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Legal practices should resist the temptation to reach for artificial intelligence before understanding the problem they are actually trying to solve, JurisTechne founder Mona Chiha has said.
At Tech Innovate, hosted late last month, Chiha said firms could get more value from technology by first examining how work is being done, where the inefficiencies arise, and what kind of solution would best address the problem areas.
The warning comes as AI tools become increasingly accessible to legal professionals and firms face growing pressure to identify how technology can reduce costs and improve client service.
“I would be speaking to cyber security experts, I would be speaking to data scientists, I would be working with a technical business analyst [who] can come and diagnose the problem with me.
“That is the most important step because you can’t just throw solutions at a problem you haven’t defined, when you could be spending time rigorously jotting down process and procedures.
“That’s where you could find where the leaky bits are and find solutions for it – don’t just throw AI at it,” Chiha said.
For those who have jumped straight to AI solutions, Chiha encouraged them to recognise where the existing solution may be failing to deliver and, if it comes to it, “cut your losses”.
Once firms have appropriately identified where technology can add value, Chiha said the focus should be on finding solutions that empower lawyers rather than requiring they take on technical roles.
“It’s very hard to run a business within a business within a business. To put this pressure on our legal champions to build their own solutions is just wild for me,” Chiha said.
“Not only are they working on average 12-hour days championing justice, giving people access to the legal system … [and] the huge mental and emotional toll it takes, now we want to add developer or software engineer or prompt engineer on top?
“I don’t think that vibes with me very well.”
From a technology point of view, Chiha said it is about empowering the person with easy-to-use tools – a lesson she learnt herself from JurisTechne’s beginning as a much bigger application.
“We then moved on to, ‘Hey, look, no application – how about you just submit your chronology and your legal issues and we’ll create a report and give you the report’,” Chiha said.
The simplified result resulted in a “phenomenal” uptake.
By understanding existing processes and pinpointing where the real pain points sit, firms can make more informed decisions about where technology belongs and avoid adopting AI simply because it is available.
The result, Chiha said, is technology that supports the way lawyers actually work, rather than technology becoming another problem for them to manage.
