publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/1529627
I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T & M A R K E T I N G T E C H N O L O G I E S 13 H U M A N I Z I N G S E A R C H : H O W N L S M O B I L I Z E S K N O W L E D G E I N S I G H T S & D R I V E S T O O L A D O P T I O N L awyers today face the ongoing challenge of keeping up with rapid advancements in legal technology. While these advancements promise wide- ranging benefits, the legal industry has historically resisted change. . Many of the new tools in the legal technology market require upfront investment and skill development before delivering promised benefits. While these innovations offer valuable opportunities, they also introduce challenges, including unfamiliar jargon, new skill sets, and increased complexity. And in practice, if traditional or manual methods still prove effective, the question arises: why change them? In the case of many legal technology tools, overcoming the friction of adopting a new working method has yet to prove convincing enough to drive widespread adoption. Many existing tools rely on a lawyer's ability to approach search as a skill; they need to align search functionality with how lawyers, as humans, naturally process and communicate information. Enter natural language search (NLS). Lawyers are familiar with NLS from everyday search tools like Google and Safari. However, in recent years, NLS has migrated from everyday search engines to knowledge management tools. NLS enables lawyers to engage intuitively with their knowledge data from a human-centered approach. Most significantly, it lowers the barrier to entry for adopting knowledge management tools by meeting lawyers where they are, accounting for how they want to search firm knowledge. The Value Gap: Lawyer Intent and Knowledge Insights Despite innovation in search systems enabled by AI and machine learning, a gap exists between lawyer search intent and easy access to relevant knowledge management data. Lawyers feel that the information they need is within firm knowledge, but friction exists in connecting search intent to surfacing relevant information. This friction shows up as lost time, frustration, and ultimately lost value. Whether this friction is because of the resistance to adopting available tools or the lack of capable tools, the result is the same: lost efficiency and missed opportunities. Humanizing Search: How NLS Mobilizes Knowledge Insights & Drives Tool Adoption by James Ding