There is no question about it… AI is changing the world. And lawyers are no exception to this.

So what opportunities are there for different law firms? And how is generative AI going to change the industry?

What is generative AI?

Let’s start with the basics first - what even is generative AI? Generative AI or generative artificial intelligence refers to the use of AI to create new content, like text, images, music, audio, and videos. One of the best-known examples is Chat GPT.

If you have already had a play around with one of these tools, you’ll know just how powerful and fast they are. Yes, you might not currently have managed to get the results you want from these models (and we very much recommend that you fact check anything you create using one of these models - you can get into very hot water if you don’t as seen in a number of recent cases), however, the rate at which they are improving is exponential.

Generative AI is ready to create incredible efficiencies and cut down on the number of hours that lawyers work (well… at least in the way that they are currently working).

How? Because it can take on some of the work that employees in law firms are currently doing themselves. This is not just isolated to taking on ‘legal’ work such as researching or drafting and updating contracts, but also supporting many of the other business activities law firms need to carry out. For example, the marketing team may use AI to create content and marketing materials; the finance department can use AI to streamlining financial processes, and the HR team can use AI to reduce the administrative burden of employing lots of people.

Let’s look at some specific examples:

Self-employed lawyers and legal professionals

Individuals are are limited by their own ability to get through their work in a reasonable time frame. Essentially - there is a cap on your earning capacity, based on the amount of work you are willing / can complete.

Generative AI is able to help these individuals reduce the time spent on certain legal tasks (e.g. researching and drafting) and on administrative tasks (e.g. inbox management). This will potentially let them take on more work, offer better value to their clients, or let them work less and improve their work life balance.

Individuals working for themselves often balance a whole host of other business related activities - invoicing clients for work, apply for opportunities, marketing their services, and managing their small businesses. AI can be used across all of these areas - particularly useful for individuals who perhaps have a specialism in a specific area of the law, but not in running a one-person business.

How could a small law firm use AI?

Small law firms will share many of the same time savings benefits as self-employed lawyers across not only the legal side of things, but also across general business activities.

AI will potentially provide smaller firms the opportunity to explore new practice areas and take on more work, due to having this enhance access to more information. This will help smaller firms maintain client relationships (as they can offer a wider range of services), as well as increasing the opportunities available to them.

Depending on their appetite for change, smaller firms often have the ability to move more quickly than larger firms when it comes to trying out and implementing new technologies, giving them a potential advantage to expand into new (legal or geographical) areas. We will likely see a whole range of new small businesses and opportunities created as generative AI models become more advanced.

What about medium-sized law firms?

AI is also going to be a game changer for mid-sized firms, who will be able to use AI to help compete with the bigger players.

Historically larger firms have always been able to throw more resources (a.k.a. new associates) into deals, ensuring that they maintain certain clients. In the not-too-distant future, AI will be able to complete a lot of this work, so smaller firms with fewer associates will be able to compete on the same playing field.

Mid-sized firms will also be able to take advantage of being able to offer a wider range of services, opening up opportunities to work with larger clients who have traditionally only worked with the very largest of firms.

How are global law firms able to utlise AI?

Larger firms tend to work with larger clients. And these clients - with the use of AI - suddenly can do much more in-house work than they were able to do before. Global firms will have to navigate not only clients wanting better value for money but also smaller firms becoming more competitive.

This being said, larger firms are pouring millions of pounds into developing specialised AI models, which is likely to see huge change not only in terms of the amount of work they can offer clients at better value, but also open up even more interesting work for their teams.

AND WHAT ABOUT LAW STUDENTS?

Just as generative AI can help lawyers not only from a legal work perspective, law students can also take advantage of AI to help them work more productively.

Perhaps you need a starting point when it comes to an essay structure, or completing a job application. Or maybe you can utilise AI to support you with administrative tasks, such as inbox and calendar management.

A word of warning - don’t just copy and paste what your AI model throws out. You need to check everything with a fine toothed comb AND ensure that it is actually relevant for you. It is very obvious when applications have been written by an AI model (and many firms are currently using AI to highlight where AI has or may have been used during the application process).

It is very easy to either rely on AI too heavily or to avoid it completely out of fear. However, the reality is that like it or not, AI is here to stay. If you haven’t already, put aside half an hour to have a play around on Chat GPT or something similar - the more you start to test it out, the quicker you will get a feel for its capabilities, its weaknesses, and its potential.