The Law Society Gazette quotes Joe Cohen and Aileen Johnson in a feature on ‘GenAI two years on’

ChatGPT just recently celebrated its second anniversary on 30 November, and in light of the occasion, The Law Society Gazette writes an article looking back at the first generation of legal AI to realise how dramatically the legal tech scene has changed.

The piece explains that genAI was launched into a legal sector that was ready to embrace it. Firms have followed a common adoption playbook: building internal chatbots on OpenAI GPT models while simultaneously piloting commercial GenAI tools (such as Microsoft Copilot) inside the firewall.

Joe Cohen, Director of Advanced Client Solutions and Aileen Johnson, Director of Knowledge, both contribute their thoughts. Initially, the article explores the theme of law firms partnering with startups in the genAI space.

Joe comments:

It just comes with the territory [...] Although I have had a couple of bad experiences with products being purchased and then subsequently changed or retired, it’s not really an option to wait and see what the big vendors do.

Aileen agrees, adding:

We need to accept that we are in uncharted territory and can’t have detailed roadmaps for implementation as we might have done 10 years ago [...] Things are moving so quickly that a “wait and see” approach isn’t viable. Deploying [genAI] early has enabled us to get people moving on the journey. Gathering usage data means that we can begin to build our jigsaw around that.

Joe then argues that genAI will continue to bring competitive advantage:

There will come a point when all law firms are using genAI effectively [...] The next step will be bots or agents, which many including us are already leveraging, but even that will become commonplace. In my view, there is significant value to be captured in building your own software, and leveraging your own legal expertise/process knowledge to create unique solutions for your clients that are driven by GenAI.

Aileen finishes by explaining:

Underpinning all of this is developing the skills of our people,’ says Johnson. ‘Our internal business school is now in its fifth year. This has been a great foundation. There is a huge emphasis on supporting all our people not only to adapt to change, but to embrace it and use it to unlock opportunities.

Read the full article in The Law Society Gazette here.