Businesses across all industries are transforming their approach to the client experience with AI – and law practices are no exception.
“Although traditionally reluctant to adopt new technologies, law firms are already making significant investments in internal and third-party approaches to generative AI,” law professors Catherine Gage O’Grady from the University of Arizona and Casey O’Grady of Harvard University wrote in a study published this year. They anticipate that legal practices “will start to move toward agentic systems that combine human lawyers with AI agents.”
Law firm adoption of these new AI technologies for client work can lead to the biggest opportunities but also expose firms to significant pitfalls. Here’s a roadmap.
Unify the Customer Experience
There are myriad uses for AI technologies in the practice of law. One of the most important things for law firms is to deploy AI technology to improve the underlying client experience (CX). Research demonstrates that even clients who obtain positive legal outcomes and are happy with the quality of their legal work are still often disappointed in their overall relationship because the CX is poor.
“Surveys reveal that at least 50% of successful clients report dissatisfaction with their attorneys, not due to incompetence or negligence, but because of poor communication,” Attorney Journals reported. “In a study of 44 successful clients, 60% cited communication issues as their primary concern. A significant report by the International Bar Association involving 219 senior counsels found that poor communication was the leading reason clients terminated their attorney-client relationships. This issue spans all demographics and practice areas.”
To be as accessible as possible, attorneys need to operate across as many channels as possible – cell phone, video conferencing, text, email, client portals, chat, DMs, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. While this “omnichannel experience” may be essential, it is inherently disorganized and can lead to a scattered trail of information about clients and their important legal matters – and client communications will suffer.
Even the greatest lawyers can’t be expected to remember everything that was said, planned, and promised, particularly when balancing a packed roster of many clients. That’s why today’s legal practices would often benefit from a unified customer experience. This type of approach helps “ensure seamless customer journeys, enabling businesses to meet the evolving expectations of consumers,” a recent study in the American Journal of Economic and Management Business explains.
Unified customer experience management (UCXM) platforms transcribe calls, pull together information from every communication channel, and use natural language processing (NLP) to create useful summaries and key insights that attorneys can easily spot at a glance.
A growing number of law firms are adopting UCXMs. For example, The Law Offices of Lee Arter employed a UCXM solution from one of the industry-leading tech providers and saw terrific results. “Our aim is to be accessible and easy for people to get a hold of us,” explained attorney Eric DeBellis. The Californian consumer law firm “embraced” a UCXM “and we love it,” he added.
Top technology firms increasingly observe their clients in the legal sector gravitate toward adoption of these newer technologies that enhance connectivity. According to Jamal Khan, head of the Helix Center for Applied AI & Robotics (CNXN): “We continue to see strong interest from law firms in adopting AI tools to improve the way they communicate with clients. Whether it is analyzing conversations or helping surface insights more quickly, these solutions are becoming important to delivering a higher quality client experience.”
Ensure Access to All Pertinent Data
These tools go beyond just combining client interactions into a single record. They wrap in key documents and schedules, creating a holistic view of each individual. In a new study on AI contract review in the cloud, Gargi Sharma and Himani Sharma of Manipal University in India note that these technologies can extract and classify crucial information from legal documents.
“This consequently makes the search for important provisions much easier,” they write. Also, “The artificial intelligence recognizes disparities, risks, and improprieties that may pose a financial or legal risk by cross-referencing with predefined regulations, such as identifying inconsistencies, hazards, and non-standard terms that might be financially or legally risky.”
For all this to work, firms must ensure that these platforms have access to all the necessary data. Any AI tool is only as good as the information it ingests; data silos can stand in the way of an otherwise well-planned UCXM implementation.
Keep Humans in Charge
These new UCXM tools can help catch details that human reviewers at law firms may overlook, a huge potential benefit. Also, as AI-infused tech becomes increasingly ingrained in everyday life, clients may warm up to the idea of interacting regularly with AI agents employed by their legal counsel.
But none of this progress – in terms of the onward march of AI and technology in the legal profession – means disregarding the accountability of the lawyer directly to the client. Ken Withers, executive director of The Sedona Conference, is developing guidance on the implementation of AI by lawyers and the courts. He notes that Rule 1.4 of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires regular communication and consultation with the client, and Rule 1.1 on “competence” addresses technological proficiency in running a legal practice.
“UCXM appears to be a potentially low-risk, high-reward application of AI to the practice of law,” Withers says. “But the lawyer’s ultimate responsibility is to make sure client work is done professionally, which means the lawyer must be assured that the technology performs as represented.” He adds, “It’s distinctly possible that in the near future, as this application of AI proves itself and is accepted by the profession, legal malpractice insurance carriers may insist on it.”
While tools such as UCXM solutions can operate without risking client privacy or confidentiality, it’s up to humans to oversee these systems and make sure they are used as intended. For example, attorneys must still independently verify and approve anything that is sent out publicly or filed in court. Adopting AI does not require replacing people; it can mean freeing people to focus on higher-level tasks.
Josh Gablin, an attorney specializing in AI and ethics, furthers this theme. “Many AI tools are now available for lawyers that make their work more efficient,” he says. “But lawyers must still abide by existing ethical obligations, such as keeping the client informed about their matter and explaining it sufficiently for the client to make informed decisions. The risk of poor communication with clients and a possible breakdown in the attorney-client relationship can be exacerbated by the modern hodgepodge of disjointed communication methods. Fortunately, new AI tools, such as a unified UX platform focused on enabling organized communication, are potential game-changers in this area.”
By harnessing these technologies, lawyers can deliver clients the personalized experiences they seek. Clients feel the difference – and so do prospects.
In a FindLaw survey of more than 2,000 people who had legal needs, more than half (56%) said they take action within a week or less. “Prompt responsiveness is key when it comes to capturing prospective clients, so incorporating web chat and call answering services on your website ensures that no lead is left unattended,” the survey reports. “These tools enable your firm to manage inquiries outside of regular business hours, facilitating quick connections with prospects while reducing time spent on pre-screening tasks.”
Today’s clients have higher expectations than ever. They don’t just compare and judge their client experience with your law firm to their experiences with other firms; they compare each experience with your law firm to the best customer experiences they’ve had with any kind of business. The bar is high. But with the power of AI, legal practices can pass it.
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