Acceleration, artificiality and abundance: how will the convergence of disruptive technologies impact the practice of law?

Santiago del Rio

Marval O’Farrell Mairal, Buenos Aires

sdr@marval.com  

Conference report

Biennial IBA Latin American Regional Forum Conference: Technology, social media and artificial intelligence: challenges for the legal industry in the digital age

22–24 March 2023

Centro de Convenciones de Cartagena, Cartagena, Colombia

22 March 2023

Plenary session

Session Co-Chairs

Mariana Estrade Hughes & Hughes, Montevideo; SPPI Representative, IBA Diversity and Inclusion Council

Diego Muñoz Tamayo Muñoz Tamayo & Asociados, Bogota; IBA Council Member, Camara de Servicios Legales de la ANDI

Speakers

Claudia Aparicio SingularityU Colombia, Bogota

Claudia Echavarria Bancolombia, Bogota

Sergio Galvis Sullivan & Cromwell, New York City, NY

Marcela Hughes Marcela Hughes Consulting, Montevideo; Advisory Board Member, IBA Latin American Regional Forum

Co-Chair Mariana Estrade introduced the session, the purpose of which was to discuss challenges to the legal services sector, faced with advances in technology, social media and artificial intelligence (AI). Co-Chair Diego Muñoz began the discussion with an overview of the digital revolution and its possible consequences. This was followed by a discussion on the impact of technology and work, which was led by panellist Marcela Hughes. Specific examples of how technology affects working practices were later given by panellist Claudia Aparicio. A discussion on its impact on company legal departments which contract legal services was led by Claudia Echavarría. The final topic of the session concerned the impact of these changes on the law firm talent pool, which was analysed by Sergio Galvis.

Acceleration, artificiality and abundance: how will the convergence of disruptive technologies impact the practice of law?

Diego Muñoz introduced the overall theme of the session, which centred on the impact that the digital revolution is having on every imaginable aspect of our lives, and how social networks have altered our political world, and increased polarisation. He stated that some changes will be seen in concepts, such as estates and successions, life expectancy average will reach 100 years within the next few years, and that it will also affect the way in which we had conceived contractual relations and obligations compliance, as all the chains of intermediation are being suppressed or altered. It will also affect basic constitutional and democratic values, as well as concepts such as monetary sovereignty. By highlighting the major trends of this digital revolution, Muñoz emphasised that over the next decade, everything around us will become ‘smart’. As an example, by 2030 AI will have achieved the level of human intelligence.

He also explained that every profession and industry imaginable had been transformed over the past 150 years, except one: the practice of law, which has been stubbornly resistant to disruption. Nevertheless, he stated that there are some challenges to disruption, one of them is that the law firm profitability and that business model are not motivated by efficiency. He added that the legal sector currently has drivers of disruption such as, economic pressures, the changing role of the general counsel, growth of the in-house sector, technology and internationalisation.

Finally, he mentioned the three main impacts the legal services sector will face. The session then examined these in greater detail.

Impact of technology in the form of work, especially on the law firm business model

Marcela Hughes said that we currently live in a ‘VUCA’ world: a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world in constant change is the new normal. She talked about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration will be key, stating that there are four types of skills needed for this revolution:

• problem solving – for this skill it will be necessary to use analytical thinking and innovation, complex problem-solving, critical thinking and analysis, creativity, originality, initiative, as well as reasoning and ideation;
• self-management – we must be resilient, stress tolerant and flexible, have learning strategies and active learning;
• working with people – for which we must have leadership and social influence;
• technology use, development, design, and programming.

Hughes ended her speech with an inspirational quote by US writer, the late Alvin Toffler: ‘the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.’

Claudia Aparicio gave some concrete examples that effect the form of work, of how can lawyers take advantage of technology to adapt and work in this context. She stated that, for lawyers to adapt and work taking advantage of technology, it will be necessary to democratise AI by the automation of several process, such as writing reports, gathering and distributing information.

The use of AI will also help lawyers to create additional services which will add value to their work, chatbots is a good example. AI could also undertake legal research or document review.

If lawyers can form an alliance with these technological advances, it will be possible to use new tools and delegate certain tasks including, research or classification of information, extracting the relevant phrases form documents, summarising or rewriting files, thus saving a huge amount of extra work and time.

Impact on the legal departments of companies which purchase legal services

The session continued with Claudia Echavarría talking from the client perspective. She stated that in-house teams are massively affected by modern technology, which is why they need to enable highly regulated companies to compete in rapidly-changing environments. Challenges come from digital banks, Fintech and crypto.

Customer expectations have changed because of disruptive technologies and social media. She recommended the adequate use of analytics and technology because it will allow for faster and more efficient use of corporate resources, regarding external advisors, as there will always be a need for strategic counsel to provide insights into regulatory trends, socio-political contexts, and business strategies, among others.

As a proposal, she stated that high frequency/low complexity tasks should be automated, reducing response time and human error. This would also increase the legal team’s satisfaction and engagement and will free up time, allowing lawyers to conduct more complicated legal analysis. This is increasingly important because of the highly competitive, complex geopolitical environment being faced.

Impact on the law firm talent pool

Sergio Galvais introduced the final topic for discussion. He talked about technology and creativity in the practice of law.

He stated that technology can shape some of the lawyer roles but cannot substitute the lawyer because there are some capabilities which cannot be replaced by technology. These would include creativity, imagination, critical, integrity and moral thinking, and some ‘soft skills’. Law firms must therefore enhance these skills given that technology actually tends to favour firms with the most creativity, quality and best-judgement lawyers they can attract.

Galvais also explained that AI faces a learning process just like humans face. The difference is that is a much more accelerated process and that to train a person born today to become a lawyer, based on today’s standards, would take at least approximately 25 years. An AI machine on the other hand, can achieve this in a question of a few months or few years.

Nevertheless, like humans, AI platforms also have to be taught and trained by humans with superior knowledge than the learner. Even though AI has the capacity to read, process and analyse in a very short time (minutes, hours, weeks or months) all the literature, laws and doctrine that would take several years for a human to learn.