Tag: Debate

To AI or Not to AI: The Great Debate on Legal AI Tools

Posted on June 29, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

From invoicing to contract review, you’ve probably heard how much legal AI tools can help you with routine, time-consuming tasks.

Is legal AI always the right answer, though? On June 9th, Onit hosted a webinar with Consilio and Buying Legal Council to answer precisely that question. Titled “To AI or Not to AI? The Big Debate Part II,” the webinar presented this challenge to two different teams:

There is no budget for additional headcount this year, even though your legal department is faced with the daunting task of repapering a massive number of contracts due to LIBOR, data privacy and other regulatory changes. Not to mention, you still have mounds of legal invoices to review. At the same time, strategic and risk management demands are higher than ever. What should be done? The GC has asked you to present a solution.

Team one, led by Onit, argued that AI tools for lawyers were the answer. Team two, led by Consilio, focused on outsourcing the work to an alternative legal service provider (ALSP).

Team Legal AI Tools

Team one’s main objective was to leverage AI to accomplish goals and improve operations. They argued that implementing legal AI tools internally would allow them to maintain control over their technology and use it to its greatest advantage.

The job of a general counsel at a multi-billion dollar global company is to increase the quality, consistency and velocity of every matter they touch while providing the team with resources that drive efficiencies throughout the enterprise. The question is which investments – whether humans or AI – will ultimately yield the returns you need down the road.

Team one aimed for standardization via legal AI tools to provide knowledge and data that would allow the organization to operate effectively, efficiently and consistently. They also dispelled lingering myths that legal AI tools are complicated to configure and implement. With Precedent, Onit’s AI platform, team one could configure their AI solutions within 15 minutes with no specific technical knowledge or training.

Team one noted, however, that the human/AI choice doesn’t have to be binary. Humans will always be a critical part of practicing law. But even superhuman employees need some help – specifically, they need legal AI. When you hire the best and the brightest and then allow them to use legal AI tools, you optimize your opportunities for success and retain your top talent. Institutional knowledge plus the processing power of AI is the winning combination.

Team ALSP

Team two presented a very different argument – that AI tools for lawyers are not always the answer because you’ll always need people. While legal AI tools have seen great advances, it’s not a sufficient replacement for humans. They also argued that it costs too much to train, takes too long to implement and demands too many resources for training.

Therefore, Team two advocated for outsourcing to ALSPs, rather than implementing legal AI in-house. ALSPs, they argued, save significant costs while offering faster start-up times, higher quality and more transparency.

In Team two’s experience, standing up a technology solution at a global company takes at least six months from the negotiation stage through implementation. If you’re lucky, you have your complete AI solution up and running in a year, which isn’t helpful for addressing your current, pressing needs. While implementing AI might certainly have long-term benefits, that wasn’t the challenge at hand. They believed going the AI route would delay ROI and sidetrack employees from their high-value work to focus on training the AI.

ALSPs, on the other hand, they argued, offer flexibility. An ALSP can serve as either a stop-gap or a more permanent part of a long-term, flexible model. You get instant access to top talent and expertise without investing in hiring or stretching your resources. Going the ALSP route still gives you access to legal AI tools – you just don’t have to train it yourself or invest in it. Those responsibilities fall to the ALSP.

Who Won The Great Debate Over Legal AI Tools?

Both teams presented worthy arguments pro and con legal AI tools for lawyers, but there can be only one winner. Listen to the debate to hear both sides’ full arguments and see which group the audience voted to win.

Many thanks to Consilio, an Elite partner in the Onit Strategic Alliances Program, and Buying Legal Council for participating in our second great debate!

This is the second debate event Onit has held. Explore our first debate, in which three teams argued different approaches to reduce outside counsel expenses. See the on-demand recording or read more about it.

The Great Debate: Three Teams of Legal Operations Management Experts Explore How to Reduce Outside Counsel Expenses

Posted on December 2, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The general counsel of your $30 billion conglomerate approaches you with a request. As the new GC, she’s looking to make her mark while addressing the unique challenges brought on by COVID. She’s tasked you with a critical mission: Discover how the corporate legal department can reduce outside counsel expenses.

This was the hypothetical scenario presented in a recent debate hosted by Buying Legal Council and Onit. Three teams of legal operations professionals examined how to accomplish this for this fictional company, which has $200 million in legal spend, a panel of 100-200 law firms and 75 internal staff in multiple countries. Here’s an overview of what each team proposed.

Team One: Bring More Work In-House

Members:

  • William Bremner, Sr. Director, Law Department Management, Consilio (captain)
  • Vianka Wong, Sr. Corporate Paralegal, Tronox
  • Roycee Hasuko, Director of Product Engagement, SimpleLegal

The first team proposed in-house staffing optimization, including work analysis and skills assessment, to preserve in-house positions while maximizing existing resources. This included a value review of all outside counsel work based on a level of complexity, quality and cost. Based on this research and resulting analytics, the team proposed a Legal Entity Management beta program that brought more work in-house and resulted in 60% program savings. When extrapolated to an entire year, the team found a potential for outside counsel savings of $34 million.

Team Two: Leverage Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) More

Members:

  • Robin Snasdell, Managing Director, Consilio (captain)
  • Jo Ellen Hatfield, Sr. Manager, Procurement Professional Services, Bunge Ltd.
  • Brad Rogers, COO and Chief of Staff, TIAA

Team Two determined that the best way to achieve savings with the lowest risk and better results is to leverage ALSPs. This “replacement cost revolution” relies on new firms offering alternative ways to get work done at a lower cost.  Lawyers spend 25% of their time below their license and permanent staff can eventually end up overqualified. The ALSPs offer numerous opportunities, including costing three to seven times less than in-house or law firms, instant access to talent and expertise and the ability to “plug and play” repetitive tasks with established and consistent performance metrics.

Team Three: Renegotiate Terms With Existing Outside Counsel

Members:

  • Silvia Hodges-Silverstein, Buying Legal Council (captain)
  • Greg Kaple, Sr. Director Legal Department, Kaiser Foundation
  • Richard Brzakala, Director Global Legal Services, CIBC

Team Three advocated for renegotiation to focus on transparency, partnership and innovation. In this scenario, the company’s relationship with firms goes beyond transactional work. However, there is still the need to balance the value of those relationships with the company’s fiscal responsibility to shareholders ahead of a potential economic downturn. The team recommends cost management actions such as a temporary moratorium on market-rate increases, budgeting, leveraging technology to reduce costs and an emphasis on working effectively and efficiently. As a result, cost savings could measure up to $1.75 million with information security mitigating against higher costs on items such as class action litigation and increased insurance premiums.

After a round of questions from GC judges Stasha Jain of Onit and Michael Flanagan of Consilio, debate attendees selected the winning team.

We won’t spoil the results here, but we do invite you to watch the recorded debate to learn about the strategy and tactics recommended by each team. Congratulations to all the teams on their insightful work.

This debate is part of  Lean Into LegalOps, a virtual learning and networking program for legal operations professionals worldwide. For notices of future educational events, sign up here.