It hosted guest speakers Matthew Golab, director of legal informatics and R+D at Gilbert + Tobin; Colin Pausey, chief operating officer at Emergence Insurance; and Professor Peter Dombkins, director at NewLaw PwC; with James Cole, special counsel at Albrecht Burrows, facilitating the discussion. 

“The legal industry is lacking in the use of data, big data and AI,” said Mr Pausey.

“Data is mined and used by every industry — it is generally regarded as the fuel that powers much of commerce, so why is the legal profession lagging?

“You should use your data,” he stated. “Anything you can do to improve your client experience and client outcome will advantage your practice and the profession generally.” 

Mr Pausey noted that the legal profession is very labour-intensive, which, in his view, is something that needs to be overcome. 

The panel also spoke about the benefits law firms can expect from harnessing their data.

“You can look to data for increasing efficiency, for lowering costs, and for clients, in answering their questions with greater precision,” said Mr Golab.

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“There is a clear sense of value for certain kinds of data to be used, whether it’s helping make a decision, to identify an area for improvement, or streamline business processes,” said Professor Dombkins.

“Different stakeholders within the firm or team will have different reasons for using data.” 

The panel elaborated on how practitioners could begin leveraging the value of their data. 

Legal teams are left with mountains of data available to them, and figuring out what they have and where to start with it can be a significant challenge, noted Mr Cole.

“You can’t understand the value of the data to your business until you understand what data you hold,” said Mr Pausey. 

“Invariably, companies don’t understand the data they hold.” 

“It can begin with understanding and standardising core processes,” said Professor Dombkins. 

“It should be strategy-led.” “Strategically, what decision does it need to make? What narratives does it give to the organisation and its board? What decisions does it need to make?” 

The privacy and protection of data are key concerns for many Australians, as privacy breaches and inadequate data protection are increasingly targeted by regulators. 

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner recently commented that while data analytics holds value to drive hidden business insights, at the same time, it raises significant questions about privacy.

“How can practitioners balance leveraging all this data while addressing significant risks around security and privacy?” Mr Cole asked the panel. 

“The headache that law firms have is that our data is highly sensitive and highly confidential,” said Mr Golab. 

“It’s tricky for us to harness the data we have, because it’s not ours; it’s the client’s data. We’re very privileged with the data that’s in our organisations, so we must be careful with how we access and store that data.

“You have to be very careful when you start the journey — considering if you are allowed to use particular data, what is in the data, and how you can safely test a hypothesis.”

“Law firms are now very focused on protecting data,” noted Mr Pausey.

“You can’t ignore privacy. You have to be cognisant of the potential impacts. 

“One thing people forget is the significant impact that the failure of adequately secured data can have on your reputation, and the cost of that to your business. Regulators are going to be much more proactive in terms of prosecuting professional firms when there are data breaches.”

“Law firms should continue to take steps to protect data they hold on behalf of others, whether it be personal information or general client data,” said Mr Pausey. 

Organisations are also currently quite limited in their access to data, which is positive for safety and privacy but is detrimental to the development of these systems.

But the question stands — does data harnessing mean lawyers will become redundant? 

“It probably means that AI can do a lot of the work of lawyers and perhaps of paralegals,” said Mr Pausey.

This problem accompanies broad concern about how new technologies are leading to job redundancies — and Mr Pausey and Professor Dombkins both noted the importance of addressing resistance to change in the legal industry.  

“To encourage the legal industry to harness their data, it’s the role of leadership organisations to clearly show the benefits of using data, in how it can improve businesses,” said Professor Dombkins.

“I don’t think we should fear technology — that’s the biggest message I have for lawyers, particularly senior practitioners,” said Mr Pausey.

“Secure your data but don’t keep it in a cage.”