Here is my recent Daily Record column. My past Daily Record articles can be accessed here.
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New Report Highlights GenAI Adoption Trends in Law
For legal professionals facing an ever-evolving technology landscape shaped by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data-driven decisions are the key to successful adaptation. Because change is occurring quickly, up-to-date information is key. That’s where the Thomson Reuters Institute 2024 Generative AI in Professional Services Report comes in.
This report highlights how professionals, including lawyers, view and use generative AI (GenAI). It offers insights into legal professionals’ attitudes and adoption rates and provides law firm leaders with timely industry data. Using this information, you can make informed choices about when and how to implement GenAI in your firm.
First, let’s consider legal professionals’ perspectives on GenAI. The report shows that only a slight majority view it as an appropriate tool for use in a law firm. 85% of legal professionals believe AI could be applied to their work, while only 51% say it should.
Data from the report also indicates that ethical concerns about the unauthorized practice of law could drive some of the reticence surrounding GenAI. The majority (77%) of legal respondents cited this issue as either a significant threat or somewhat of a threat to the profession.
Our judicial counterparts are even more cautious about incorporating GenAI into their workflows, with 60% having no current plans to use it and only 8% currently experimenting with it
Also notable is that legal-specific GenAI tools are not yet mainstream in our profession. According to the Report, only 12% of legal professionals report using legal-specific GenAI tools today, but 43% plan to do so within the next three years. In comparison, consumer GenAI tools are more popular presently, with 27% of legal industry respondents using them and another 20% planning to do so within the next three years. In other words, within a few years, the adoption of legal-specific tools will far outpace that of consumer tools in the legal space, and rightly so, since legal providers have a far better understanding of the unique needs of legal professionals.
For those currently using GenAI, top use cases in law firms currently include legal research, document review, brief or memo drafting, document summarization, and correspondence drafting.
Data from the report showed that compared to their law firm counterparts, corporate legal departments are more document-focused in their GenAI usage. Contract drafting comes in first, followed by document review, legal research, document summarization, and extracting contract data.
Similarly, government and court respondents also focused primarily on leveraging GenAI tools to work with documents. Use cases included legal research, document review, document summarization, brief or memo drafting, and contract drafting.
Another interesting data point from this report revolved around perspectives on shifting the cost of GenAI tools when used to provide legal services. According to the report, law firms report primarily absorbing GenAI investment costs as firm overhead (51%), with a smaller portion passing the costs to customers on a case-by-case basis (16%) or across the board (9%). 4% use other methods, and 20% have not yet determined their approach.
Alternative pricing for legal services was also discussed, with more than a third of respondents(39%) sharing that GenAI may result in an increase in the use of alternative fees. Even so, another 28% were unclear as to how GenAI adoption might impact law firm billing moving forward.
Last but not least, recruitment. 45% of legal professionals surveyed indicated that their firms do not plan to target applicants with AI or GenAI skills (45%), while 17% identified it as a “nice to have” skill. Only 2% said their firms would require it.
If you haven’t read this report, now’s the time. It provides valuable data that highlights the growing awareness of AI’s potential impact on our profession, even though adoption rates vary. Many legal professionals see the value of AI but remain cautious about fully embracing it.
The findings from this report offer valuable insights that can guide law firm leaders in making informed decisions about integrating AI into their firm’s workflows. As AI technology advances, insights like these will help you strategically decide when and how to implement GenAI, ultimately shaping the future of your law practice.
Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney, author, journalist, and Principal Legal Insight Strategist at MyCase legal practice management software and LawPaypayment processing, AffiniPay companies. She is the nationally-recognized author of “Cloud Computing for Lawyers” (2012) and co-authors “Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier” (2010), both published by the American Bar Association. She also co-authors “Criminal Law in New York,” a Thomson Reuters treatise. She writes regular columns for Above the Law, ABA Journal, and The Daily Record, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. She is an ABA Legal Rebel, and is listed on the Fastcase 50 and ABA LTRC Women in Legal Tech. She can be contacted at niki.black@mycase.com.