Peer to Peer Magazine

WWW.ILTANET.ORG 31 are always large numbers of practitioners who are skeptical of the degree of change or who underestimate the speed of transformation. They all believe it will not fundamentally change what they do — and they are always wrong. Lawyers have thought of technology only as a tool to assist them; but, in the near future, it is likely to be one of the firm's best partners, in every sense of the word. TECHNOLOGY'S TRANSITION FROM TOOL TO PARTNER What makes valuable partners in your firm so valuable? They serve as resources whose prior experience and knowledge of the law or an industry allows you to offer clients insights about how local legal custom, available evidence, contractual obligations, regulatory practices, precedent and likely legal costs should inform their legal strategy. They are also people capable of applying that knowledge to win new clients or additional work for the firm. Ideally, they are people who work collaboratively with you to serve the firm's clients. Just as has been the case in other professions, great leaps in sophistication and creative application are making technology a resource lawyers will sell to clients. Technology is, or soon will be, capable of helping lawyers assist clients in analyzing risk, likely outcomes and costs, considering precedent, local practices and strategic options. Offering an added value to client service, it will help bring in new clients and new work. The key for law firms in the future is to harness increasingly powerful technology and artificial intelligence to find new products to offer clients that also enhance the counsel the lawyer provides. Within the next decade, firms, or consultants to the firms, will not only be able to gather data sets from the firm's previous matters, but from all public cases to construct reliable, predictive models for outcomes. One California law firm involved in insurance defense uses modeling that takes into account factors such as the resulting injury, the doctor involved in treatment, past settlement and jury outcomes to evaluate possible courses of action for its clients. After all, if engineers and software designers can build an accurate flight simulator, lawyers and knowledge managers should be able to build a litigation simulator. Why can't the next hit video game be "LA Law" or "Suits"? The combination of artificial intelligence, responsive and realistic animation, 3D video, accurate voice transcription, and products such as Google Glass, can change the dynamic of planning and preparing for the future. TECHNOLOGY THAT TRANSFORMS Technology-driven transformation will change the way a law firm manages three components: talent, the business model and technology investments. Law firms must increasingly seek lawyers and knowledge management professionals who understand the role of technology in client service. Lawyer training within the firm will have to include familiarizing partners, associates and professionals with the advantages that technology can offer to clients. In turn, knowledge management professionals must approach their responsibilities with an understanding of the client's need. Emphasis should be placed on collecting data both inside and outside the firm that can help lawyers demonstrate to clients

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