Advancing Litigation Support: 3 Ways to Fuel Innovation Within Your Litigation Team

How will your litigation staff’s expertise sustain with rising caseloads and shifting consumer calls for? A brand new analysis research highlights 3 ways to jumpstart innovation, together with ideas for injecting GenAI into your litigation assist processes.

Three Methods for Driving Innovation in Litigation Assist

In keeping with a brand new research by Ari Kaplan Advisors, Advancing Litigation Assist to Gasoline Development in a Altering Authorized Market, 93% of litigation assist administrators surveyed reported that the quantity of knowledge they handle for a mean litigation case is growing, and 60% imagine that the continued progress of case information volumes will current challenges for his or her staff.

These legislation agency leaders not solely highlighted their considerations about caseloads and information but in addition shared methods for driving innovation and managing change. Whereas many take into account their innovation investments enough, they nonetheless face implementation challenges and different obstacles. Half cited restricted time as their main impediment to innovation, whereas others pointed to funds limitations (23%) and adoption difficulties (20%). 

In case your litigation staff desires to strengthen its aggressive edge, overcome the challenges posed by rising information, and keep away from obstacles that may hold your agency caught in place, take into account these knowledgeable insights primarily based on the research’s analysis.

1. Create a Tradition of Artistic Downside-Fixing  

One of many first steps in driving innovation is nurturing the proper mindset. It’s simple to turn into comfy with inaction, accepting the established order relatively than pushing for ongoing progress. As one survey respondent stated: “As soon as we discover one thing that works, we are likely to keep it up relatively than consistently figuring out and evaluating new instruments as they emerge.”

To create optimistic momentum and keep away from letting “the way in which we’ve at all times executed it” turn into an unmovable impediment, flip to probably the most tech-savvy customers on the staff and encourage them to experiment with new processes and approaches, together with exploring unused performance reminiscent of customizations and integration choices on present toolsets. When these staff members organically create options that ship significant worth and share them with teammates, it might assist change the notion of expertise among the many broader staff.

2. Give attention to Incremental Enchancment  

Gradual however strategic change can even assist alleviate a number of the most typical obstacles to innovation reported by the survey contributors. For these stretched skinny for time, it’s simple to see the enchantment of beginning small. As well as, concentrating on particular wants and implementing options tailor-made to the staff can cut back prices, improve adoption charges and decrease resistance to alter. 

A number of survey contributors stated they’ve seen success by including worth to the staff in small steps relatively than taking over revolutionary initiatives. This has made change extra comfy for reluctant practitioners and helped them understand rapid advantages. One chief stated:

“We’re not making an attempt to be tremendous innovators; we’re simply making an attempt to assist our attorneys present the very best service they will, so our litigation assist staff is extra targeted on offering concierge-level service to the agency’s attorneys relatively than driving fast technological change.”

One other analysis participant echoed this tailor-made method to incremental change, saying, “Inside litigation, there are at all times particular person preferences and distinctive methods to realize success.”

Inviting shoppers to take part is one other strategy to drive incremental change. Lack of consumer demand was among the many prime obstacles to innovation reported within the survey. Despite the fact that shoppers might not be asking detailed questions on authorized expertise, it doesn’t essentially imply they aren’t taken with innovation. They might be seeking to their legislation companies for examples of learn how to deploy rising instruments like generative synthetic intelligence (GenAI). Corporations that have interaction their shoppers on this space could discover new alternatives to deepen consumer relationships and ship added worth.  

3. Make GenAI the Basis of Innovation

Practically each respondent (93%) stated their agency is making ready for modifications pushed by GenAI, together with establishing guardrails and protocols (90%). For litigation assist particularly, respondents stated GenAI would remodel doc evaluation (100%), transcript administration (90%), chronology creation (87%), and case technique (77%). Presently, streamlining transcriptions and doc summarization are among the many most typical GenAI use circumstances reported by litigation assist administrators. 

Whereas implementing AI is a giant step, specializing in litigation assist use circumstances can jumpstart the innovation cycle. Work with a pilot group to discover out there AI capabilities inside your present authorized tech stack.

For instance, transcript evaluation has historically been a labor-intensive and time-sensitive job. With AI help, this job could be accomplished in a fraction of the time, permitting litigation groups to course of extra data in much less time. As one survey participant stated, “The times of first-year or junior associates conducting a transcript evaluation are over, and this sort of work is finest suited to generative AI.”

As soon as this pilot group sees the expertise in motion and begins to share optimistic suggestions, a virtuous cycle of innovation begins. Utilizing this momentum, GenAI could be utilized to different facets of the litigation lifecycle, like summarizing sizzling paperwork, which exposes staff members to a expertise enchancment that positively impacts their day-to-day productiveness. 

Don’t Wait to Strive These Methods

Innovation is important for the continued progress of litigation groups, and groups that don’t take steps to gas innovation will face a aggressive drawback.

As a result of the authorized trade has accepted the inevitability and promise of GenAI, shoppers expect their legislation companies to deploy it — they’re interested in the advantages they will obtain. As well as, litigation groups are feeling stress from the proliferation of knowledge volumes and sources, threatening profitability as extra hours are wanted to sift for related data. Due to these and different elements, groups with outdated expertise and methods run the danger of being outpaced by their competitors.

Notice: The entire report, Advancing Litigation Assist to Gasoline Development in a Altering Authorized Market, is obtainable for obtain right here.

Picture © iStockPhoto.com.

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