TheCorporateCounsel.net

Public company boards are far from the only group struggling with how to navigate the corporate and competitive landscape in an AI-powered world. This recent Bloomberg Law column says that law firms are starting to adjust their near-term expectations for genAI by “acknowledging that today’s AI tools are better at boosting back-office efficiency rather than redesigning how client work is handled.”

Redesigning the way lawyers produce work for clients—or figuring out how to build a business model that plugs the holes AI blasts in the billable hour—are largely problems for another day, said Charles Adams, Clifford Chance’s global managing partner.

He compared the coming change to early in his career when red-lining technology eliminated the need for lawyers to manually mark-up changes to documents, blowing up a large portion of associate work. Generative AI will lead to a similar moment, he said, but nobody yet knows what it will be or when it will happen.

[…] Law firm partners pushed firms to invest in the technology, excited by its potential, said Sente Advisors’ McClead. That was a change from typical tech adoption, which usually requires convincing lawyers to get on board, he said. [Now…] “We’re reaching a critical mass where they’re using it, finally, and saying: ‘But it doesn’t do what I thought it was going to do.’”

Some law firms have dedicated the time to understand where the current capabilities of gen AI can — and can’t — help their teams. The article notes that some M&A practitioners feel “today’s AI tools lack the accuracy and functionality that would make them useful in the dealmaking space.” On the other hand, the article says some early adopters of Microsoft CoPilot are finding it useful to improve the tone of an email or generate notes:

“For one of my emails, it said you’re conveying a lot of anxiety and stress. And I was like, you know what, I want that conveyed. Because I have anxiety and stress about this,” [Sharis Pozen, managing partner of the Americas for Clifford Chance] said, adding, “I absolutely love it.”

The tool has also generated notes for video meetings with recruiters, saving staff time on a previously manual task, she said. The firm wants its lawyers to experiment with the technology and use it in ways that saves them time.

David Cambria of Epiq says, “law firms are torn between FUD—fear, uncertainty and doubt—and FOMO, the fear of missing out.” Aren’t we all!

– Meredith Ervine