Hype vs. Reality: Is everything AI now?

The {Law} Firm of the Future

We welcome Katherine Thomas to Dialogue with her post ‘The {Law} Firm of the Future’.

If you haven’t read Bain & Company’s report ‘The Firm of the Future’ report, you should, writes Katherine. Bain’s report is a must-read for anyone looking to understand how the commercial world is changing. It’s a vital read for legal service providers (LSPs), working within a sector that is at the same time established, mature and immature, depending on the approach and services offered. 

The management science behind the professional partnership

The management science behind the professional partnership was celebrated in a special issue of the Journal of Professions and Organization, July 2017. (1)

Few professional services firm leaders and practitioners, consultants, and commentators are aware of the substantial body of knowledge that underpins the dynamics of partnership in the professions.  So, in this brief post, I reproduce the Abstract of one of the articles to give readers a taste – and hopefully encourage many to delve into this fascinating literature.

Understand the rules if you want to play the game

Signs of the times: The rise of managed legal services

This month I am delighted to welcome Catherine J. (CJ) Moynihan as a contributor to Dialogue. As a senior director of legal management services at the Association of Corporate Counsel,  she is the subject matter expert on managing the legal function, legal spending, and the ACC Value Challenge. Catherine has many and special perspectives on changes in the legal services supply chain, especially those being driven by clients.

New players driving value for legal departments

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.