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AI in EDiscovery: Empowering Law Firms to Stay Competitive and Thrive

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AI in EDiscovery

A version of this article first appeared in the July 2024 issue of Law Journal Newsletters.

Recent media coverage makes it clear that the time for law firms to embrace the disruption of AI is now. If you wait, from the looks of it, you risk losing business, and perhaps credibility. 


The Growing Trend of AI Adoption

An article published in Corporate Counsel on June 6th featured quotes from leading legal operations thought leaders suggests corporations are rapidly beginning to keep more legal work in-house, relying on learning AI tools internally rather than on the work of outside counsel to complete tasks such as legal research and contract review. 


Part of the movement is driven by a reassessment of the value that law firms offer: Are they actually using AI? If they are, are they milking the hourly clock? And what about quality control? 

“Are you saving us money or are you just charging us a premium?” Joy Sherrod, Director of Discovery and Associate General Counsel at Intel, is quoted as saying. “Is my law firm actually supervising the work product that is coming from whatever tool they’re using for legal research or drafting?”


The quotes ponder the amount of value that law firms provide in this machine-learning-oriented era. It’s a sentiment that might scare law firms, but not if you embrace the potential business opportunities it presents. 


This is where the maturity of eDiscovery benefits from AI. 


The Maturity of eDiscovery

eDiscovery tools and platforms comprise a decades-old, mature discipline and high-value service commodity within legal technology. 


There was a time, a couple generations back, when the prospect of digital evidence scared attorneys. To younger practitioners, that may seem absurd. But the founding mothers and fathers of eDiscovery did indeed encounter such resistance. 


Embracing computerized databases, search and review was gradual, but it did happen. We are at the point now where eDiscovery IS discovery, and where your firm’s competency with technology is a built-in expectation of clients and the Bar. 


Many of today’s much-hyped artificial intelligence technologies, including generative tools that create new work products, are still maturing. However, State Bars have already begun mandating that attorneys understand and use technology and artificial intelligence to enhance delivery of their work on behalf of clients. 


This is why the maturity of eDiscovery arguably puts it in an ideal position to leverage AI for the benefit of law firms and their clients. 


The Functionality of AI in eDiscovery

AI promotes greater affordability of eDiscovery for clients—and empowers them in the process. That affordability is measured in the functionality that AI technologies provide:


Simplifying Data Management: 

NLP offers the ability to perform “topic modeling,” during which the technology effectively classifies or otherwise “clusters” documents by their main topic area. That makes navigating and understanding an investigatory matter’s data much simpler. That hold true whether we’re talking about smaller litigation, medium-sized internal investigations or massive M&A-related Second Requests from the federal government. 


Conversational AI: Streamlining User Interaction. 

Installing a chatbot can help lead users through conversations that help them summarize, translate, analyze and synthesize valuable information contained within the dataset. It encourages team collaboration, resulting in a reduction of wasted review hours.


Generative AI: 

Creating Insightful Summaries. Generative AI can draft concise summaries of documents or topics, or create insightful early case assessment reports laying out what the investigatory matter’s data contains. This facilitates more effective meet and confer discussions.


Training AI Models for Accuracy: 

The “training” of AI models promotes accuracy and ethical responsibility over time, cutting down on re-work and the need for an overly paranoid “close watch” over the work product. The rates your firm charges may stay the same, but the work promises to grow faster and more efficiently as current matters progress.


Implementing these use cases for AI in eDiscovery creates overall savings for existing matters and builds trust in your firm for new case assignments by your clients. 


The Value of AI in eDiscovery

To enhance transparency, the integration of AI technologies must be designed and implemented with clear, open communication between client and counsel about its use and impact. The effort involves close collaboration to understand the contours of the legal landscape, align AI capabilities with the nuances of case needs, and ensure that the technology supports, rather than replaces, human judgment critical in legal practice.

For the value of AI to be fully effective, however, attorneys and paralegals must be trained regarding the proper use of these tools and take steps to ensure accuracy, reduce bias, enforce compliance, protect sensitive data, and avoid IP issues. In turn, these legal professionals must then “train” the machine by developing models that will manage the prediction, conversation, generation and the necessary and desired output. 


It’s a good bet that by the time the client receives its deliverables, it’ll know exactly what it’s paying for in its flat fees. 


The Judicial Support of AI in eDiscovery

AI, in its less wow-inducing forms, is not new in eDiscovery. 

Court rulings have influenced the acknowledgement and acceptance of AI empowered eDiscovery platforms for over a decade. The approval from the judiciary community has greatly influenced the way law firms and companies handle eDiscovery. Court rulings have not just established legal guidelines for AI usage but also addressed worries about following rules and defending the use of these tools in court cases. 


Judicial endorsement of predictive coding of documents and related predictive analytics, in which pattern recognition is the game, dates back to the early 2010s, see Da Silva 

Moore v. Publicis Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182 (S.D.N.Y. 2012). Thanks to predictive coding and other analytical technology, eDiscovery has already achieved vast economies of scale for clients, who often now pay flat rates based on ever-swelling data volumes rather than hourly rates based of reviewing-attorney time. 


In recent weeks, 11th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Newsom demonstrated his use of AI to help write a concurring opinion. According to a June 6th article in Legaltech News, Judge Newsom used that opinion as an opportunity to show the famed ChatGPT in action for the good of a legal opinion. Newsom used ChatGPT to confirm his understanding of specific language and terminology at issue in the case. It was a bold, practically unprecedented cite, one that other members of the judiciary, who were approached by Legaltech News for comment, supported with measured enthusiasm.


The decision to adopt AI is based on the understanding that it can greatly decrease the time and costs of manual document examination and enhance precision by identifying pertinent documents using advanced algorithms. The support garnered from the judicial system has sped up the adoption of AI-driven solutions, including generative, conversational, and applied solutions, integrating them as a common tool in today's legal practices.


The ROI of AI in eDiscovery

What matters most to clients, and should matter most to firms, is the efficiency gained by all parties involved when using eDiscovery technology with built-in AI tools. Attorneys and paralegals, whose law firms lack technology or resist it due to perceived budget constraints, lose valuable time spent poring over individual documents to knit together a case stitch-by-stitch. 


Leveraging eDiscovery technology with evolving AI capabilities allows them to reallocate valuable time to focus of case strategy and trial preparation more acutely. The client receives the benefits of greater insight into the data, which can translate into quicker and better case results. 


This is an obvious and greater return on their investment in your firm’s eDiscovery services. 


The Competitive Advantage of AI in eDiscovery

Utilizing AI is becoming more common among legal professionals to help with tasks like creating documents, conducting legal research, and constructing arguments. The legal industry's expectations for technology-led productivity growth have been heightened through its capacity to handle large volumes of data, imitate human comprehension, and quickly produce content. Nevertheless, just like in previous instances of new technology being introduced, the integration of AI technology presents vast possibilities as well as possible obstacles. AI holds the potential to enhance efficiency and foster innovation in multiple fields. 

So, while the folks quoted in that Corporate Counsel article may be pondering the obsolescence of your firm, getting out in front of the use of AI technologies portends the ability to counter that fear. If you need additional encouragement, look to the federal bench who is also showing increasing comfort with generative AI and related technologies.

There is no better time than now to embrace the legal AI, gain a competitive advantage, and grow your law firm’s knowledge, offering, and reputation.


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