Electronic brain implants could allow lawyers to quickly scan years of background material and cut costs in the future, a new report claims. The report from The Law Society sets out the way the profession could change for employees and clients as a result of advances in neurotechnology. It suggests that a lawyer with the chip implanted in his or her brain could potentially scan documentation in a fraction of the time, reducing the need for large teams of legal researchers. 'Some lawyers might try to gain an advantage over competitors and try to stay ahead of increasingly capable AI systems by using neurotechnology to improve their workplace performance,' wrote Dr Allan McCay, the author of the report. Neurotechnology could also allow firms to charge clients for legal services based on'billable units of attention' rather than billable hours, as they would be able to monitor their employees' concentration.

Artificial intelligence tools have become prevalent in legal practice, particularly in eDiscovery. That doesn't mean, however, that law firms and litigation support teams have been quick to embrace them. Despite their benefits, many legal organizations have been hesitant to implement AI tools. In the ABA 2020 Legal Tech Survey, 23% of law firms reported not being interested in AI, while 34% said they didn't know enough about AI to speak to their firms' interest. While the survey showed that larger firms were more likely to adopt AI tools, that leaves a lot of room for smaller firms to use AI to their advantage.

Faced with spending cuts by clients, stiffer competition from upstart legal services providers, and the rise of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), law firms' traditional model of the billable hour may have had its time in the sun. "Law firms are looking for different ways to charge for their services, especially in the corporate market where clients are just not accepting the old way of billing," says Dani McCormick, director of solutions at Lexis Nexis. The billable hour has long been the bedrock of how the legal profession works out how much to charge clients for their services. Fee earners log the time they spend on client work each day, usually in six-minute increments, and this helps them to provide clients with accurate bills and keep track of annual billing targets. While this model was effective in the past, critics say its rigid structure is incompatible with the current market, where clients are more price conscious, and see more value in project-based pay and success fees.

First they took the factory jobs; next, robots are expected to replace mortgage brokers, paralegals, and accountants. It has always been assumed, however, that jobs requiring human interaction would remain safe. Not so, according to one Canadian company, which has automated many management and administrative processes to such an extent that it does not have a human resources department. Klick, a digital agency of 700 people, achieved this with an internal operating system that tracks things like billable hours, workflow and employee attendance, as well as managing recruitment and training. It is one of a growing number of companies automating management.

Most executives I talk to still think of machine learning as some kind of robot-ruled world like Skynet out of the Terminator movies. While machine learning can certainly get advanced, it is quite the opposite of the antagonistic artificial intelligence (AI) network that seeks to destroy the world in the Schwarzenegger series. Andrew Ng, a foremost mind in the AI field, explains artificial intelligence well when he states that "some input data (A) is used to quickly generate some simple response (B)." It is important to understand that artificial intelligence and machine learning are two different things, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. AI is when we program machines to carry out tasks in ways we consider intelligent.

This is a Guest Post written by pricing expert, Richard Burcher, Managing Director of Validatum about how to avoid the trap of seeing efficiency combined with hourly billing result in margin erosion, and instead to use AI to increase productivity and boost law firm income. The article was written ahead of a Validatum conference this summer at the offices of CMS Cameron McKenna in London and the survey data below is from that audience. We have been thinking about AI from a pricing perspective for some time, so earlier this week we picked up that theme for the latest bi-monthly Validatum Pricing Forum. We were a little surprised (pleasantly) at the numbers (35) given what we thought was the relatively niche title of the session: 'The perfect pricing storm; artificial intelligence and hourly billing.' We took the opportunity to poll the audience with several live on-screen and anonymous questions, the results for which took us by surprise.