Extract from Isha Marathe’s article “Legalweek Day 1: Love for the LLM Agnostic Approach, and Appeal of ‘Humanness'”
Legalweek may be famous for tech innovators, cutting-edge tools and announcements of emerging solutions, but what stood out in 2024 was the focus on the most un-technical of characteristics: humanness.
From Jeffrey Salling, the chief of staff and senior director of legal ops at Moderna, retelling his experience of launching an internal legal chatbot, to the assistant general counsel at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Ifeoma Anekwe, offering tips for privacy professionals facing pushback from their organization’s tech users, the sheer importance of person-to-person relationships was stressed across the board.
For example, Salling, who was instrumental in the creation of Moderna’s “mChat,” a generative artificial intelligence-powered chatbot that launched late last year, noted that leadership’s success at encouraging adoption was largely due to the relationship-based approach the legal ops team adopted.
Instead of an information technology staff member who many employees may not even know announcing the launch of the tool, an email from the company CEO announcing the tool can make all the difference. Additionally, creating a conversational environment that allows for transparency between those creating the tool and those using it is also vital for combating change-management challenges.
