We are living in an age of unprecedented disruption. Once-lucrative revenue models, like billable hours, are under siege. Market structures and distribution channels that have been stable for decades are crumbling before our eyes. The demise of brands such as Kodak, Borders and Blockbuster leaves us with little doubt – shift is happening and no business is immune. So is the legal industry at risk? Here are 4 major shifts that are happening right now that may be threatening the legal sector as we know it: 1. The Age of Automation We are entering the age of automation and there are few industries that are immune. Consider the impact of driverless cars for example: What will it mean for where we’ll live and how we’ll work? Some industries that are flourishing, like pay parking stations for instance, we may not even see in 15-20 years’ time. In 20-30 years’ time car ownership and the daily commute to the office may be something that is not mainstream and this will have an impact on many aspects of how we do business. The biggest shift for legal professionals to be aware of in this space is the impact of blockchain technology. Blockchain is taking a lot of the routine research and discovery functions of paralegals for instance and replacing it with an algorithm. So some of the entry-level roles for lawyers will change in the next few years in a big way and we’re already seeing the beginning of that. 2. Empowered Consumers Stakeholders and clients have more of a voice than ever before, they demand more information and want to be far more involved than they have ever been in the past. A lot of industries are used to operating under a cone of silence, “We’re the experts, don’t challenge us, we don’t have to keep you updated,” these are the industries that will find it most difficult to adapt to this change. Consumers want transparency, and will be leveraging technology to get that transparency. Consumers are also becoming increasingly savvy and will do a pretty thorough examination on your business before they even reach out to you; they know about you, they’ve checked you out on Facebook, on LinkedIn, they’ve read reviews about you. The fact that consumers have a voice to be able to share their experience like they’ve never had before means that you’ve constantly got to be engaging with the marketplace. If you’re not paying attention to what the marketplace is saying about you, and if you’re not responding to that sentiment, you’ll find yourself on the back foot, because that information is out there and consumers are using it far more than ever before. 3. Unconventional Competition If you look at the most significant disruptions in the last 10 years, this category is where they have come from. But for a lot of businesses this is the one that they give least thought to. I mean, how many taxi drivers thought their biggest threat was going to be from an app? It was a form of competition they never even imagined and it has the potential to take them out. When you ask a business who their key competition is, the companies they list are often the ones they don’t need to be paying most attention to, because they’re the ones they’re already aware of, they’re on the radar. The most dangerous threat for any business or industry is the invisible competitor. It’s those companies who you may not even think of as a competitor yet, but they’re looking to move into your industry. For example, hotels are now facing the biggest threat from Airbnb. They’re looking at Sheraton or Hilton as competitors, without actually recognising the bigger threat is the more existential one. 4. Emerging Generations A big chunk of my initial research 10-12 years ago was looking at Millennials and Generation Y, some of the attitudes and expectations of those groups, but more importantly, how does any industry or profession connect with that generation? What are their attitudes and their beliefs, what’s the language that works, and how do you engage them as consumers or team mates? If you’re in a leadership role and you’re managing young people, how do you coach and lead a generation who have grown up in an era where everyone gets a ribbon in the race at school, and their whole approach to having a say and being involved in decision-making is different to what older generations had when they were at the same point in their careers? While all this information may seem quite foreboding and overwhelming, do not fear! Here are some strategies for staying ahead of the game: Dig the Well Before You Get Thirsty: Don’t wait for disruption to hit; pre-empt it. How do you get ahead of the change? If you wait until disruption hits your industry or your business, you’re merely in survival mode. Stay Humble and Hungry: You know that the old saying “The moment you think you’ve made it, you’ve passed it,” and for any business that thinks they’ve arrived at the winning formula, they’ve got their revenue model set in stone and now it’s just a case of milking the cow, watch out. You’ve got to keep constantly looking at what’s next, and stay humble enough to realise that what’s worked in the past may not work in the future. That’s confronting but necessary. Build a Culture of Innovation: Rather than innovation being something that just a department or a committee look after, everyone in an organisation should have a role to play in innovating and looking for new ways to do things. But the question is how do you build that culture within an organisation or a team? Foster Healthy Paranoia: If you’ve had any measure of success in any business or industry you’ve got a target painted on your back. The companies that realise this fact are not just paranoid, they’re actually staying ahead of the game. This healthy paranoia keeps you hungry and it’s the best antidote to complacency. It’s all about reinventing yourself before you’re forced to.   About the Author Michael McQueen is an award-winning strategist, social researcher and author of 5 bestselling books. He has his finger on the pulse when it comes to emerging trends shaping business and culture. With clients including KPMG, Pepsi and Cisco, he has helped some of the world’s most successful brands navigate change and stay ahead of the curve.

5 Insights Into AI for Legal Professionals

At the Legal Innovation & Tech Fest in Australia in 2017, Sam Nickless, COO and a Partner of Gilbert + Tobin presented on the early experiences with artificial intelligence (AI) at his firm during their implementation and experimentation with elements of AI. Sam summarises the key points of his presentation here.

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