Generative AI and legal services 

The legal implications of Generative AI

As businesses explore how to use Generative AI, potential concerns arise for enterprise stakeholders, particularly legal and compliance professionals. To this end, it is helpful to understand how Generative AI works and the risk implications the technology presents. 

This report explores the considerations for intellectual property, data protection, contracts for corporations and Generative AI policy. 

Given the evolving legal and regulatory position, legal executives are
increasingly likely to be undertaking legal assessments to determine their
approach to many of the issues highlighted in this paper.

Generative AI reached tipping point

While most industries and corporate functions have already undergone substantial technology-driven transformation, legal has remained relatively untouched due to the unstructured nature of legal data and the continued reliance on expert professionals. With the emergence of large language models which underpin Generative AI, the legal industry has almost certainly reached its long-awaited tipping point toward transformative change.

Envision a scenario where Generative AI possesses the capability to address the majority of routine legal inquiries, generate highly tailored contracts instantly, facilitate contract negotiations, identify contractual risks, summarize changes in legislation and case law, and even draft legal arguments. GenAI is already capable of many of these tasks – in a small number of years we firmly believe it can be the standard model for doing so.

Generative AI will be pervasive to the core of what legal services are today. So much so that we also believe it has the capability not merely to automate tasks but to disrupt the entire foundations of the legal market. We could see the democratization of legal advice, the transfer of legal practitioner judgement and opinion to machines, universal access to justice, market practice replacing two party negotiations, AI-based case resolution, and productivity transformation for lawyers.

The path ahead with Generative AI

Going forward, legal executives can take a leading role in strategic decision-making related to any use of Generative AI within the enterprise. They are likely to develop responsibilities and accountabilities in respect of developing ethical and legal frameworks, curating the organization’s own risk appetite, in addition to ensuring compliance with law and regulation. Specifically, legal executives should consider staying closely engaged with the evolution of the technology itself, as well as changing laws and regulations.