Artificial Intelligence has been transforming knowledge-based professions, including legal operations, according to a recent blog post by Sirion, a legal tech company.
According to a blog post published on the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) website, legal departments increasingly must efficiently handle large volumes of work while managing and switching among a wide range of responsibilities, including corporate transactions, litigation, and regulatory compliance.
The blog post lamented that hiring budgets for legal operations remain tight despite these growing workloads. A 2020 survey found that 87 percent of legal departments expected their number of full-time employees to stay the same or decrease.
Amid increasing workloads and constrained budgets, teams require impeccable legal operations to ensure organization, agility, and access to key business information, the blog post said. Innovative solutions like AI could fill the gap, the blog post added.
According to the blog post, tech-savvy individuals who embrace and leverage AI tools are expected to thrive in the current landscape. The blog post identified adapting to AI and enabling colleagues to do the same as important competencies.
Specifically, legal departments could revolutionize their operations by integrating AI into their legal workflows to improve their efficiency and effectiveness without having to add more human resources, the blog post said.
AI could enable legal departments to optimize their resources, automate routine tasks, enhance document review processes, and obtain data-driven insights so that human professionals could focus on more complex and value-added activities, the blog post explained.
The blog post cited a recent survey, where 62 percent of respondents said that they believed that effectively using generative AI would distinguish successful law firms from unsuccessful ones within the next five years.
However, using AI still has its challenges and does not guarantee success, the blog post stressed. Legal operations professionals should select the right AI platform to meet their team’s needs and should avoid relying solely on AI-generated information in recognition of AI’s limitations, the blog post said.
Human intelligence will continue to play a uniquely important role, given that those who can understand nuances and who can make value-based decisions about goals, costs, and strategies will lead the way amid this evolving legal landscape, the blog post noted.
Combining the capabilities of AI and human intelligence will enable legal operations professionals to manage the complexities of their roles more effectively, the blog post concluded.