Source: Forbes
The Pandemic accelerated the transition from an analog to a digital world. Gen AI’s public debut in late 2022 presaged its breakout 2023, a year marked by astonishing technological advances, a global frenzy of excitement and angst, massive investment, feverish search for use cases, and checkered adoption in search of a strategy.
Accenture’s Pulse of Change Index, an annual measure of six change factors affecting business –technology, talent, economic, geopolitical, consumer/social, and climate- recorded the highest change rate on record in 2023. Gen AI became the new #1 change agent cited by C-Suite Executives; 88% of C-Suite respondents expect an even faster rate of change in 2024.
“Knowledge workers,” particularly lawyers, had previously remained largely insulated from the effects of technological change. Gen AI has revoked their hall pass. It is the final nail in the coffin of legal exceptionalism (e.g. “only lawyers are qualified to perform what they deem ‘legal’ tasks”) and the end of law’s change incrementalism.
Acquiring digital competency is a foundational step in a much broader legal acculturation process. The very purpose of the legal function is under review—principally by business. This applies not only to the corporate sector but also to the “people” market segment. Gen AI and other technological advances have the potential to democratize access to legal services for hundreds of millions of individuals and SME’s for whom access is presently out-of-reach.
Read the full article by Mark Cohen, CEO of Legal Mosaic, for recommendations to get started: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcohen1/2024/07/16/creating-a-gen-ai-era-legal-function-what-it-means-why-it-matters-and-where-to-start/
Mark was a speaker at LegalTechTalk 2024.
