Some may view the hype around generative AI with scepticism, yet the relevance of generative AI to the daily practice of law—rooted deeply in language—is undeniable.

This article explores three key considerations for in-house lawyers who are considering adopting legal generative AI and are evaluating the potential risks.

LexisNexis, a leading provider of legal knowledge and analytics solutions, has long been at the forefront of legal AI development, ensuring that its products are grounded in authoritative content and adhere to strict ethical principles. Organisations that partner with responsible AI providers like Lexis+ AI, can leverage the processing power of AI, while mitigating potential risks and upholding the highest standards.

1. Responsible AI Development

LexisNexis has established a comprehensive set of responsible AI principles to guide its product development. These principles prioritize considering the real-world impact on people, preventing unfair bias, explaining how solutions work, creating accountability through human oversight, and respecting privacy and robust data governance. By working closely with third-party providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, LexisNexis ensures the protection of its own data and intellectual property, as well as that of its customers and their clients.

2. Legal Domain-Specific Models

Off-the-shelf and free AI solutions may be too generalised to provide significant value to in-house lawyers. LexisNexis recognises this limitation and has built a legal-specific AI assistant tuned with their trusted legal content. This approach, combined with their search engine's Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) technique, ensures that the AI outputs are accurate, useful, and are of high quality, grounded in authoritative, citeable legal sources.

3. Human Oversight and Explainability

While AI can assist in complex tasks like legal research, drafting, and summarisation, human oversight remains essential. LexisNexis AI solutions prioritise explainability and transparency, providing references and source material for every output. This empowers lawyers to review and refine the AI-generated content, treating it as a legal assistant's work that requires final review and approval. By involving legally trained subject matter experts throughout the development process, LexisNexis ensures accountability and quality control.

When you’re an in-house lawyer, there’s no such thing as a typical day. Most find themselves needing to triage incoming requests, provide invaluable counsel to their organisations, troubleshoot intricate quandaries, and to mitigate risks at every turn with swift and meticulous attention.

The writing is on the wall for those who are on the fence about integrating AI into their workflows. Jo Wade, Senior Director of Global Products at LexisNexis® Asia Pacific says that it’s important that businesses start to implement solutions sooner rather than later. “One of the ways you can prepare is to look at the use case within your own organisation,” she says. “So, evaluate your internal use cases, consider new roles that you might need, and understand what your own clients are thinking about AI.” But the most important thing? “The time to start preparing is now.”

While many in the legal industry have been speculating about generative AI, LexisNexis has been perfecting it – working with leading law firms and over 300 Australian legal practitioners to put it through its paces.

Say hello to Lexis+ AI™, the AI assistant that gives you accurate legal answers grounded in authoritative Australian sources, and know-how based on trusted Practical Guidance content.

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✔ More efficient legal workflows with less guesswork and more confidence.

✔ Legal answers on tap, grounded in authoritative Australian content.

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Whether you’re in practice, government or an in-house department, the way lawyers work will never be the same again.

Learn more about Lexis+ AI. Request a complimentary trial today.