Adopting AI to support the Legal Function
Artificial intelligence being implemented in many areas of the legal industry, such as contract review, document automation, due diligence, and even eDiscovery. To ensure you are making the right investment, it is important to understand the reasons for investing in a legal AI tool and the capabilities or features a tool may be able to offer your business. To help you in navigating and understanding legal AI tools, here are five essential questions to consider before making an investment.
1. IS THE TOOL A WANT OR NEED?
Investigating technological investments requires understanding the difference between wants and needs in order to effectively plan how to use the tool. A need refers to a tool that integrates seamlessly into workflows and processes to save time, accelerate accuracy, and allow multiple tasks to be completed. A want refers to a tool that is capable of advanced technologies but may be limited to settings that workflows and processes are not yet optimized for.
2. CAN THE AI TOOL BE EASILY ADOPTED?
Adopting AI tools is becoming increasingly easier, but some tools are much easier to embrace than others. When selecting an AI tool, it is important to research and review the ease-of-implementation and audit the user experience. It is also beneficial to choose a software provider with a comprehensive customer support system to ensure you and your team are capable of utilizing the tools and features the tool offers in its fullest capacity.
3. IS MY DATA SECURE?
Security should be a top priority for any business, and this should certainly be applied when considering legal AI solutions. Software such as Clerc integrates documents housed on a secure server, encrypting data during transfer and storage, as well as a “bulk cancel” protocol. Before investing in any legal AI software, ask the solutions provider for an audit report periodically, and ensure you have access to their policy and procedures related to security and privacy.
4. DOES THE SOFTWARE FIT MY ORGANIZATION’S NEEDS?
Generalized AI tools are unable to keep up with constant changes in national and local regulations and contract laws. It is important to review the type of AI solutions you are researching to determine the extent of their conformity to various jurisdictions. Ask yourself the question: Can the software be used in various regions? Being able to use the software in multiple regions can help unlock savings on manual work and rapid deployment of new systems.
5. DOES THE SOFTWARE WORK ACROSS TOPOLOGIES, JURISDICTIONS, AND REGULATIONS?
When researching solutions, consider the capacities of localization, scalability, flexibility, and whether the solution can handle multiple data types efficiently and rapidly. Your legal AI tool should be able to work across different levels of topologies and jurisdictions. Ask yourself: Are any of these legal AI tools useful to my business?
Conclusion
When investing in legal AI tools, it is important to consider the type of tool, the ease-of-adoption, the security measures that it encompasses, and the capabilities it offers across multiple jurisdictions. Understanding and researching these five questions is the key to unlocking the right legal AI tool to meet your business needs.