It’s a wrap. CES 2025 is finally over. Here’s my post for Above the Law summarizing my ten top takeaways in general. And the three things I think may most impact legal over the next year or so: the advent of AI agents, deepfakes and how AI will affect law firm managment and supervsion of
AI, Gen AI and Agent AI: What Do They Mean for the Future of Legal Work?
A CES panel last week considered the future of work as AI becomes more and more engrained. Like most businesses, law firms need to think about what the AI tools mean for the future of legal work. What do law firms and, for that matter, lawyers and legal professionals need to do to prepare for
Sex, Lies and Deepfakes: CES Panel Paints a Scary Portrait
Lies. Scams. Disinformation. Misinformation. Voice cloning. Likeness cloning. Deepfakes. Manipulated photographs. Manipulated videos. They all pose tough questions for lawyers, judges and juries.AI has exploded the possibilities of all these things to the point that it’s almost impossible to trust anything. Lack of trust has enormous implications for lawyers, judges, and the way we resolve
Enough Already, CES: Just What Is Agentic AI And Why Should Lawyers Care?
Lots of talk at CES about agentic AI. What is it and what can AI agents do for lawyers and legal professionals? AI agents have the potential to improve efficiency and client satisfaction, but they may also raise some challenges. Here is my post for Above the Law on the issues.
What Lawyers Can Learn From CES 2025: Trends That Matter
On a Sunday evening January 5, the Consumer Technology Association offered its 2025 Tech Trends presentation at CES as well as its Unveiled event offering media a sneak peak at this year’s exhibitors. Here is my summary of the Trends and how those trends might impact legal. I also talk what I thought was cool
CES 2025: Insights for Legal
Privilege In the Age of Gen AI: Lots of Questions
With any new technology, questions of discovery and privilege inevitably arise. As a recent New Mexico case demonstrates, that’s certainly true of Gen AI.
The Tremblay Case
The case, Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc., is pending in California District Court. The case involves claims that OpenAI was trained by using plaintiffs’ copyright materials. OpenAI sought to compel the plaintiffs to produce and obtain the prompts and responses the OpenAI tool used in pre-suit testing, including those responses the plaintiffs did not use to support their claims. Continue Reading Privilege In the Age of Gen AI: Lots of Questions
Billable Hour Tiers for Associates: Progressive or Lipstick on a Pig?
Bloomberg Law recently reported that the venerable firm Steptoe would allow associates to choose their own billable hour targets. The program will start next year. An associate can choose to bill 2200 hours and receive top pay, or they can opt for 2000 hours and make less, or 1800 hours and make even less. Associates reportedly elect to move to a different tier. Associates are allowed to bill fewer than 1800 hours and have their pay pro-rated accordingly.Continue Reading Billable Hour Tiers for Associates: Progressive or Lipstick on a Pig?
Three Takeaways From NetDocuments’ Inspire 2024: GenAI, One Stop Services and BTW, We Need to Talk
The NetDocuments user conference, Inspire 2024, took place in Atlanta this week. NetDocuments is a sophisticated cloud-based document management system. It offers an end-to-end platform for document and email organization and management. NetDocuments has over 7,000 customers globally.
Three things stood out from the Conference.
- NetDocuments is positioning itself to be a player in the AI, GenAI, and automation market by combining these tools with its document management services platform.
- NetDocuments is positioning itself as a one stop platform for all document management services for customers’ content.
- Most importantly, the tools NetDocuments is offering and will offer in the future provide a glimpse into just how disruptive GenAI will be in the legal marketplace. And how ill-prepared we are for it.
Clio’s Legal Trends Report 2024: AI, Automation and the Death of the Billable Hour?
One of the central themes of the recent Clio user conference held in Austin was the anticipated death of the billable hour. Jack Newton talked a lot about this in his keynote, as did other Clio executives in presentations and their talks with me.
The idea is based on one of the more startling findings announced by Clio at their 2024 annual Conference that just concluded. According to Clio’s Annual Legal Trends Report, AI can automate up to 75% of the work for which legal professionals currently bill. That’s a startling finding and should put fear into the hearts of managing partners. This billed time percentage is significantly higher than that reported by Goldman Sachs in March of 2023. At that time, Goldman Sachs believed 44% of legal tasks could soon be automated.
Continue Reading Clio’s Legal Trends Report 2024: AI, Automation and the Death of the Billable Hour?