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With the integration of AI no longer being a futuristic concept in the legal profession, NetDocuments’ APAC leader has shared the most effective and accessible ways to weave AI in law firms’ daily operations – especially for those yet to get on board.
Once merely an emerging concept and optional tool in business operations, artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer an innovative idea – it’s fast becoming a necessity for law firms seeking to boost productivity and stay competitive in an increasingly crowded market.
Following her appearance at Lawyers Weekly’s inaugural Tech Innovate event, NetDocuments’ head of APAC region, Jennifer Cathcart, spoke with Lawyers Weekly about how law firms can strategically implement AI into their existing daily operations and filter through the overwhelming number of options on the market.
For Cathcart, one of the key considerations for law firms when taking this step is to “bring AI to your content” rather than breaking your information governance and data privacy structures, and having to overhaul “existing workflows and platforms that firms have already invested in”.
By seamlessly integrating AI into tools that have already undergone extensive “due diligence”, Cathcart explained how firms can safely “accelerate the speed and time of the work that they’re already doing” while maintaining security and client confidentiality.
Cathcart acknowledged the overwhelming influx of new tools that are constantly “popping up every single day” in the market, noting that for firms, “it’s hard to figure out what is the best thing for you to actually invest in because they are costly”.
To illustrate this issue, she used a streaming service analogy, explaining how “back in the day with cable, everything was in one place. Then we moved to streaming services, and now we’re juggling 10 different subscriptions that cost even more than cable did, and I can’t find the shows that I want”.
“There are so many tools out there that it can become overwhelming and very costly. But if you can bring all that AI into one trusted platform with built-in security, it makes everything much simpler – and secure.”
Despite this challenge, Cathcart noted that a positive shift in the market is that most law firms “now have a budget for [AI initiatives] and are embracing this type of investment”.
Another key point Cathcart emphasised is the need to ensure that AI technology doesn’t fundamentally “change the foundation” of how a firm operates in the short term. While acknowledging that AI presents “an opportunity to reassess” inefficiencies in the long term, she noted that its real power lies in seamlessly integrating into “existing workflows” that operate smoothly “in the back end”.
While AI rapidly transforms the legal industry, some law firms have yet to adopt this technology. Cathcart warned that those firms that fail to adapt to this shift “are going to be left behind” if they don’t start developing the skills, incorporating these changes, and adopting the tools needed for this transformation.
“AI is not going away – it’s something we have to embrace. If you want to stay competitive and have a strategic advantage – and help your lawyers do their best work – this is the way forward,” she stated.
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