Modern legal technology is on the rise. Firms and legal departments of all sizes are discovering that tech like artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA) can drastically improve critical processes. Top companies leverage these technologies to cut costs, improve accuracy and save time — all without hiring additional employees or dismantling existing processes.
And that’s just the beginning — 63% of in-house legal work is repetitive and ripe for automation that would relieve overburdened professionals of routine work and lower-value tasks that’s below their pay grades.
Let’s explore the many ways legal departments and firms can benefit from RPA and AI.
1. E-Discovery
By automating routine work and generating swift insights, AI can reduce the burden on legal departments faced with a deluge of information and a lack of time to process it all.
The review of e-discovery materials, like many other legal research tasks, can be automated through RPA. The software bot simply carries out the various systematic steps of the search. However, more advanced AI-driven tools can do more than search by keyword. They also look for patterns related to keywords that give them meaning in context, identifying relevant phrases, sentences and paragraphs that would not have been flagged in an ordinary search.
The most advanced AI-informed solutions on the market can use powerful auto-extraction tools to extract data from structured or unstructured formats, removing friction and complexity from the e-discovery process. Together, these technologies lead to a more accurate and efficient e-discovery process and substantially reduce the risk of failing to turn over all relevant documents during discovery.
2. Contract management
More than one-third of pending litigation in the U.S. is contract-based. These existing legal contracts hold a wealth of data that can drive real value and business advantage. However, the process of manually extracting that data and inputting it into a CMS is time-consuming and error-prone.
AI contract management solutions use sophisticated auto-extraction tools to efficiently and accurately transfer data to a CMS, where smart technology delivers that data in dashboards that visualize trends and patterns in real-time. This insight helps the legal team detect and prevent risks, make more informed decisions and highlight opportunities for cost savings.
Presently, just 29% of legal departments are effectively using data extracted from contracts to develop a business strategy or minimize contract risks. In addition, dashboards can streamline lawyers’ day-to-day work by providing easy-to-read contract summaries and delivering alerts to remind them of contract milestones.
3. E-filing
In many legal departments and law firms, employees are responsible for taking data and documents out of a CMS, submitting them to e-file portals, recording case numbers and tracking ongoing correspondence through the portal. Since it largely involves applying simple rules, this time-consuming, mundane work can be automated easily with RPA, freeing up employees’ time for more high-level work.
4. Compliance and risk management
A contract often specifies which laws, regulations, and permit or licensing requirements are relevant to the agreement and which party is responsible for compliance. If a law firm or legal department digitizes its contracts portfolio and stores it in a central, secure place, a solution with AI-driven extraction and search capabilities can create a single source of truth for the entire organization.
With AI-driven search, lawyers can quickly discover compliance details across the entire portfolio, then push those details to reports delivered to the parties responsible for taking action. This benefit is especially key in the new era of compliance than it has emerged from GDPR, CCPA and other data protection governance.
5. Business planning and client recruitment and retention
Your organization’s owned historical data holds a wealth of clues about strategies that could prove effective for years to come. AI analysis reveals missed and future opportunities to drive business planning, allowing you to approach more ideal client prospects, cover more ground and provide a more profitable service for your existing clients.
6. Team performance
No, AI shouldn’t be the sole driver of your HR decision-making. But, it can help uncover inefficiencies and bottlenecks on your team, as well as places where automation tools can step in to take over menial tasks. Law professionals can instead focus their efforts on engagements that require a human touch and go beyond their desks, such as client communications and community-based fact-finding.
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If you’re ready to start using RPA and AI in your processes, it’s time to lean on an expert.
Exigent offers technology with support from lawyers and analysts trained in machine learning and natural language processing. Exigent supports your legal teams by applying analytical thinking, smart use of technology like RPA and AI and inventive talent to deliver answers that affect every aspect of your business performance.
To discover how a partnership with Exigent can help advance your legal processes, schedule a free consultation today!
