29 March 2022 | Driving time and cost efficiencies into legal services is still a key driver of AI adoption in the legal industry, say top lawyers from leading firms Mayer Brown, IDEXX Laboratories and Liberty Mutual.

Speaking on a panel hosted by world leaders in legal AI, Luminance, at this year’s flagship Legalweek conference, were Jordan Galvin, Global Legal Innovation Supervisor at Global Top 100 law firm, Mayer Brown, Jackie O’Neill, Director of Project Management at multinational insurer, Liberty Mutual, and Matt Forsyth, Deputy General Counsel at global pharmaceutical company, IDEXX Laboratories. The industry experts from across the private practice and in-house legal community discussed why, in the face of growing data volumes, increasing volume and complexity of regulation and hybrid working, AI adoption is front and centre of their business strategies.

Providing the law firm perspective on the panel, Jordan Galvin kicked off the session with her thoughts on why AI is so critical amongst private practice attorneys. She said: “The biggest issue lawyers face is the demands on their time. They have to focus on client work, business development, CLE accreditation, pro bono work and innovation, too. Technology is able to give lawyers some of that time back; to focus more on client work and those parts of their practice that are really meaningful. These time-savings and efficiencies are the primary selling point: being able to give better pricing, get things done quicker and put data behind your advice.”

Echoing Jordan’s thoughts, Jackie O’Neill added: “The biggest opportunity we have right now, especially with our teams in Latin America, is efficiency. When you give those offices an AI tool like Luminance that helps them analyse a contract within a fraction of the time it would normally take, you increase their capacity to actually bring in more business and execute on our expansion strategies for the country. Sitting behind a desk and reading a 300-page contract has limited value compared to all the other things our teams could be doing.”

Jackie went on to give a practical example of how AI can help to generate efficiencies whilst reviewing and comparing contracts: “Whilst no contract is perfect, you can create one that’s close to perfect and compare every single clause of every single contract against that ‘perfect’ document. For us, this is where our biggest efficiency gain is coming from at this point.”

Indeed, it wasn’t just the post-execution efficiency gains discussed during the panel. Matt Forsyth explained the critical nature of AI during contract negotiation. He said: “We have contracts around the globe handled by different members of our legal team and giving them the ability to understand in real-time – within 30 seconds – and to identify any issues within incoming contracts is key. With Luminance, we are putting data in the hands of the attorneys who need to make decisions quickly, informed of previous decision-making elsewhere in the business.”

ENDS

About Luminance

Luminance is the world’s most advanced AI technology for the legal processing of contracts and documents. Founded by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Luminance’s AI reads and forms a conceptual understanding of documents in any language. Luminance uses this understanding to augment the spectrum of legal matters, from AI-powered contract drafting, negotiation and review to investigations and eDiscovery. Luminance is used by over 400 customers in 60 countries, including all of the Big Four consultancy firms, a quarter of the world’s largest law firms and multinational organisations.