Adoption Isn’t A “Coming” Issue – It’s Already Happening
A managing partner at a five-attorney law firm meets with a potential new client. The meeting goes very well — great fit, within their budget range, a common area of law they have handled many times. The potential client then asks a question that was not on the partner’s prepared list (as they did not prepare for this type of question) — “How is your firm utilizing AI in cases such as this?” The honest response would have been something akin to “We are looking into it.” The partner did not give this response. Instead, he gave a vague response stating — we are just trying to stay current with the technology and did not provide anything else specific. The potential client nodded his head, the meeting concluded, and neither party knew if the response given by the managing partner caused the firm to lose the opportunity. That unease is the reason. Not because the firm may have lost the business; rather, the fact that the prospective client asked the question at all before doing any actual work is the problem. Before one year ago — questions regarding utilization of AI were rare except for when large institutions with sophisticated legal operations groups were considering hiring law firms. Currently, prospective clients of smaller and boutique law firms are asking similar types of questions during the initial meetings — prospective clients who increasingly expect there to already be a “yes,” and an explanation of “here’s how.”There is currently no longer a hypothetical issue as to whether AI will become relevant to law firms of these sizes. It already is. The issue that is worthy of discussion is not whether adoption will happen, but rather how late a firm is in terms of adoption, and what can be done to correct its lack of adoption.
Read the full article at the link: https://lawsonline.com/articles/74