Legal Sector Humans to Catch Up Before Adopting GenAI

As the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) continues to grow across industries, the vast majority (63%) of corporate law departments and law firms demand an increase in human expertise before they are willing to utilise GenAI. A new survey by Consilio, the global leader in legal technology solutions and enterprise legal services, found that legal professionals cited the lack of experience around leveraging GenAI on the legal team (36%) and lack of the right tech talent to support implementation (27%) as key hesitations before using the technology.

The need for expert guidance is partly due to a stark GenAI knowledge gap among legal professionals. Only 10% said their legal team is “very trained” on GenAI.

There was also hesitation among corporate law departments and law firms around whether the technology would work accurately, given the risk for potential AI hallucinations (34%). At the same time, the survey also found concerns about data security (58%) and the potential for risking their company’s intellectual property (30%) if they were to utilise GenAI.

“Historically, the legal industry has been cautious not to let technology outpace certainty in outcomes, so we’ve been focused on diving deep into this new technology to develop the most defensible GenAI solutions on the market and ensuring our on-your-matter experts are well equipped to shepherd every technology deliverable we offer,” said Andy Macdonald, CEO, Consilio. “It’s clear from our survey that legal departments and law firms are looking for ways to utilise GenAI safely. However, without the right people as a guide, confidence it will actually work, strong data protections, and integration with your enterprise data, the risks of GenAI can easily outweigh the benefits.”

In fact, the survey found that 20% of legal professionals are waiting for broader industry adoption before they utilise the technology.

“Data security and control are the lynchpins of responsibly utilising GenAI in a corporate setting; without them, the results can’t be trusted,” said Raj Chandrasekar, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Consilio. “However, once the right fundamentals and guardrails are in place, the technology has seemingly endless potential applications to drive efficiencies, process more data, and reduce overall business costs, making the technology the most impactful evolution of our sector since Technology Assisted Review.”

GenAI Insights and Efficiency are the Names of the Game

Despite concerns and hesitations, law firms and corporate law departments clearly see the potential that GenAI can offer, whether that’s freeing up talent for more strategic work (48%) or reducing overall business costs (32%).

As many enterprises are looking at ways to utilise GenAI, 28% of legal professionals are currently educating their legal teams and wider business on the technology’s efficacy and benefits, and 24% are setting their strategy and getting consensus on GenAI deployment across the enterprise. Another 33% are currently focused on learning about possible uses with no definitive path forward yet.

The survey also found that corporate law departments and law firms are interested in leveraging GenAI for multiple use cases, including:

• Gaining better insights from data (54%)
• Reviewing more documents (49%)
• Leveraging existing work products for greater efficiency (49%)
• Identifying more data efficiently (44%)
• Manage sensitive workflows (32%)
• Manage contracts (30%)

Survey Methodology

The survey of 129 legal professionals from corporate law departments, law firms, and government-affiliated entities was conducted from January 30-31 by Consilio at the Legalweek New York 2024 conference held in New York City.