Extract from Isha Marathe’s article “How Much? Law Firms Grappling With Cost of Leveraging Generative AI in E-Discovery”
Nearly a year since generative artificial intelligence became popular and readily available, the legal industry has taken many approaches to experimenting with the novel technology.
For e-discovery professionals, saddled by some of the most time-consuming and expensive work within legal, the technology has shown substantial promise. But a big hurdle stands in the way of adoption: the price tag.
A panel of law firm professionals spoke at Relativity Fest 2023 in a session titled “Law Firms, Generative AI & The Future of E-Discovery” and discussed their own experiences with generative AI cost as they have experimented with various tools underpinned by the technology.
Sidley Austin: ‘The cost makes generative AI adoption a hard-sell.’
Generative AI is a game-changer for the e-discovery process, mitigating the fallibility of human review and the shortcomings of technology assisted review (TAR). However, that may not be a convincing enough argument for the technology’s adoption.
Matt Jackson, counsel of data analytics and discovery at Sidley Austin, said that cost of a tool is likely the most important indicator of adoption for the firm, and generative AI comes with a sticker shock.
