It is virtually certain that every lawyer with real intelligence who plans to stick around the profession for at least another five years is going to use artificial intelligence in their practice. (Unfortunately, so will every lawyer without real intelligence, but that is a topic for another day.)
As I look back on my forty-year career in the legal profession, I do not recall any lawyers who refused to adapt to Dictaphones, fax machines, word processing, or email, who went on to continue to enjoy successful careers. The question is not whether lawyers are going to adopt artificial intelligence, but when they will do so.
And that is where every lawyer will have the opportunity to channel their inner Goldilocks. They will either jump into the world of artificial intelligence too eagerly and too early, too timidly and too late, or at just the right time and in the just the right way.
Back a few decades ago when corporate database software was new and exciting, my law firm decided to be an early adapter. We partnered with a software development company to design the perfect corporate software. We invested many hours of our time teaching the software company about corporate minute books. The idea was that since we would be involved in the software design, the product would be tailored to our needs.
We learned, the hard way, that while casting our lot in with a particular software company may have seemed to be a grand adventure and a welcome distraction from practicing law, it was also risky. For reasons that I will not delve into, we eventually figured out that we would have been much better off had we not invested countless hours of billable time in the software project, and instead waited a while for the market to mature. We could then have purchased the best software package from several available options.
Of course, knowing when and how to jump into the artificial intelligence market is not as simple as choosing a corporate database solution, and requires a great deal more thought. When I look back at how we chose our first corporate database software, I realize that we made the same fundamental mistake which lawyers are famous for making. We thought, “How hard could this be? We’re smart. We can figure it out. Why spend money on experts?”
My suggestion? Use real intelligence and engage real experts to help you decide when and how to leap into using artificial intelligence in your legal practice. And get started on that analysis real soon.
Read about how Appara thinks AI will impact law firms here: https://bit.ly/4a3hi7X