New research has revealed how leading European law firms are deploying generative AI to enhance the power of enterprise knowledge by streamlining their ways of working, particularly in areas such as legal drafting.
A report by The Global Legal Post, produced in association with LexisNexis, finds that senior law firm partners and executives believe advances in technology, combined with client cost pressures, mean that by 2030 Gen AI-powered tools will have become increasingly embedded into a lawyer’s working day, helping them work faster and more effectively.
This will impact both the kind of work junior lawyers undertake and how they are trained, with Gen AI tools in some respects performing the role traditionally played by more senior lawyers, given their ability to impart firmwide knowledge.
Clients, meanwhile, will demand a more personalised service from their advisers, who will be freed up from more routine tasks to focus on high-level advice.
The future of legal drafting: How people and AI can unleash the power of firm knowledge is based on interviews with senior lawyers and executives from top firms in Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
A key finding from the report is that law firms are focusing on how Gen AI technology can improve the legal drafting process, a vital component of legal work which has traditionally been cumbersome, given that firm knowledge is frequently siloed across different systems and departments.
“[Gen AI] delivers more individualised drafts than before,” said Pierre Zickert, legal technology manager at Hengeler Mueller in Germany. “Our KM work and our document automation work before was rather static and rules-based, you covered the most-used documents, and you could automate a few types or categories of use cases, but that’s it. With Gen AI, you can create much more individualised agreements.”
People, however, will retain a crucial role in the process of knowledge sharing, the report finds, as in order to fully unlock the benefits of AI, lawyers must be prepared to share their knowledge to ensure AI systems are up to date and always drawing from their current expertise and know-how.
“We have to be more collaborative using intelligence and using AI tools if we want to identify relevant precedents or clauses in seconds,” said Sara Molina, a partner in the legal tech and digital transformation practice at Spanish firm Pérez-Llorca. “There are a lot of ways AI can help us, but lawyers have to share their knowledge so we can get the most out of the AI systems.”
Clients, meanwhile, are becoming alive to the benefits of AI use by their advisers.
“A lot of clients are definitely in favour of using AI if you use AI responsibly, so it’s not only about the possibilities, but also the safe and responsible use with checks and balances on confidentiality,” said Tom van Helmond, managing partner for the Netherlands at Loyens & Loeff. “It’s also a win-win, because the quality of our products is going up, and at the same time, it is becoming more cost-effective.”
This backdrop means client expectations around service are going to shift as AI forces firms to re-evaluate their delivery models, according to the report.
“The client of the future will demand much more personalised services,” said Marta Magalhães Cardoso, head of knowledge integration at Portuguese firm VdA. “As a result, lawyers will have to cultivate their relationship with the clients and focus on more complex tasks. So if you look into the future, firms will need forecasting capabilities to anticipate client problems and provide effective solutions, by leveraging support from AI platforms.”
The full list of participants
- Sebastien Bardou, general manager of LexisNexis CEMEA International and vice president of strategy for CEMEA, LexisNexis
- Idoya Fernández, head of knowledge and innovation, Cuatrecasas
- Marta Magalhães Cardoso, head of knowledge integration, VdA
- Joana Mascarenhas, head of knowledge management, VdA
- Sara Molina, partner, legal tech and digital transformation practice, Pérez-Llorca
- Tom van Helmond, managing partner for the Netherlands, Loyens & Loeff
- Pierre Zickert, legal technology manager, Hengeler Mueller
- Moritz Krause, manager legal tech and AI, Gleiss Lutz
The Global Legal Post has teamed up with LexisNexis to help inform readers’ decision-making process in the selection of a Gen AI legal research solution.
Click here to download the report, The future of legal drafting: How people and AI can unleash the power of firm knowledge, and here to visit the Generative AI Legal Research Hub.
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