Will generative AI alleviate burnout or make lawyers more miserable?

Lady Justice

The PC, smartphone, electronic mail and the web. Historical past is plagued by examples of how sizzling new applied sciences meant to make us extra productive led to unintended penalties, together with stress and burnout.

With regards to generative synthetic intelligence, will issues play out in a different way?

Jack Newton, the CEO and co-founder of the observe administration software program firm Clio, is among the many optimistic. He says AI has the potential to assist legal professionals not solely work smarter but additionally do extra significant work.

“We’ve all had these days the place you’re feeling such as you’ve been busy all day. You’ve answered 100 emails. You answered 15 textual content messages. You answered 5 telephone calls. However on the finish of the day, you look again and say, ‘What did I accomplish? How did I transfer the ball down the sector on these three essential tasks or issues?’ The reply is ‘by no means.’ Attorneys really feel that every one too typically,” Newton says.

In October, he delivered a keynote at Clio’s annual convention and unveiled a number of new merchandise, together with an AI assistant known as Clio Duo, the corporate’s first foray into generative AI. The assistant summarizes paperwork, generates payments and makes options on how corporations can enhance efficiency. It’s duties like these that could possibly be a “nice candidate for automation or streamlining,” Newton tells the ABA Journal.

With the arrival of generative AI, some authorized professionals—not less than those that don’t see the tech as marking the daybreak of a job-killing robotic apocalypse—are most likely hoping it can make their lives slightly simpler.

Others are skeptical. In Could and June, Thomson Reuters surveyed greater than 1,200 legal professionals, accountants and others for its Way forward for Professionals Report. The survey discovered a minority, or 13% of execs, thought utilizing AI would shorten their working hours inside 18 months; 29% believed it will result in shorter working hours from 18 months to 5 years; and the bulk, or 58%, anticipated no change.

In the meantime, 26% of execs surveyed believed utilizing AI would result in longer working hours inside 18 months; 8% in 18 months to five years; and 66% anticipated no impression.

Casetext’s co-founder and 2017 ABA Journal Authorized Insurgent Pablo Arredondo now works for Thomson Reuters as vice chairman of CoCounsel. He argues the monotonous nature of some duties results in burnout as a lot because the hours labored.

“It’s generally the sense of doing issues which can be tedious, that don’t interact you intellectually and issues the place you might have this deep sneaking suspicion that this could possibly be automated or not less than streamlined in a greater manner,” Arredondo says.

Then there’s the prospect AI may reshape the authorized trade’s monetary mannequin, which revolves across the billable hour. Legislation corporations invoice purchasers for lots of the hours spent on advanced however tedious duties that AI may full in seconds—akin to analysis, drafting and doc evaluate.

“The billable hour mannequin is incompatible with the sorts of productiveness features that gen AI goes to ship,” Newton argues. “Attorneys are going to be compelled to rethink how they value and package deal their providers in a manner that higher encapsulates the precise worth they’re delivering.”