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‘AI is never going to replace’ lawyers
While there are a number of key concerns and hesitations around AI, the vast majority of law firms are “diving head first” into this emerging technology.
Lauren Croft
Zahn Nel is the regional vice president for Australia and New Zealand at Actionstep. In a recent episode of LawTech Talks, produced in partnership with Actionstep, he unpacked some of the headline challenges in adopting and utilising AI effectively and why having specific tasks for AI is important moving forward.
Nel said that his team at Actionstep gets asked about AI constantly – and that AI isn’t necessarily simple to implement within organisations.
“AI is not a plug-and-play system now. I think that’s one of the things that people are still struggling with and trying to understand quite a lot. My team actually gets asked about AI continuously, as you can imagine. I don’t think we can have a conversation without AI actually coming up,” he said.
“And what we’ve actually found is that there’s still an abundant list of concerns and hesitations with AI, and mostly it’s due to the lack of training, the understanding of AI, and also the ongoing concerns around data privacy issues. Now, I would say that those are the three key things. If you talk about the concerns when it comes to AI, that jumps to mind for me initially.”
Despite these concerns, in his conversations with practitioners on the ground, Nel has witnessed the vast majority of firms jumping into AI.
“It’s interesting because I think some of the firms are diving head first into it and really exploring the concepts and the ideas of it. I mean, if we’re being honest, it’s most probably a technology that’s captured the imagination of people, the most globally, across all industries, potentially ever,” he added.
“And even those firms that used to say, well, we do it this way because we’ve always done it this way, even those firms are exploring the ideas and the concepts of AI. They’re definitely exploring with it. I think there will be some firms that [are] not taking full advantage of the potential of AI yet, but those are firms that are still early on their journey.”
There has also been somewhat of a lack of education around AI for lawyers, which has meant some have been a little more cautious, especially amid concerns about being replaced by tech.
“What they’ve started to realise and understand [is] that AI is never going to replace them, but it’s going to be a great assistance for them, and because of that, the adoption is definitely increasing. I would say one of the things we need to really understand though, or ask about, when it comes to how AI can be most effectively useful, is to understand the question, what are the desired outcomes of AI?” Nel said.
“And what we firms want to use AI for is fast-tracking of content creation efficiency and document review, e-discovery, and automated legal search. So, I think it all comes back to that. Trying to create efficiency, accuracy, improving quality of legal outputs and embracing that which firms and lawyers, law firms, lawyers fear.”
Being able to utilise AI tech effectively also comes down to knowing what you want to use AI for, added Nel – particularly as this tech will continue to evolve and change moving through 2025.
“In my opinion, I would say, if we look at [whether it is] efficient, is it accurate, is it improving the quality of the legal outputs? In my opinion, I would say select one of those categories, let’s say it’s efficiency as an example, then explore with a few AI ideas and concepts that can help you with that aspect of the business. So, really small baby steps, and that’s the best way to start. And we see the firm sets really embracing it, doing it a lot more strategically than a bull-in-a-China-shop approach, for lack of a better phrase,” he said.
“If you ask us, what does the future look like when it comes to this – I think the key takeaway is the practical AI. How is AI being used in law firms on a daily basis? And firms are really going to start exploring that and really doing their research on it. I think that’s a big thing as far as the practical aspect of AI, not just using AI for the sake of using AI, but that also comes back to that very point – what is the objective? What are you hoping to achieve? What is the outcome you’re looking for?”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Zahn Nel, click below:
Lauren Croft
Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.
