AI has no reason to exist on its own. Yet, it can sometimes feel like the purpose of AI is simply to enable you to have AI tools at your disposal. Or alternatively we can get bogged down in finding very specific use cases. Yet, that’s not why it’s there either. So what is it for?
Think End Goal
Here are some reasons to use AI. One is a sound economic reason, yet doesn’t really capture the full purpose. And one is the real answer:
- Because everyone else is buying these tools.
- Because we have found a load of potential use cases where AI tools could be applied.
- Because it will allow us to be more efficient, i.e. work more quickly, especially on process work and where data volume is a hurdle to resolving a task.
- Because it will create more value for the client.
We’ll come back to the efficiency piece in a moment, but first let’s look at D – which is the right answer.
No matter what your job is, there is an end goal. A doctor’s ultimate aim is to cure their patients, whether that relates to a minor injury or a life-threatening condition. A logistics company wants to get goods from A to B as fast and securely as possible – that is their raison d’être. And a retailer wants to satisfy a consumer’s needs and wants. While a lawyer wants to resolve their clients’ challenges in the most favourable way possible for them, whether that’s helping to buy a company or defend them in court.
And putting aside all the ‘machinery’, bureaucracy, and more, that goes along with each of those, the end goal is what they are there for, and in achieving that they create value in the eyes of the customer. If they stop doing that, then they have no value. If they stop doing that as well as others offering something similar then they will lose value relatively. And in turn that has financial implications to the provider.
If bringing in genAI tools – or any tool – helps to sustain or increase value in the eyes of the client then you’re on the right track. It’s as simple as that. Everything else is subordinate to that.
Put like this it sounds simple, but it’s easy to get lost in the woods and not see the trees when it comes to considering the ‘why?’ of bringing in legal tech tools, especially something as zeitgeisty as genAI. (And when we say client, for inhouse teams that can also mean the internal client, i.e. the company itself.)
So, how do we keep focused on what matters?
The answer is: think end goal.
For example, the junior associate wants to use an AI tool so they can finish a task and get home to go to a family event – but that’s an immediate need and has no big picture aspect. The partner in charge of the matter is pondering what their profit share will look like this year and whether they’re getting enough billable time from their team. They’re also wondering if using AI tools will help with that profit share in terms of their team’s billable hours – but, now they’re looking inwards and not thinking long-term, or about the fact the client may pay a lot more for a lot better outcome.
And the client is simply wondering if the lawyers they’ve hired will resolve their challenge with an outcome they’ll be happy with. And that’s OK, as the buyer is allowed to think just in those terms, as they are the ones paying the bill.
Moreover, maybe there is process work that can be done faster. Maybe a fixed fee for process work translates into more profit. Maybe working faster allows a law firm to handle more jobs and hence generate more revenue.
All of that matters….but not as much as the end goal.
If using AI tools helps to create more value in the eyes of the client, then everything else takes care of itself.
In fact, it has to be said, the efficiency gains of using AI are there to help create value for the client, even if it may not immediately appear that way.
Efficiency Becomes Value In The Legal World
Sophisticated clients don’t usually want speed in absolute isolation. As explored by Artificial Lawyer before, speed is really important, for example we have the aspect of deal velocity (see here). And inhouse lawyers really do benefit from greater speed when it comes to standard contract review.
But, for more ‘sophisticated tastes’, as it were, then speed in a task, which is provided via the efficiency of a legal AI tool, feeds into creating deeper value above and beyond time-saving.
E.g. because you can get deeper and further across a collection of documents, the lawyers on a matter can create value more easily for the client. That is to say they can reduce risk and gain new insights.
Efficiency drives speed in a task….and that could include quite complex tasks………but all of this feeds into a higher calling, a more essential purpose: meeting the client’s fundamental need, e.g. winning a case, or deal terms that are in their favour and really reduce their risk.
Everything that feeds into this and makes these outcomes more possible is an improvement on what was there before.
If tech shaves away time and labour on essential, but mind-numbing work (and reduces exhaustion) inside a law firm, that both surfaces risks in a better way and allows the lawyers to focus on more nuanced and complex outputs for the client, and then more value is created for the client.
In short, efficiency gains from AI are a means to an end, and that end is less risk, deeper insights, and that in turn leads to greater value for the client. So, yes, in hard economic terms AI can make a law firm more profitable. But, the deeper goal has to be to create more value for the client by using AI to enable better outcomes, e.g. less risk, better insights made possible by greater efficiency of the firm. Combined you get a double benefit: the clear economic gains from efficiency, and the willingness of clients to pay more for what is greater value work output.
Conclusion
In short, efficiency leads to greater value creation for the client, and helps to meet their end goal.
So: tech delivers efficiency -> efficiency delivers more elastic capabilities at lower costs -> which can deliver broader and deeper insights -> which both frees time for higher value human inputs, and crucially informs that work -> which helps to create more value for the only person who really gets a say in what matters: the client.
Therefore, before you buy a legal AI tool – or any other – ask yourself the question: how does this help our clients?
Because, at the end of the day, that’s the only question that matters.
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Richard Tromans, Founder, Artificial Lawyer – March 2025