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AI information will ‘start to narrow down’ in 2025
Although AI can still “make mistakes” and have drawbacks, it’s likely to continue to massively change and impact the profession moving forward.
Lauren Croft
Hunter Steele is the chief executive of legal tech company Smokeball. Speaking on a recent episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, produced in partnership with Smokeball, he reflected on the current state of the market for artificial intelligence (AI) in smaller firms and where we might be headed over the next year.
The last 12 months have been “crazy” in regards to smaller firms and AI tech, according to Steele, who said there are still lingering fears in the profession.
“I think the risk and the fear that [lawyers are] more worried about is that it’s going to be inaccurate information. And whether it be them or a lot of people I talk to, say, look, even if I trust that, I will make sure I check every bit of work, what about the other lawyers or paralegals or other people in my firm? Can I trust everyone? Because it’s just too easy not to do that,” he said.
“And I think that the mantra AI can make mistakes is very true, and I think it always will be. So can humans; it’s not that much different. But I think that the trust factor of your staff on being able to make sure that you’re checking this work or adding tools that force you to check work before you can submit might be the way around that. I think that it’s not necessarily that they’ll be replaced; it’s more that [AI] will be inaccurate, and that can obviously have some big ramifications in the legal profession.”
Additionally, Steele emphasised that even though practitioners don’t think AI will replace them, it’s still uprooting their entire way of working, which can be a scary thought in itself.
“We’re [still] in that early adopter stage. Because those people love efficiency, they love trying new things. They kind of want to use technology to help them get the administrative work done so they can do more of the law, which is kind of why they went to law school in the first place. So those early adopters, it’s more of that comfortability with technology to be able to use it to make them more efficient as opposed to replace them,” he said.
“I know from just reactions, and you’ve got two main things. If you’re searching for a bit of information in a lot of information, AI is very powerful at that. And I think that is where people have a jaw-drop moment. And secondly is when it just drafts something. And I can see people thinking, you know, I can’t bill for that. But that used to take me five minutes, and that five minutes I never would have got back.
“And I just think those little things, if people ease into it, don’t think about this necessarily as that big new case law research tool or something that’s going to draught you a full affidavit, end-to-end, that you never have to look at again, but to get rid of those micro-moments that you’re never going to get back, I think if you add all of those up, it’s going to save you hours in a day, and that’s time back to you.”
However, there are still numerous challenges on the ground for practitioners from an AI perspective.
“There are a lot of tools out, there’s a lot of noise, and now it’s like, you know, a year ago I was like, go out and see as many webinars and learn as much as possible. And now everyone’s saying I’m drowning in information, so there’s so much. And I think that’s because everyone’s got on board and jumped on the bandwagon to have webinars and seminars and events because it gets people in front of them. And I think now it’ll start to narrow down,” Steele said.
“I think looking to the law society and other bodies that are really going to start to give some good advice and feedback and some frameworks around this will really help. I think technology companies are going to be dragged in a little bit to make sure that within those frameworks, [they] deliver a safe, secure and great experience for all. So, I actually think that it’s going to change a lot over the next 12 months. We’ve kind of had 12 months of learning, and now I think the dust will settle.”
The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Hunter Steele, 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.
