Extract from Rhys Dipshan’s article “Legalweek Day 1: Why Gen AI Still Holds Legal Professionals’ Attention”
I’m sure you’ve heard the usual retorts that plague legal technology: Lawyers are slow technology adopters. They’re Luddites. They’re years behind every other profession—and they aren’t changing anytime soon.
There is, of course, some truth in these statements. But those truths are becoming more and more the exception to the rule than the rule itself. And when it comes to the hottest technology of the past year, and of Legalweek 2024, these stereotypes don’t seem to fit the mold.
It’s clear this year (much like during Legalweek 2023) that lawyers aren’t just interested in generative artificial intelligence to get ahead of client or litigation issues. They’re interested in the new technology because they want to get their hands around it.
Many see such technology finally making overly technical, arduous tasks more accessible. “For the first time, you can take a nontechnical lawyer and they can address problems and ask questions about their dataset, they don’t need to rely on people to run complex search queries. … There are some very nontechie lawyers out there that are excited about using AI,” said Bobby Malhotra, a partner at Winston & Strawn, at the “The GAI Paradox: Torn Between Fear and Desire” session on Tuesday.
