Leading up to the Legal Innovation and Tech Fest in Joburg on 7/8 November, I am, perhaps counter-intuitively, really hoping the discussion won’t be pre-occupied with whether robots will be replacing lawyers any time soon. The hype and lack of reality in the discussion on AI in the legal profession and legal services industry is starting to feel like an NDA proofread – a bit tedious. Exploring how we can harness tech (including AI) to enable real human lawyers to solve the actual problems they face daily – now that is a far more exciting, and real, prospect.
I say this with what I hope is an unfair advantage, having spent a slightly scary proportion of my waking hours over the last decade trying to build and deliver alternative legal services solutions. A meaningful part of this has included an ongoing investigation into the legal tech out there and the development of our own tech, LightHub. In the last couple of years, I have had the wonderful fortune of being able to work closely with a lifelong friend in developing LightHub and trying to launch it in the US. Here are a couple of the things learned along the way (and a bit of a teaser for our presentation at the conference):
1 Avoid becoming distracted by shiny things
Starting with a shiny thing tends to cost a lot of money and almost never solves the real problems you need to solve. I’m getting older and more cynical about discussions that start with how legal tech, and in particular AI, will be so incredibly disruptive and revolutionary. And I am becoming more entrenched in my view that the starting point, and the central focus throughout, should be the human at the centre of the problem being solved. Interestingly my lifelong techie friend has felt this way for years and feels even more strongly about this now that ‘AI’ has come along. We need to understand in real detail the way in which the lawyer operates, acknowledge the constraints on the lawyer’s ability to deliver what is an incredibly challenging role (see more below), and identify where there are clear opportunities to arm the real life person delivering legal services with technology – and I am convinced that the results will be extraordinary. The legal tech should at least:
- make the lawyer’s life easier by:
- reducing time spent on repetitive tasks.
- allowing time to be spent on more value add and strategic tasks; and
- avoiding the mental distress that is too often associated with the relentless hamster wheel so many members of the profession find hard to escape; and
- enhance the ability to add value by augmenting the lawyer with technology (I like the term “Augmented Intelligence”).
2 Reframe the discussion to liberate rather than threaten
Reframe the discussion so that it is centred around the mutual objectives of the client and the lawyer (and here I mean client mostly in the sense of the in house business client). Rather than a conversation that goes along the lines of: “you have spent way too much time on a miserable hamster wheel doing work that can be standardised and automated and you are therefore redundant and will be replaced by tech”. Champion the value of the legal advisor’s role in the business. It is an incredibly important, and too often overlooked role. Partly because it involves having to wear two hats: (a) enabler of the business’s ability to move forward and thrive; and (b) custodian of risk. These two elements of the role will sometimes clash, and it is up to the lawyer to know when to enable accelerated business activity and when to slow the business down to assess and evaluate and ensure a responsible approach to risk. No robot is navigating this tricky dynamic any time soon. However, there is no doubt that legal tech can be helpful – its a challenging role that needs all the support available to augment the person responsible for it.
Creating tech in a vacuum without involving the people at the heart of all of this, is a mistake. There is no doubt that the technology is out there (cars can drive themselves) but the nuanced judgement and depth of experience necessary to perform the critical role of lawyer and legal counsel to a business, remains a human endeavour. I’m looking forward to discussing in more detail at Legal Innovation and Tech Fest how the legal tech community can help to ensure the human can thrive rather than be replaced, and how business success will follow.
About the Author
Justin Cornish – CEO, Lighthouse Law
Lee is a senior commercial attorney and law lecturer. He focuses on technology related legal issues, commercial agreements, data protection, and regulatory compliance. Lee primarily advises clients on a wide range of commercial and corporate matters as well as data protection compliance, information and cyber security, crypto-currency regulation, software agreements, and intellectual property related issues. Lee is passionate about technology’s intersection with the law, and the future of digital assets in the Web3 environment.