The largest in-house legal departments in the United States operate with less than 100 staff, but process over 48 million pages. Consider this figure: Two decades ago, a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint against a health care provider produced over 1.2 million pages of discovery documents supporting the case. In this example, an administrative judge suggested documents greater than this number would constitute “an extraordinary cost” over and above the “extraordinary effort” already put into the discovery!
Although the exact number of documents for each case will differ across industries and firms, it would be no stretch to suggest many legal administrators face a similarly unmanageable burden. Unfortunately, the problem hasn’t taken care of itself. Despite much of the paperwork generated being caused by technology (consider the emails, metadata, or messages generated by the average person each day), law firms have been reluctant to adopt this technology in kind.
There are any number of ways for law firms to use these machine learning tools to complement human professionals and make life easier for legal administration. Although traditional methods for processing data are time consuming, all this extra time doesn’t necessarily mean fewer errors. So what can legal administrators do to keep up?
AI AND THE LEGAL INDUSTRY
In recent years, the majority of the efforts to automate have been using artificial intelligence (AI). AI tools have already transformed every aspect of the claims industry, although the legal field has tended to fall behind. In a recent survey done by Thomson Reuters, just 3% of legal professionals said they utilize generative AI.
Automating tasks can be a cost-effective way to deal with the amount of paperwork, medical records or insurance correspondence associated with a case. It’s also legal, especially since the Da Silva Moore v. Publicis decision in 2012. While AI isn’t set to replace the human element of law firms any time soon, it is still a powerful tool for transforming workflows, enhancing accuracy and reducing costs.
WHAT DOES AI AUTOMATION MEAN FOR LEGAL ADMINISTRATORS?
In the broader context of legal issues, a number of corporate law firms are already jumping on board. Corporate law firm Dentons uses an AI tool called Luminance for its analysis of documents, capable of automating the review process, detecting anomalies and automatically redrafting when necessary. It also launched “fleetAI” — its own proprietary version of generative AI tool ChatGPT.
“This is the true power of AI automation — removing the bulk of repetitive tasks and allowing law firm managers more time to focus on higher value jobs.”
Similarly, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati added Dioptra to its AI toolkit in 2024. Tools like this can handle advanced legal reasoning and legal language, making it a valuable asset for due diligence, compliance and negotiation. BakerHostetler also developed ROSS, an AI-powered digital attorney.
Although these kinds of tools make plenty of headlines, AI’s true superpower may be administration. Rather than legal reasoning or research, AI automation could help law firm managers “turn the page” on stacks of documents. Voluminous patient files, electronic health record outputs, or insurance company correspondence can be uploaded, indexed and made searchable in half the time before a legal case. Duplicate files can be removed, summaries created from patient records, and multiple versions of document sets created for each relevant user.
This is the true power of AI automation — removing the bulk of repetitive tasks and allowing law firm managers more time to focus on higher value jobs.
ADOPTION OF AI TOOLS IN LAW FIRMS IN 2024 AND BEYOND
It’s important to note that AI isn’t to replace human efforts. In most use cases, these tools are not being called on to do the legal research in place of the legal professionals themselves. For legal professionals, legal managers and lawyers, the number of firms moving toward AI-powered platforms should serve as compelling evidence for the benefits of this technology. As AI evolves, the capabilities of these tools will improve as well.
All of this means legal administrators who embrace the growing field of AI can be increasingly secure in its ability to enhance workflows and offer better outcomes for their teams and for the firm as a whole.
