Dec 16, 2024
We’re back for our sixth year and what a year
it has been for legaltech, AI and innovation!
If 2023 was the year to figure out what
generative AI was all about, then 2024 was most definitely the year
for pilots, experimentation, and strategies for data and AI. Well,
that was how it went for some, but not everyone…
In this, our annual year in review, we
discussed what happened and where the dust settled in 2024 with
Caryn Sandler, Partner and Chief Knowledge & Innovation Officer
at Gilbert
+ Tobin and Co-chair of the CLI
Advisory Board; Graeme
Grovum, Head of Legal Technology and Client Services
at Allens and
Host of CLI’s Legal Ops Clinic in 2024; and Tessa
van Duyn, CEO and Practice Leader at Moores and
member of the CLI
Advisory Board.
We started this session by discussing the
discernible shift in mindset during 2024 from questioning if the
legal industry should engage with generative AI, to embracing it as
well as understanding and learning how to manage its issues – we
collectively reached a new level of AI maturity!
As we dug deeper on impacts, we identified
some key changes enabled by AI, particularly generative AI, to the
business and practice of law this year, including:
- Non-negotiable “must haves” for the
tech – easy to use, convenient, clearly identifiable
benefits.
- New levels of tech
engagement – GenAI creates a space where “personal
life meets professional life” and consequently its uptake has been
faster and at an unprecedented scale.
- Redefining collaboration –
different partnerships, different interactions, different client
engagements, emerging coalitions of competitors working and
learning together, all focused on building a strong legal ecosystem
that delivers on the potential, promises, and opportunities of
generative AI but also knows how to manage its challenges.
- Redefining legal work -
from conception to delivery and everything in between.
- Redefining value – what
matters most, authenticity or efficiency and, are they the only
choices? Where does pricing and billing by the hour fit into all of
this?
- Redefining capabilities for
practice – meeting people where they are so they can
work out where they need to go together and individually.
- Redefining metrics –
are we measuring impact or use or something else? Are metrics the
same for this tech for all its uses? We need to know if the
investment in the tech is moving us forward, or not, but it may be
well into 2025 before we work this one out.
- Redefining
employment and workforce – employees
are now in search of digitally enabled employers and employers in
search of digitally and data literate employees. Is going to a law
firm or legal department that is not tech-enabled now a
career-limiting move? What will that do to the legal
workforce?
- Embracing capabilities where you find
them, not where you expect them – making the tech
available to everyone can result in an expansion of roles, new
roles, and uncovering tech-related capabilities that enhance
careers and your workforce where they may have otherwise remained
hidden.
- Understanding that the pace and scale
of change is now a constant and must be proactively
managed. We need to understand the human consequence
of this i.e., unparalleled change fatigue and the need to focus on
human wellbeing more than ever before.
And, Graeme demonstrated his interactive
avatar too – we all want him to build us one!
We wrapped with what will come next in 2025.
Will ops teams lead the way? Will our humanity and creativity be
best explored through play? Will a growing sophistication in how we
use GenAI, especially by clients, reinvent the B2B, B2C and D2C
markets?
Thank you sooooo much Caryn, Graeme and Tessa
– this is a session we look forward to every year and we’re certain
you will too – don’t miss this one!
If you would prefer to watch rather than
listen to this podcast, you’ll find the video here.
About the Future 50
Series
In the Future 50 Series, we’re chatting with
legalpreneurs who, through their ideas and actions, are challenging
and transforming legal BAU all around the world.
If you would like to recommend people for this
Series, please contact us at: CLI@collaw.edu.au.