Artificial intelligence is transforming the normal way of doing business in every industry – including legal. AI offers businesses the tantalizing opportunity to become leaner, smarter and ready to take on the challenges of an ever-evolving world.
Law firms face the same challenges that plague industries like aviation, manufacturing and finance. Many are mired in decades-old manual processes with no idea how to move forward and deal with ever-changing digital requirements while achieving greater efficiency.
AI offers the opportunity to drive change through simple applications that leverage chat bots and through more advanced robotic processing solutions.
How AI Affects Law Firms
Artificial intelligence can help the most progressive law firms completely change the industry or it can be a simple tool to achieve more immediate outcomes. Here are some potential benefits:
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Reduce the number of full time employees needed by up to 67%
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Lower the number of human errors and increase data accuracy
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Reduce costs and maximize profit margins
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Achieve process efficiency
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Improve customer experience
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Improve compliance oversight
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Reduce front desk queries by 20%
Real Use Cases for AI
These benefits sound good on paper, but how do they translate in a firm? AI offers innovative and creative ways for law firms to manage people, information and workload. Here are a few examples:
Researching Case Law
At its most basic level, AI is a more efficient and powerful researcher than any person. AI conducts searches and retrieves information efficiently, learning as it operates.
Managing Calendars
Advanced AI-powered digital assistants keep calendars updated and operate a notification system to alert clients and staff to court calendar changes and other scheduling needs.
Answering Customer Questions
One of the most common applications for law firms is a website chatbot to answer customer questions, retrieve information and alert staff if human intervention is needed. These tools are machine-learning capable, so their depth of knowledge increases over time.
Freeing Staff From Repetitive Processes & Data Entry
AI-based digital assistants accomplish data entry with astounding accuracy – and learn from their mistakes, leaving legal assistants and other staff available for more complex tasks. It’s also a far more cost-efficient way to manage data entry and basic assistant tasks than paying talented staff to do menial work.
Better Management of Data
AI can process, store, compartmentalize, analyze and cross-pollinate information across applications with astounding accuracy. This alone has virtually unlimited potential for your firm and can create significant industry disruption with predictive analytics or in-depth business intelligence models that you dream up.
What this all means for your firm
Where you go with Artificial Intelligence is completely up to your imagination. To take full advantage of AI, you have to think of it like a journey – not a destination. Where you go next depends on where you are standing right now. Get in touch with your local RDA rep or contact us here to find out where you are in the AI evolution and where you should go next.
