Time is the most valuable commodity for lawyers, evidenced by the widespread reliance on the billable hour as a metric for valuing services provided, and even for defining success. This reliance on the billable hour sometimes leads to lawyers spending more time than necessary on certain tasks, and rather than looking for ways to increase efficiency, this time is logged in six-minute increments in its fullness, as a happy addition towards a billable hour target.
Huge workloads and high billable hour targets lead to high stress in the workplace, mental health issues, and inevitably lead to poor client service when the length of time spent on a task is valued more than how efficiently the task was completed.
I spent the summer of 2L at a national firm, and quickly learned that lawyers spend too much time on tasks that could be automated with the help of AI or existing technology solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced some basic technology-driven efficiencies, out of necessity.
Examples of technology solutions now being used to increase efficiency (some because of COVID-19 and working from home):
- Zoom court hearings
- DocuSign to execute agreements
- Due diligence via virtual data rooms
- Digital closing books folders
Having been exposed to all the above examples of tech solutions this past summer, I can’t imagine how things were done before, when physical documents required a signature, when real paper was relied upon to conduct due diligence and when lawyers walked into the court chambers to argue and seek orders in front a judge, literally, rather than from their home office (or kitchen table). The time savings generated by these simple tech solutions make it hard, or impossible to go back, once experienced.
At the firm that I worked at, AI based software like Kira, for example, was utilized to analyze contracts and documents to aid with tasks including due diligence for a corporate transaction. AI software can drastically reduce the time that lawyers spend reading contracts, word by word, which creates time to focus on client relationships, and creating time to conduct more specialized legal analysis related to risk, adding value to the service provided to clients.
AI has the power to change one of the least efficient systems, being the reliance on precedents for contract drafting. When helping a client on either side of a corporate transaction, lawyers use similar deals previously worked on as “precedent” for the next deal. Countless hours are spent reading through previous contracts and documents to try to find the right “fit” for the next deal. Lawyers then spend their time plugging in the variables from the deal they are working on, into the precedent document. This leads to contracts that are more “cookie-cutter” than “bespoke”. AI has the potential to help lawyers draft bespoke contracts for their client’s transaction using the power of machine learning.
Moving away from the precedent system and using the power of machine learning to draft contracts could significantly cut down the time spent reviewing precedents and essentially copy and pasting variables into cookie-cutter contracts. Creating time, machine learning tools, could allow lawyers to leave the office on time and head home for dinner with their families, and could also mean more time is spent understanding their client’s needs and focusing their legal expertise on more complex aspects of a transaction where risk may go unnoticed.
As a 3rd year law student who has briefly experienced working in a national law firm, I believe it is crucial to begin developing knowledge about, and skills working with, legal technology and expert systems early on in our careers. While some worry that AI and technology solutions will take away jobs from lawyers, I would argue instead that technology and AI should be embraced and leveraged to improve client service and increase lawyer wellbeing, by creating more of the most important commodity in the legal profession, time.
David Blackstock