While I don’t remember first-hand what it’s like to be a toddler, my fourth child is currently two and a half years old. So I do have quite a bit of recent experience with the demographic.
And, as a writer watching evermore AI tools come to market purporting the ability to do my job for me—it’s humbling how often I find my internal monologue sounding very much like one of my daughter’s most frequent outbursts: “No! I do it!”
I know I’m not alone in this reflex among legal professionals, who are watching a similar flood of applications flow into this industry.
It’s an understandable impulse. Our animal brains evolved to evaluate threats from competition, and either confront or avoid that threat in the interest of self-preservation. When faced with competition that looks nothing like any species we’ve ever seen before, it’s natural to opt for flight. It’s natural to move away from that threat, keep living as we always have, and simply try very hard to stay out of its reach.
But there are two fallacies embedded in this approach to AI.
The first is assuming that it’s stronger than us—ready to replace us in the wild. For the record, I’ve yet to encounter any AI that writes as well as the team I’m fortunate to work with here at Relativity. And at Relativity, we know quite well that the AI we build is only as good as the people who use it: the human professionals who lasso it and apply it thoughtfully to their projects. Take that, AI overlords!
The second fallacy is assuming that we can avoid it at all. As AI quickly becomes embedded into countless aspects of the way we live and work as a 21st Century people, keeping away from it becomes difficult. More importantly, ignoring it becomes the real career threat.
At Relativity Fest 2023, a panel of forward-thinking legal professionals shared their advice on how to navigate these feelings with a packed audience of attendees. Panelists included:
- Farrah Pepper, Chief Legal Innovation Counsel, Marsh McLennan
- Lauren Roso, Principal, US Southeast Geomarket Leader, Control Risks
- Lauren Janosko, Director of Business Operations, Relativity (moderator)
- Michael Briggs, Solutions Delivery AVP, Deloitte
Speaking on the current reality of AI for legal applications, this group had some phenomenal insights into the skills we all need to ensure AI serves us instead of replacing us.
Think Critically—With an Open Mind
Over the last couple of years, many e-discovery practitioners have shared a sense of surprise—even shock—at how eager the legal realm has become for generative AI. While that eagerness is a spectrum—and indeed, many professionals are more curious than actually ready to use AI right this minute—the overwhelming chatter is exciting for those who pride themselves on a tech-focused approach to their work.
“With the popularity of ChatGPT, it’s made the use of AI so tangible in a concept that was more buried before. Now that it’s so mainstream and people use it in everyday life, it’s caused this connected feeling that opens the door to ‘what if’ conversations,” Lauren Roso said during the panel. “Before, it was harder to break the barrier. But this shows how important the human component and your connection, relatability, and ability to communicate with people—those human core competencies—are to be a high achiever in technology and applications.”
Lauren R. and the other panelists explained that AI may offer a multitude of efficiencies, conveniences, and insights, but it’s far from an out-of-the-box, one-size-fits-all solution to complex, high-stakes legal challenges.
“ChatGPT is a first-year associate who wants to make you happy but may not have the tools yet to do it,” Farrah Pepper said, reflecting on viral news stories of lawyers embarrassed in court by hallucinated case law citations. “Think about how to coach through that.”
She continued: “If you work in e-discovery, you’re a lot of things: a doer, a therapist, a psychoanalyst. You must persuade people to believe in you. You have to be a confidant. That gets turbocharged when you’re talking about generative AI.”
Lauren Roso emphasized that adaptability—thinking critically about smart, effective ways to use AI and building thoughtful boundaries that guard against its weaknesses—is going to be a key part of how the legal industry is transformed by AI.
“There are conversations happening about jobs being replaced. But I think it’s more appropriate to think of displaced. The platforms help us change where our starting point is, but it’s not the end-all, be-all,” she explained. “We still have to take the tech and decide where to apply it, how to create those solutions, and how to apply those creative solutions. We have to do those e-discovery things. The ability to think through it, and how we execute on it, are critical in integrating AI into these processes.”
Use Your Human Intuition and Creativity
While AI can parrot a well-phrased observation, story, or even apology in response to a given prompt, it can’t feel anything. It can’t sense the complex needs of a team or “read a room.” It can’t be pointed at a group of people and make them feel supported or mentored. That’s where you come in.
“AI isn’t personal or relationship oriented. It’s not going to help put people in a place to exceed, or know that person well enough to encourage them in ways they didn’t know they needed,” Michael Briggs said. “It’s not going to know when a coworker going through something and might need a break. It’s not going to feed people working on a production late at night, or keep attorneys off their backs. You need empathy, leadership, and team-building skills.”
People, process, technology. It’s a beloved triangle in the business world, but there’s a good reason that technology is listed last.
“AI doesn’t have intuition. You might read a document and it feels off for reasons you can’t explain, and it takes you down a rabbit hole,” Lauren Roso added, noting the inherent nuance of discovery work. “Listening to that intuition is big and can change careers. We’ll need to keeping doing that, too, adapting intuition into technology.”
By grounding your work in your human intuition and sense of creativity, and then accelerating the effectiveness of your outcomes by leveraging AI to do some of the heavy lifting on manual, time- and data-intensive tasks, you can find the best of both worlds for your team and your career.
And, according to our panelists, the more you dig into this world, the more you’ll uncover—and the more and better ideas you’ll come up with as you work to keep pace with the evolution of technology.
“I see opportunity,” Michael said of looking at AI and the path forward. “As a learning and development lead, I look forward to creating content for new hires and clients based on industries and other focus areas to help us grow.”
As Farrah added, AI still very much needs human guidance to deliver the best results.
“Maybe you’ll never start with a blank page again, but you also may not be starting with the page you want,” she said. It’s essential to work iteratively to optimize outcomes.
Be a Bold Leader and Self-Advocate
A lot of the panel’s insights have, so far, focused on tactical, discrete tasks: thinking critically and creatively about specific applications of AI and how to leverage it to help teams work smarter, not harder.
But our speakers also had plenty to say on the big picture, from growing your individual career over the long haul to riding the waves of excitement and iteration as the industry welcomes more AI applications into the fold.
“We’re so technical, and substantive knowledge is so important, but so is softer knowledge of how to approach a problem and build a team,” Lauren Roso told Fest attendees. “We see CEOs going from one industry to another because they know how to transfer that skill set they’ve worked so hard to earn. The more you can think about how to transfer your skills from one area to the next—that’s going to be big. Adaptability will give you a leg up when the pace of evolution is very fast.”
We are more than our resumes. Having a good grasp of not just the technical skills we need to succeed in our everyday work, but the broader skills we need to lead and grow innovative teams, is a major part of professional development.
“Studies show that some of the most in-demand skills in a world of automation are communication, flexibility, professional ethics, self-management, and social awareness,” Lauren Janosko pointed out for us. These abilities help us navigate teams, organizations, careers, and industries in ways that no AI can hack for us.
“The hype is real. This is the big wave, so grab your surfboard and go do the thing,” Farrah reflected near the session’s conclusion. “What a time we live in! How lucky are we to be in a hype cycle that really can change everything? It’s exciting.”
It’s a big responsibility, she said, and it’s natural to be intimidated. But the potential payoff? It’s going to be worth it.
“We’ll all have to be on our toes on this one. Even just three years from now, this discussion will look different than now and what we can predict today. Change is coming, it will be real and meaningful, and it needs leaders across orgs and teams to usher it in,” Farrah told us.
“There’s no reason that can’t be you.”
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