Page 100 - 2019 - Leaders in Legal Business (q)
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predictive analytics in law raises important questions. First, there are questions around technical
feasibility. Getting access to high-quality training data to build predictions is challenging because
most legal documents are in unstructured text form. Secondly, there are questions around
transparency and explicability. These become problematic when data is used to not only show
trends or patterns to a lawyer, but also to predict legal outcomes or to automate certain legal
decisions. Systems that leverage predictive analytics and mechanize certain aspects of legal
decision-making must be transparent and verifiable.
We are also seeing an increasing use of multi-sided lawyer platforms to foster new ways
of finding or collaborating with clients or other lawyers. Some companies provide both platforms
for lawyers as well as predictive analytics capabilities for their users (e.g., contract life cycle
management solutions that also provide contracts analytics aimed at predicting risk in transactions;
or lawyer client match-making platforms using machine learning and big data analytics to make
the perfect match).
Adopting new legal technologies in any legal operation — be it in a law firm, corporate
legal department, in government, or the judiciary — is a non-trivial undertaking that frequently
reveals the challenges a particular organization faces when undergoing change.
There is no doubt in my mind that future legal professionals will have to approach legal
solutions through the lens that an engineer might use when solving a computational problem. In
addition to providing their legal expertise, they will have to think about how technology can be
leveraged to distribute their expertise in the most efficient and cost-effective way. There will be
technologies that replace certain tasks that are currently handled by human legal professionals, and
there will be technologies that enhance human legal professionals. In any event, this is the time to
rethink how the business of law can work. And there are already many great examples out there
that show how legal services can be provided to clients in efficient and cost-effective ways, while
still being profitable for lawyers.
85
feasibility. Getting access to high-quality training data to build predictions is challenging because
most legal documents are in unstructured text form. Secondly, there are questions around
transparency and explicability. These become problematic when data is used to not only show
trends or patterns to a lawyer, but also to predict legal outcomes or to automate certain legal
decisions. Systems that leverage predictive analytics and mechanize certain aspects of legal
decision-making must be transparent and verifiable.
We are also seeing an increasing use of multi-sided lawyer platforms to foster new ways
of finding or collaborating with clients or other lawyers. Some companies provide both platforms
for lawyers as well as predictive analytics capabilities for their users (e.g., contract life cycle
management solutions that also provide contracts analytics aimed at predicting risk in transactions;
or lawyer client match-making platforms using machine learning and big data analytics to make
the perfect match).
Adopting new legal technologies in any legal operation — be it in a law firm, corporate
legal department, in government, or the judiciary — is a non-trivial undertaking that frequently
reveals the challenges a particular organization faces when undergoing change.
There is no doubt in my mind that future legal professionals will have to approach legal
solutions through the lens that an engineer might use when solving a computational problem. In
addition to providing their legal expertise, they will have to think about how technology can be
leveraged to distribute their expertise in the most efficient and cost-effective way. There will be
technologies that replace certain tasks that are currently handled by human legal professionals, and
there will be technologies that enhance human legal professionals. In any event, this is the time to
rethink how the business of law can work. And there are already many great examples out there
that show how legal services can be provided to clients in efficient and cost-effective ways, while
still being profitable for lawyers.
85
