Posted by Evgeniya Fedoseeva, director of knowledge management at Legal Futures Associate OneAdvanced
Fedoseeva: Move to value-based charging
AI is everywhere in business and beyond, helping drive access to information, speed up processes, and enable faster retrieval of shared, organisational knowledge.
AI-powered large language models (LLMs) including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are already proving to be effective tools, transforming efficiencies in the legal sector and wider business sectors.
Some firms are now using domain-specific AI for law firms, such as Harvey, while other large firms with deeper pockets are investing in building their own private LLMs designed to fit their bespoke needs more closely.
AI is the go-to capability to drive higher productivity for organisations. Those that are not yet implementing this powerful technology may find themselves being left behind in the race for both talent and clients.
The chances are that all newly qualified law professionals – those who have just gone through education and training, alongside a good number of more experienced colleagues – are already using AI in their daily activities.
They therefore expect their firm to be up-to-date with new technologies that drive higher productivity, reduce time-consuming processes and enable improved collaboration and knowledge sharing.
These enhance the experience of work for lawyers, making the more mundane tasks quicker and easier, while enabling them to develop more of their critical, analytical and strategic skills.
It begs the question – why would top talent choose to work in an organisation that does not prioritise these things, when so many others can offer an AI-enhanced professional environment?
Clients also have high expectations. Time-based billing means they expect their lawyers to perform tasks in the optimum timeframe and they hardly want to pay for the extended time someone has taken to locate and process key precedents or other relevant information while other firms are accelerating these processes using AI.
Indeed, as firms adopt new technologies, we are seeing a trend away from traditional time-based billing processes in some instances, to more of a value-based metric.
AI now powers almost instantaneous language translations that can enhance communications with certain clients, ensuring language is no longer a barrier to easy, simple communication and that no important detail gets lost in translation. These AI tools can transform collaborations with colleagues in other parts of the world too, greatly improving efficiencies within global organisations and for those collaborating internationally.
The end result is a slicker, more efficient service for clients, which is critical in a competitive legal environment.
Next-generation legal teams will include humans and AI-powered agents, human-machine teams working together.
Agentic AI is expanding too. This iteration of AI technology can operate autonomously, making decisions, analysing choices and continuously adapting to changes for ever-increasing benefit. Legal professionals can give agentic AI a task such as drafting documents or researching data and leave it to build on the capabilities of AI to automate and drive greater efficiencies.
These support content and process, orchestrating AI flows across legal cycles with even greater effect. It requires little oversight or intervention, as it ‘learns’ as it goes, so in many situations agentic AI output will just need a final review by legal professionals.
As such, it will increasingly become part of the combined human and technology legal team of the future.
Law is traditionally content heavy and relies on good knowledge management foundations to keep operations running smoothly. Lawyers need to be able to locate and connect with the required information and expertise in a short time.
Traditionally, knowledge management processes relied on verbal exchange between senior experienced and less experienced colleagues, but today, knowledge management is a highly forensic, carefully curated process that relies on quality data driven by effective technology.
Agentic AI is the perfect complement to a well-executed legal knowledge management strategy. Using it is a little like having a high performing assistant who takes the initiative, anticipates next requirements, and is able to sort through masses of data and utilise all of the relevant organisational knowledge for the best results.
As with all forms of AI being used for business, there must be appropriate checks and guardrails in place. The quality of the data being used has a direct impact on the quality of the output, so all data being accessed by AI needs to be carefully verified, accurate and complete.
The management of data must pay due attention to all relevant territorial data protection laws, as well as ethical considerations around how and why that data is being used, with the highest levels of data and system security processes in place.
The appointment of senior personnel who specialise in data management, the implementation of AI, and knowledge management is becoming commonplace in all but the smallest firms, as the legal landscape shifts towards an increasing reliance upon technology.
Firms that successfully harness agentic AI and other AI-powered technologies can already recognise its role in supporting the attraction and retention of top talent, enabling their lawyers’ own skills to be supercharged by the combination of agentic AI and knowledge management.
These technologies also ensure that clients receive the very highest quality of service, with modern, value-based charging, driving an enhanced organisational reputation, more business, higher profits and increased market share that enables ambitious firms to thrive and grow in the new technological legal landscape.
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