Biglaw Not As Plugged Into AI As We Thought

// Last week, we wrote up the 2023 ILTA tech survey. The mammoth 300+ page report provides a wealth of insight into legal tech adoption across the industry. There are so many angles to pursue. I chose AI and… oops.

The survey included a graph showing that 85 percent of respondents said their firms are already using generative AI for at least some business tasks. But it turned out the graph was unintentionally inverted and only 15 percent of respondents said their firms were using genAI.

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Can’t have a survey about AI without including a hallucination!

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So… that undermines one key takeaway from the article. Alas, the generative AI era has not really started in Biglaw yet.

The idea that 85 percent of the legal world already embraced generative AI sounded a bit bold, but since the graph didn’t make any representation as to how much a firm had to use AI to count, it seemed possible that a bunch of firms are deploying it sparingly. This also offers an explanation for why such a broad swath of firms have yet to establish clear policies around AI beyond laziness and negligence.

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But the other point made in the original piece remains true: law firms are all over the place on where they think generative AI slots into their workflow. This also suggests that law firms might be waiting on the “killer app” to emerge and provide a clear use case before hopping into this world.

And the race to develop that is officially on.

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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Artificial Intelligence (AI), Biglaw, ILTA, ILTA on ATL, Technology