From curiosity to commitment: how to get lawyers to adopt AI
Despite its rising popularity, AI adoption in law firms is still a struggle. The key to overcoming this reluctance is to be realistic with the capabilities of the technology, understand how it achieves the output, and clearly communicate how it’s supposed to help people, not replace them, highlights Avail AI
AI within the legal industry is the next big thing, and this change is here upon us right now. Nowadays, you can’t open a copy of any law newsletter without seeing an article on AI — whether that’s a horror story of AI hallucinations, the latest law firm investing in tech and AI, or new products in the market.
Many law firms have AI adoption on the top of their agenda. Most are either implementing such solutions — and investing big budgets in both internal and external technology development — or actively exploring AI adoption and, if not, they’re talking about how everyone else seems to be using it. Nevertheless, AI adoption is still a slow process, as many are still struggling to get buy in from individual lawyers internally.
AI and legal tech are here to take the pain away, allowing lawyers to get into the nitty gritty and focus on the tasks that made them want to be lawyers in the first place, and focus on redefining excellent legal service rather than spending time on mundane data gathering and reporting. It is an opportunity for lawyers to add real value and expertise. Moreover, AI and legal technology can be used to surface legal risks at an early stage, ultimately seeking to save client’s time and money, while allowing the lawyers to focus on the key commercial aspects of the transactions.
Yet for a variety of reasons many lawyers are reluctant to change their working practices and end up falling back on their tried and tested practices. So why are lawyers reluctant to adopt AI into their everyday working practices? Is it fear? A lack of confidence in the products? A lack of understanding of AI and legal tech? The time spent in learning how to use a new platform? Or is it simply that turkeys don’t vote for Christmas?
The reality is, it’s all of these things. Notwithstanding the fact that adoption of AI within legal practice is there to drive efficiency and save time, many lawyers struggle to get over the hurdle of finding the time to learn how to use the technology and adopt new practices. It’s all too easy to fall back into trusted methods of working when under pressure, even if not the most time efficient. Under the time pressure of a transaction deadline, who’s remembering which platform to log on to, the password or what they have been told in an online onboarding session most likely attended remotely.
How can this hurdle to change ways of working, engrained over years of practice, be overcome? The key is to take the plunge: make it the first step in the transaction. Platforms like Avail are simple to use with a single sign-on (SSO), ready to use ‘out of the box’ and it’s very difficult to ‘break’ the platform. Ask any lawyer who’s made the change and adopted AI into their daily practice and they’ll say they now can’t live without it! If you use a smartphone, the leap isn’t far.
What about trusting the output? Lawyers maybe fearful that the AI is going to make a mistake. This hurdle can be overcome by being realistic with the capabilities of the technology and understanding how it achieves the output. Generative AI relies on predicting patterns, so by adopting AI into standardised tasks, and understanding that the lawyers role is in finesse and analysis, the adoption process starts to fit seamlessly into the workflow of a transaction.
The same applies for people’s worry about whether AI will take their jobs. AI will not replace lawyers — it will replace lawyers who don’t adopt AI. No one became a lawyer to spend time on mundane data processing and reporting. If you can off load the routine but vital tasks to a reliable tool, more time can be spent on getting under the bonnet of a transaction and exploring the key commercial terms and opportunities for clients and adding the real value.
Driving AI adoption is proving to be a big issue for knowledge and professional support lawyers, legal technology and business development teams across the board. Discussions about mandating or incentivising adoption of AI in law firms are commonplace. The issues preventing the change in working practices are broad and varied, but the advantages in overcoming these are clear. Once you make the leap to embrace AI and legal tech you will wonder what was ever holding you back.
