Jazz.legal and technology in 2024

As a lawyer, trust is key in attracting and retaining clientele. Clients trust that the person with expertise has at least taken ultimate responsibility for the advice or work.

I want to clarify to our clientele how we balance that bond of trust with the drive to modernise our operation.

I therefore want to provide my take on the use of technology for legal work in general, and generative AI specifically, at Jazz.legal.

In my opinion, the biggest opportunities for using technology in legal lie in streamlining the client experience: onboarding, quotes, invoicing. Unfortunately, many of our colleagues still use very archaic methods. We invest a lot of time and money, but our customers appreciate optimisation efforts.

We also keep a close eye on database suppliers. Legal databases aren’t new. But the possibilities of extracting useful information from the data – efficiently – have expanded considerably. Here, too, we are constantly looking for the right tools.

To arrive at the current hype: AI. Or let’s name it more correctly: generative AI and LLMs. I used to play Gameboy games against AI back in the 1990s.

As opposed to the ‘metaverse’, this is a technology I see medium term disruptive potential in.

Legal work often follows a certain logic. A computer can adopt this logic. On the other hand, giving legal advice is also largely about estimating people’s behaviour.

As yet, an algorithm does not sense that party X has a huge ego, has no budget for certain procedures or made it known over the phone that he or she isn’t that bothered. All things that a good lawyer will take into account before advising.

We do use generative AI as a tool for creating marketing graphics. We prefer to avoid AI marketing text, given how painfully obvious it is when someone is using AI tools.

It’s useful to have Copilot read the Benelux Convention on IP and ask which article mentions the requirement of use. No confidential information shared; saves us a few minutes.

As for giving legal advice, we are not at all convinced yet. We test the state of the technology on a weekly basis. For now, we consistently get incorrect or incomplete advice from ChatGPT 4. We also train our own GPT, but even there we miss a holistic approach, practical thinking and a client-oriented mindset. Therefore, we are not yet deploying these tools.

To conclude: yes, we are keeping track of all technological developments in our sector. And yes, we are ‘experimenting with AI’. But we do so in a measured way. We avoid gimmicks, avoid quick but bad advice, avoid meaningless content-for-the-sake-of-content.

This way we preserve and guard the trust of our clientele.