Tech Survey Reveals The Era Of Biglaw AI Is Already Here
Biglaw may be all in on AI but they aren't exactly sure what to do with it.
UPDATE: It turns out that one of these graphs is wrong which… sorta undermines the whole thesis of the article. We’ll have an update.
Biglaw’s jump into the world of generative artificial intelligence is much further along than you might suspect. The International Legal Technology Association just released its 2023 tech survey, compiling the input of 532 firms representing about 155,452 attorneys. At over 300 pages, the report provides a lot of insight into the tech driving the biggest players in the legal industry today. But its section on AI and other emerging technologies offered the most eye-popping revelations:
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Eighty. Five. Percent.
So much for the idea that attorneys would tread lightly in this space after seeing some high-profile disasters. We had some suspicion that the number might be higher than expected after hearing that some firms are pursuing AI like the proverbial shiny object. That conclusion might find support in the next graph:
One read of this is that firms have identified a number of actionable use cases. Another read is that they have no idea what they actually want to use AI for. Reality is likely somewhere in the middle. The most popular response — creating initial drafts of documents — remains the tantalizing use case, and one with a ton of potential in the transactional space. But it’s not churning out a winning appellate brief any time soon.
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To put this in context, 85 percent are using it and 60 percent have no policy to speak of. Not great.
Maybe they should ask ChatGPT to write them one?
Well. The good news is that law firms may be chasing AI but they’re not eager to put everyone in stupid headsets yet.
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The bad news is they probably only hate VR because they worry it helps lawyers work from home.
Check out the whole survey here.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
