STRATEGIC CHALLENGES SEEKING AI ROI STILL RUN DEEP
With the somewhat intimidating new name DeepSeek suddenly on everyone with a passing interest in the genAI world’s lips, how do law firms feel about their own approaches to this area of possible investment at the top of 2025?
If nothing else, it certainly serves to highlight how fast this game can potentially change. Just before the Christmas break Briefing caught up with a busy group of law firm knowledge leaders — alongside data-driven diagramming experts StructureFlow — and while weighing cost/benefit of solutions in such a fast-moving environment was absolutely raised, it was by no means the most dominant theme at the table.
There remain serious concerns about the likely intersection of genAI joining the ranks and the steady career progress of junior lawyers, gradually and consistently growing their understanding — how to ensure these two directions really dovetail strategically. For example, how might the balance of skills that new joiners need to thrive in firms be radically different even a few years from now?
And another strategic question still looms of course – if genAI takes on more routine, repetitive aspects of legal work to boost firm-wide efficiency, there’s a likely ‘learning gap’ to be filled as young lawyers no longer apply their minds to certain matters in the same way. Without the less glamorous parts of the job as a training ground will they still be able to pick up and absorb the legal specifics — and disciplines — that took previous generations up towards the partnership?
Whether they even seek that prize, or its equivalent, is another matter. Then, there’s the perhaps more immediate question of questionable reliability. Is AI or the human marking it the more error-prone? Will greater reliance on tools lead to lawyers who are more tempted to cut certain corners on understanding context?
Clearly, a firm is highly unlikely to let its most junior people loose on tools that can change outcomes for clients without guardrail processes and policies in place to prevent misunderstanding and mistakes. But adherence to rules needs monitoring — which is all more time investment to be spent by somebody. AI outputs themselves will also inevitably continue to be checked by a human at some level — does the case for the timesaving seen generating the thing in the first place still stack up in that operational ecosystem?
Will AI unite around efficiency or prompt culture clash?
As pressure to act/advance builds, firms may also need to navigate clouds of cultural or business area clashes — not necessarily fierce, but almost certainly frustrating. The managing partner is pressuring IT to bring in — let’s face it — the shiny new thing to do ‘X’ better or faster. Is an area like knowledge, emphasising realistic expectations of adoption/ROI, and issues like that landscape simply whizzing by out the window, regarded as more of a brake on introducing business change by comparison?
As with any other potential change project, strategic stakeholder engagement is called for — of both leadership and those throughout the firm who’ll need leading to use it. There’ll be the over-eager, as well as the cautious or otherwise reluctant — including those who consider themselves just too busy to find out if they could realistically find the way to being less so with some thoughtfully applied new process and tech.
As so often, effective change management in the face of a vast volume is therefore a real issue. The number of tools coming in requires real and rigorous scrutiny, says one leader — and are professional support lawyers sufficiently prepared and bought into the idea of being more of an “innovation bridge”?
It was suggested that officially recognised hours for ‘innovation’, or even dedicated KM effort, could have a role in persuading people to commit time to such ends — but there’s much debate about the nature and intensity of activity that ought to count to make the trade-off against lawyer billing targets meaningful.
Tied to increased focus on appropriate supervision of how we behave in this changing world of tech is the imperative to identify in-person (and ideally engaged) opportunities for that outcome within the hybrid-work balance. Moreover, it’s commonly felt that this coming together is key to effective collaboration, sharing and learning more generally — not to mention that tricky protection of a healthy and dynamic culture. This could just be a question of careful planning and communication, but clearly may also need some red lines and persistent firmness from management teams.
Build on brighter ideas in action
Let’s finish with some very clear positives. One leader referenced the book How to Change Things when Change is Hard, by Chip and Dan Heath — the idea therein that it can help to “find the bright spots”, where things really are working, to get a change like appropriate and positive adoption, or an expected new process, moving. If well enough understood, these good outcomes can be replicated, educating people along the way, and so generating broader buy-in and all-important momentum.
Regardless of exactly what they’ve already bought, most law firms are probably still at the stage of seeing pockets of practice using genAI within process emerging — so now could well be the time to take a torch and uncover some of those relative successes to build more inclusive understanding of what’s possible.
For example, one business leader heard a compelling story of Microsoft Copilot really transforming the working experience of a neurodivergent individual — effectively overcoming the ‘blank page barrier’ to their productivity, gaining insight into the tone and possible subtext of emails comms for a fuller picture before responding, and enabling more engagement with team meetings by removing the need for notetaking.
Sophisticated translation is of course also bridging gaps in understanding where different languages are involved in pieces of work.
Finally for today, it should be noted that enthusiastic strength in grappling with tech’s powers and limits certainly isn’t the only piece of skill-seeking/development knowledge leaders are focused on to help them try to future-proof. Two others increasingly prioritised are most definitely part of that same picture — on the one hand “critical-thinking” as the investment decisions only keep on coming, on the other “curiosity” about the growth opportunities they could open.
That goes for embedding optimally resourceful knowledge teams, no less than the lawyers they’re supporting — where more cross-functional skills and adaptability through uncertainty appear to be the order of tomorrow.
Read more about how a selection of firms are already seeing benefit implementing genAI within some business processes in our latest Briefing special here.
Find out more about how StructureFlow is using automation and genAI models to manage and rapidly visualise very complex data as clear processes for legal teams here:
