Law Firms are Inefficiency Factories, Automation is the Cure

Richard Tromans writes “There may be a more indirect way of saying this, but perhaps it is better to simply say it like it is: law firms are inefficiency factories and automation is the cure“. Styling himself as a legal industrialist, Richard is an agent provocateur in the best sense of the term – legal services need more Richards who are willing to speak out. Bravo!

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Harbinger of the change affecting #BigLaw, courtesy of @ArtificialLawya

Harbinger of the change affecting #BigLaw, courtesy of @ArtificialLawya breaks with the pattern of Dialogue: [1] I am publishing Richard Troman’s article as a news item [2] hours prior to the release of Ken Grady’s post on transformational change. This juxtaposition is a metaphor for what all BigLaw business model firms need to come to grips with, very quickly. Thank you Richard – and Ken.     

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Herbert Smith Freehills sets out its legal AI vision

In Artificial Lawyer, Richard Tromans reports that Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has set out its approach to the use of legal AI in a major report published on September 14, 2017. HSF joins a growing number of law firms to now publicly embrace the use of AI and to actively engage with clients to find out what services they want to be supported by machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) technology.

The report is in part a sort of ‘beginner’s guide’ educational work to explain to readers what legal AI is all about, but also more interestingly sets out HSF’s own views on what legal AI will do for the legal sector and how the firm is approaching the subject.

Clients’ views on legal AI

The firm has also published feedback from its clients on how they see the adoption of AI among their legal advisers. And this is perhaps the best bit of the report.

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AI and the Legal Renaissance

AI and the Legal Renaissance is another very helpful post by Richard Tromans.  

When AI first reached the ears of the legal market some years ago there was a flurry of stories about the end of lawyers. For years afterward and with Pavlov dogs-like automation any mention of legal AI summoned up the panicked refrain: ‘The end of lawyers is coming, the end of lawyers is coming!’

This was until law firms and corporates actually started to make use of legal AI systems, especially in the last two years and even more so last year. The clichéd refrain, now exposed to the cleansing light of real experience, seemed to die away upon contact.

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Legal Market Embraces AI: Now Moving Beyond the Early Adopter Phase

The Legal Market Embraces AI: Now Moving Beyond the Early Adopter Phase is the second post on Dialogue from London-based Richard Tromans, publisher of Artificial Lawyer. As Richard points out data of this kind rapidly dates, such is the pace of change. Nevertheless, for many (most?) readers, this is hot news.

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