In just a couple of years, generative AI (GenAI) has made a big impact on the way people, companies, and entire industries think about work. It’s helping doctors and nurses, who spend more than a third of their work week on paperwork, free up more time to focus on patients. Scientists are using GenAI ideation to achieve research breakthroughs.
In the field of law, where time is so valuable it’s often measured in six-minute increments, GenAI’s ability to understand and analyze documents faster than any person can is quickly becoming indispensable. Many legal teams doing text-heavy work are using innovative GenAI tools to speed their race against the ever-present clock.
The next time you’re in a time crunch with your work, GenAI can also come in clutch for you. Here are three inspirational ways that GenAI is giving legal teams an unmistakable advantage in speed.
1. Cut through the chaos
Even the most sensational courtroom dramas rely on evidence. Complex matters such as criminal cases, business disputes, corporate mergers, and countless others are based on the facts found in millions of evidentiary documents. For example, litigation against the opioid industry has created more than four million documents.
The vast majority of legal cases never make it to trial. Instead, they unfold in what feels like a game of chess, as opposing parties maneuver and negotiate back and forth. Knowledge and speed are strategic assets here, and GenAI has become an important tool that lawyers are using to achieve both.
Cole, Scott & Kissane, a law firm specializing in civil litigation, has experienced the real-world impacts in resolving matters faster than before with the help of AI technology. “GenAI legal software proved helpful in reaching a settlement,” Manuel Delgado, the firm’s litigation support manager told us. “With it, we were able to quickly summarize dozens of financial reports prior to conference. Some of the insights we gained caught the plaintiff by surprise. A settlement was solidified thereafter, and our client was thrilled.”
2. Find the needle in the haystack, faster
Discovery is the stage of a civil lawsuit where opposing parties gather and exchange information and evidence relevant to their respective cases. It is part of the law of civil procedure adopted by the U.S. legal system in 1938.
As recently as the late 1990s, discovery was a paper-based chore. With large cases, hundreds of cardboard “bankers boxes” would be delivered to law firms; junior associates then spent hours scanning thousands of pages, searching for bits of invaluable information like a needle in a haystack. It was tedious, “brain deadening” work.
Today, the problem seems harder: Millions of discovery documents may arrive at once, electronically, often at the last allowable minute.
Sometimes a needle is found in the haystack. In civil litigation against Theranos cofounder Elizabeth Holmes, prosecutors dove into evidentiary metadata to find more than 40 key documents, all potentially bolstering the case that Holmes and other company executives were well aware of the deception the company was later accused of, and of which Holmes was eventually found criminally guilty. But historically, legal teams have had to spend enormous amounts of time, usually measured in months and often requiring dozens of attorneys, reviewing discovery documents manually to find such needles.
GenAI-powered e-discovery legal tech software has completely changed the game, allowing large volumes of electronic documents to quickly be analyzed, summarized, and assembled into a structured story. Cal Yeaman completed the review of more than 10,000 documents in minutes—something that would have taken a team of human reviewers several days. Yeaman is a project attorney at Orrick, one of the largest law firms in the country. He said at our company summit that GenAI’s coding suggestions, which help identify relevant documents in discovery, were more accurate and consistent than human review.
Running the numbers, Yeaman estimated that the new AI-powered review process reduced their cost of document review by more than 50%.
3. Get the lay of the land in minutes
Law is a service business with high client expectations. Firms pride themselves on their commitment to serving client needs, an attitude that extends to the legal support teams behind the scenes.
Jen Jackson, a senior analyst at the boutique employment law firm Baker Dolinko & Schwartz, had GenAI come in clutch when 10 new business requests for proposals, including over 120 pages of questions and 500 items, landed in her inbox. She also mentioned at our summit that instead of handing the task off to a junior attorney, wasting time and billable hours, she uploaded the documents to a GenAI tool that functions as a “smart intern” and got a condensed two-page summary of the tasks in minutes.
How will GenAI come in clutch for you?
Do you need to cut through the chaos? Find a needle in a haystack? Get the lay of the land, fast? With a little imagination, GenAI can be an invaluable tool the next time you’re in a time crunch.
AJ Shankar is CEO of Everlaw.
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