2024 Predictions from Thomson Reuters Legal Leaders
Most – ok, all – conversations about what to watch for in 2024 turn to predictions on just how disruptive artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, will be. Thomson Reuters leaders in the legal space shared their insights on what’s in store for 2024.
“Natural language interface will become table stakes for many legal software users in 2024,” said Mark Cullen, senior director, Product Management in Law.com. “Eventually this will fundamentally change the way lawyers work and the work they do.”
He shared how this will affect law legal tech providers as well as law firms in Law.com: “Legal tech providers need to factor this future into their cost models – considering all aspects of the features they are developing today and thinking critically to ensure that they are not already dead on arrival. Firms need to understand that the use of generative AI-enabled software could come with significant cost implications, and they’ll be looking for measurable productivity gains to justify their investment.”
For in-house legal departments, Rawia Ashraf, vice president, Product Management, expects to see “a shift away from the steady focus on the contract management part of CLM and more emphasis on leveraging tools to improve contract drafting and negotiation,” as she explained in Law.com.
“Generative AI in particular will speed up adoption momentum for drafting tools,” Ashraf told Law.com. “Overall, as much as we are seeing unbelievable innovation in technology, we’ll continue to see incremental change in the business and practice of law. I believe 2024 will be a year of experimentation—not ubiquitous adoption of generative AI.”
Ashraf expects ubiquitous generative AI adoption in the next three to five years. Yet the impact of AI on the competition for talent in the legal sector is under way.
Lucinda Case, head of Legal Professionals Europe, told The Times to anticipate “more job titles in law firms that are very specific to AI,” such as global large language model lead.
Kriti Sharma, chief product officer, Legaltech, explained in Law.com how the increasing use of AI will affect roles at the associate level: “AI does not herald the end of the associate or other junior lawyers at law firms. Instead, AI will prove to be a ‘technology for good’ tool for greater productivity. Associates will have their own digital assistants, and notoriously repetitive workloads will begin to ease, allowing associates to take on more strategic work.”
Sharma said law firms will promote their use of AI as a competitive advantage. “[W]e will start to see meaningful investment in reskilling and upskilling across the professions,” she told Law.com.
Laura Safdie, COO and general counsel, Casetext, agreed that AI will transform the legal market in 2024. Safdie told Law.com: “While AI was on everyone’s minds and in countless legal news stories in 2023, most of the legal industry is still becoming educated on the available use cases, big picture opportunities, and risks to manage. In 2024, we will see most of the market shifting toward action, adopting legal AI and deploying it across a broad range of substantive legal work.”
