The panel for the March 11 event, LeGAL Leaders in Conversation, included Fasken associate Bettina Xue Griffin, who also worked with Blue J Legal, an AI software for tax research, Mona Datt, CEO of Loom Analytics, which provides AI services to consolidate court processes and Kayee Cheung, co-founder of Edenreach, a justice-focused legal financing company utilizing AI.
“When I joined [Blue J], there was no such thing as LLM. We were the original AI,” said Griffin. “And it’s really interesting when you start in a market a little bit too early, and the experiences you gain there.”
Datt said that market conditions in the tech space eventually evolved, allowing her company to do end-to-end evidence management, including capture and search and redaction for courts, police and defence.
The biggest opportunity Cheung said she saw with AI transforming law was the ability to process quantities of data as she deals with legal, financial and impact data.
“Without AI, there would be no way that we could process all these different complex taxonomies, all expert-led areas to create something that would be credible and be a Rosetta Stone across all these different industries,” she said.
“The unlocking of intersectional and cross-category collaboration is my most tangible unlock for AI.”
For Datt, it was the compute and accessibility to the AI models as cloud servers have become available.
“AWS and Google and Microsoft had to be willing to host these servers, because not everybody can buy this stuff, put it in their office or their house,” she said. “We focus on audio, video and image processing. So, for us, a lot of the stuff we do in the courts and in the police systems would not even get touched.”
She gave the example of the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. insurrection. She had spoken to prosecutors involved who had thousands of hours of footage left unconsidered. For her, it was about making those processes efficient and possible.
Datt went on to note that AI is not going to take away jobs. It may filter out entry-level, low-performing employees, but there is skill required to analyze the output of AI systems, and there is demand for the types of roles that a human pool can do.
“It’s actually allowing us to do more with the same number of people, and it’s elevating the requirements of what’s expected of those human beings compared to what was passable as employment in the past for us,” she said.
Griffin touched on how AI usage in law is helping spread more value to more people. Service packages that are usually on the billable hour can be done in an outcome-based or fixed-fee based manner.
As barriers are eroded as more people have access to legal information through AI services, legal services may get cheaper and more people will feel comfortable accessing a lawyer.
“Once we can allow everyone more easy access, people feel more comfortable saying, ‘You know what? There might be a legal issue here,’” she said. “There’s so many different models of delivering value in legal services now that are just starting to be unlocked.”
Datt said that AI can bring the cost of justice down to a significant level, allowing more people to access court transcripts. AI can be used to enable access as fewer young people pursue stenography.
The services have to be sustainable, manageable and deliverable, she said, noting that in the U.S., court cases are “getting tossed out” because of transcripts not being produced in time.
In Cheung’s work, AI is enabling access to justice by letting the company look beyond cases that a law firm or funder has deemed investible.
“There’s gatekeeping from a law firm to decide to take the case forward. There’s gatekeeping from a funder who decides the case is fundable. That means a really small proportion actually ever get to market in front of these investors,” she said.
“So that’s what AI is going to do for us, where we’re going to expand the spectrum of fundable cases and, therefore, access to justice.”
Griffin said there needs to be an incentive change to enable meaningful access to justice, which won’t come unless firms get out of the billable-hour mindset and how incentives are structured.
“Clients are getting much more comfortable with telling lawyers exactly what they are looking for; they’re breaking down a large task into discrete tasks with the help of AI.”
“They’re coming to me with a laundry list of things that they want done. And they’re not shy about shopping around, which is fantastic. They should be,” she said, adding that while lawyers are getting better at quoting, clients are pointing out gaps and where they may have been overbilled.
Cheung said a trend she hopes to see is the reframing of access to justice not just as a charitable effort.
“We are reframing justice as not concessionary, but actually competitive with commensurate returns, because once that behaviour changes, it becomes the norm, and then justice will be funded at scale.”
Griffin said in the next few years, what’s going to transform the industry is how people will add value by delivering fine-tuned judgment.
“Our biggest value is that good judgment to help someone. It’s what we do as friends when we give advice. It’s what we do as professionals and colleagues,” she said.
“Be willing to take on risk. Innovation is all about risk,” she added. “I’m seeing lawyers being willing to take on more risk, as they should. I think everyone in society should just get a little more comfortable with saying, ‘This is what I think, and I’m willing to stand by it.’”
Datt said she’s seeing the shift in terms of the skills now being sought by companies.
“Those arts degrees that everybody said would be useless — they are your golden ticket right now. You have personality. You are a human. You are not a machine. You get to use judgment, critical thinking skills,” she said.
The panel concluded by touching on how those wanting to start up in the legal tech space can make their impact.
“I took an unmet need and turned it into an opportunity,” said Cheung. “And I think that your unique life experiences will allow you to see where that intersectionality and opportunity is.”
Griffin encouraged individuals to be bold, which can reflect in many ways, whether it’s starting something new or within a person’s current employment.
“Only the market can validate what you’re trying to do. Offer your value that you think you can bring,” she said.
“You can’t figure it out in your head. Test it out. See if people think there’s value there. That’s good evidence. So just go for it.”
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