Transforming In-House Legal Departments with AI

For over 20 years, Legal Suite has helped companies and governments to implement innovative technological solutions with in-depth understanding of the legal field’s challenges and evolution of technologies.

What are some common misconceptions about artificial intelligence (AI) adoption that organizations may have, and what are some examples of how they may already be using AI?

Baptiste Armaignac: Common misunderstandings around adopting AI are often influenced by individual views within legal departments. Some fear that AI could replace their roles. Others believe AI accuracy is akin to a mathematical certainty. However, AI is not infallible, and organizations must recognize its limitations. Such expectations can hinder adoption, as users may wrongly assume that AI will effortlessly handle all tasks, further contributing to job replacement anxieties.

That’s why it’s important to align AI initiatives with specific goals. Simply deploying AI without a clear purpose may lead to inefficiencies and a lack of tangible benefits. The goal is not to replace legal professionals but to enhance their efficiency by handling repetitive tasks.

What steps can legal departments take to ensure their team members embrace the use of AI?

Baptiste Armaignac: Just like implementing software, introducing AI requires tailored strategies. Communication is pivotal in this process. Legal teams need a clear understanding of the goals, applications, potential risks, and the fact that AI is a tool, not the end of the process. Addressing concerns about data privacy is crucial, as AI thrives on data, and maintaining confidentiality is paramount.

Let’s discuss the benefits of integrating AI into in-house legal departments and how these advantages can be optimized.

Baptiste Armaignac: I think the objective is to develop tailored AI solutions for each core business area within the legal department. An example would be implementing AI to initiate the extraction of data from contracts. This fundamental AI feature automatically retrieves contract content, creating a comprehensive file. The goal isn’t full automation but rather to provide a preliminary extracted view for human validation. This human-AI collaboration allows for corrections, thereby contributing to AI training. It also underscores that AI won’t replace human interpretation—certainly not today.

Our company, Septeo, is investing $38 million in an advanced artificial intelligence laboratory designed to develop in-house Generative AI to guarantee the security and confidentiality of our customers’ data. Additionally, we are incorporating a generative AI layer into all of Septeo’s software solutions, which will be done by the beginning of 2024. This AI enables the creation of tailored features like chatbots, text summarization, document categorization, and named entity extraction. The methodology is resilient, progressive, and iterative, enhancing its performance with growing utilization and user feedback. It constitutes a fundamental stride in the digitization of legal departments, facilitating a shift towards paperless settings and the automation of diverse processes.

So these tools empower attorneys to focus on their core competencies—analyzing, making arguments, and understanding the law—rather than getting bogged down in tedious tasks? Like having a junior assistant?

Baptiste Armaignac: Exactly. This is closely aligned with the current business landscape, where legal departments are inundated with increasing data to manage. AI serves as the solution, automating routine tasks, enabling efficiency, and allowing legal professionals to allocate more valuable time to substantive legal activities.

That’s why the AI developed by Septeo will undergo specific training on its extensive corpus of industry documents. The aim is to tailor the AI to meet the unique needs of various regulated sectors, including compromises, clauses & contracts, legal assignments, notarial acts, and more. The generative AI is poised to optimize processes and streamline tasks, marking a significant leap forward in user experience and efficiency.

Are there any legal restrictions with using AI?

Baptiste Armaignac: Currently, there are no specific legal regulations for AI. This lack of regulation raises concerns, especially in terms of data privacy. Legal departments grapple with issues such as controlling access, preventing unauthorized copying, and ensuring the security and anonymization of data. The legal profession is also confronted with questions about the nature of advice provided by AI. Is AI-generated advice still considered within legal bounds? Moreover, the issue of data privacy becomes crucial, necessitating tools that provide dedicated, controlled, and secure environments for legal data.

Tools like ChatGPT, while impressive in their knowledge base, may fall short when it comes to the nuanced and subjective nature of legal questions. Legal departments prefer tools that are not only knowledgeable but also adhere to specific rules and training protocols, giving them more control over the results. A tool that caters to the specific needs of the legal profession ensures a more controlled and secure environment, addressing the evolving challenges in the legal landscape.

What hurdles do legal departments encounter in implementing this technology?

Baptiste Armaignac: As we discussed earlier, many legal departments acknowledge the need to embrace AI but struggle with the practicalities. They often lack a clear understanding of how to leverage it and what specific advantages it could bring. The primary challenges lie in fostering adoption, managing the necessary changes, and providing adequate training. Setting well-defined goals is crucial.

Legal departments must assess their current state, identifying bottlenecks with high workloads and limited resources, so they can make informed decisions about why they need AI and how it can address their unique challenges. It’s crucial not to adopt AI blindly; understanding the overall business case and the specific use case is paramount.

And the beauty of AI lies in its adaptability and growth alongside the legal department. Unlike traditional technologies, AI evolves and improves over time based on the information provided to it.

Baptiste Armaignac: Absolutely. AI’s growth is intertwined with the quality and quantity of information fed into it, as well as the ongoing interaction with the legal department. This two-way interaction allows the AI to learn from real-world scenarios and continuously enhance its intelligence.