Legal innovation requires a growth mindset: seeking new ways to solve problems and effectively deliver impact, value, and improve outcomes. Technology continues to evolve, giving legal practitioners new opportunities to up their game and leverage innovation to increase efficiency and efficacy. Over the past decade, to keep pace with digital transformation, legal leaders have embraced automation and machine learning to optimize operations and improve business outcomes. However, technology is moving at lightning speed, and keeping pace is no longer good enough in a Legal 3.0 world.
What is Legal 3.0 you say? What does that mean? In our recent co-branded white paper with Corporate Counsel Business Journal, we discuss how we are on the brink of this new paradigm, necessitating a fundamental shift in how legal teams deliver advice and services – getting to critical facts faster and improving case strategy. We explore the unique challenges posed by the Legal 3.0 world, and what legal leaders need to do to successfully navigate this transition.
This blog goes a bit further. It provides modern legal practitioners with three actionable tips and tricks to maximize the benefits of legal technology, gain greater control over data, and prepare for the AI-driven future that is Legal 3.0.
Become a tech-savvy attorney
In Legal 3.0, lawyers need to focus on a different way to interact with technology to achieve speed, accuracy and maximum return on investment. Now, more than ever, legal practitioners must demonstrate a mastery of technology. In the context of generative AI (GenAI), they will need to fine tune results and responses they expect from prompts and learn to ask questions in a way that increases speed to facts. As lawyers increasingly interact with GenAI, they will need to develop the skills to ensure they can use prompts effectively to maximize the value of the technology. They can let the machine take a first cut at issues and then apply legal reasoning and refinement to drive case or investigative strategy. They must also learn of the risks and issues with AI and how to detect and defend when it is being used. While the thought of mastering new legal tech GenAI technology may seem overwhelming, with the proper tools at your disposal the journey to Legal 3.0 can be simpler than it sounds.
Develop critical technical partners
According to a recent survey, 72 percent of general counsel stated that CIOs play a critical or important role in delivering on departmental innovation strategy. Achieving desired departmental goals starts with developing critical partnerships with a variety of technical experts. With many rules, laws, and procedures in place requiring attorneys (both outside and in-house counsel) to demonstrate a duty of technological competency, they find this particularly critical to keep up with skills required to address issues or that involve the actual handling and use of electronic data and information systems. If they lack the skill, it is sufficient to consult with experts to assist with leveraging technology to test, adopt, or deliver legal services. This includes data scientists and IT leaders that have a greater mastery of AI standards, applications, and risks associated with managing and using data. And if those roles do not yet exist, steps should be taken to bring in those resources permanently or in a consultative capacity.
AI-readiness is a process
By investing in AI-driven solutions and fostering a culture of innovation, lawyers and their teams can position themselves as the leaders of Legal 3.0. They need to take the appropriate steps to investigate the impact of AI, particularly GenAI technologies, and the benefits associated with cost reduction and productivity gains. Failure will be largely attributed to insufficient testing and validation. Those ready to enter this new world are spending a great deal of upfront time testing AI in real-world scenarios to assess its benefit and reliability for production and investigation reviews. This includes exploring the potential of GenAI and its relevance or initiating pilot projects to validate its effectiveness in specific areas if those innovators have not done so already.
Conclusion
AI, advanced analytics, automation, and integration are necessities, not luxuries. Speed to facts is becoming the norm and managing risk should always be proactive, not reactive. Embracing this new era will require a commitment to continuous learning, innovation, and a willingness to adopt and integrate cutting-edge technologies into everyday legal practice. By doing so, legal teams can not only keep pace with evolution but also lead the way in delivering superior legal services in a rapidly changing world.
Prepare for an AI driven future, download the whitepaper: “Journey to a Legal 3.0 world”
How OpenText can help
OpenText empowers legal departments to embrace this new era with confidence, enabling them to thrive in a fast-paced, data-driven environment – delivering outcomes with Legal AI tools.
We are committed to helping our customers on their journey to Legal 3.0, where handling data of any type, at any speed, and from anywhere is essential. Our Legal Tech Aviator – the AI central nervous system of our Smart Legal Platform –offers a competitive GenAI edge. This comprehensive approach to data analytics leverages the power of Large Language Models (LLMs) for crucial legal applications such as eDiscovery. With Aviator, legal teams can quickly unlock insights and make smarter decisions, regardless of data volume, source, or format. By harnessing the power of data with an all-in-one solution for AI-driven insights, productivity, and risk management, legal teams can elevate their potential and fuel business and legal decision-making for better outcomes.
