Ari Kaplan not too long ago spoke with Aaron Crews, the chief product and innovation officer and head of enterprise at UnitedLex, a supplier of other authorized providers.
They mentioned UnitedLex’s distinctive strategy to e-discovery, the evolution of synthetic intelligence within the authorized {industry}, the place legislation corporations and authorized departments are succeeding with innovation, and the way management is altering.
Ari Kaplan: Inform us about your background and your position at UnitedLex.
Aaron Crews: I’m a litigator by coaching and an information scientist by chance. I’ve spent most of my profession centered on the intersection of information and the legislation and the way knowledge informs the apply of legislation daily. I began my legislation agency profession as a commerce secrets and techniques lawyer at Littler Mendelson. I later grew to become an affiliate and shareholder within the agency’s e-discovery group litigating e-discovery points. I left Littler to work in-house at Walmart, the place I helped construct and run the e-discovery program for a number of years. Throughout that interval, I suggested a number of authorized tech startups earlier than being recruited again to Littler Mendelson for a second stint to function the agency’s chief knowledge analytics officer. I used to be then recruited to do what I’m doing at this time at UnitedLex.
Ari Kaplan: What distinguishes UnitedLex’s strategy to e-discovery?
Aaron Crews is the chief product and innovation officer and head of enterprise at UnitedLex, a supplier of other authorized providers.
Aaron Crews: Whereas many suppliers name themselves e-discovery corporations, their actual focus is doc assessment greater than anything, and people enterprise fashions are the variety of paperwork occasions price equals income. We’re an information and providers firm for authorized. Doc assessment is a service we offer, however as a result of we’re an information firm for authorized, we view doc assessment as an information drawback and leverage know-how to resolve it effectively, defensibly and transparently. We goal to place human eyes on as few paperwork as doable—inside any given consumer’s threat tolerance. To this finish, we now have invested deeply in knowledge science and the flexibility to leverage industry-leading instruments. We now have additionally developed a proprietary knowledge reuse platform referred to as the Vantage Intelligence Repository. We add information to this repository by creating an artificial hash worth of paperwork which have already been—or are being—reviewed. Within the repository, we preserve the artificial hash worth and metadata associated to doc tags and the way paperwork had been utilized in prior issues. This permits shoppers to make use of prior choices relating to the paperwork in downstream issues to make no-look productions or construct fashions to determine issue-related and related paperwork shortly. For us, e-discovery is an information sport, slightly than a quantity sport.
Ari Kaplan: As a former chief knowledge analytics officer at a high legislation agency and common counsel at a well-regarded AI know-how firm, how would you characterize the evolution of AI and authorized?
Aaron Crews: Sluggish. AI within the type of technology-assisted assessment, steady lively studying and numerous analytics engines has been part of e-discovery and the investigative life cycle for a really very long time. They’re accepted makes use of of AI, but it surely took them a very long time to earn that belief, and it is just within the final 4 or 5 years that they’ve change into extra frequent. Generative AI is newer, however in the long run, it would alter the career and work product of attorneys. Though we’re in a hype cycle, this know-how will finally drive attorneys to be editors, slightly than authors, which is completely different from how the legislation was constructed. The legislation was historically constructed on a mannequin of attorneys making and refining arguments by way of writing. Know-how can now autonomously draft briefs, motions and discovery requests, in order that attorneys will do much less writing and extra modifying. This can drive us to reimagine coaching, significantly for younger attorneys.
Ari Kaplan: The place are legislation corporations and authorized departments succeeding with innovation, and the place do they nonetheless face challenges?
Aaron Crews: Regulation corporations and authorized departments that bear in mind innovation is a human-centered enterprise first and a technology-centered enterprise second are succeeding. Sturdy innovation initiatives spotlight the supply of friction and what limits professionals from performing subtle, strategically essential work. Innovation directed at sensible issues that study how work in a selected apply will get completed and how one can both take friction out or add worth is important. Continued know-how enchancment will enable small legislation corporations to carry out work they can’t do now and permit giant, subtle legislation corporations to pursue work that’s not at the moment economically sensible for them. Determining how to do that effectively is a good instance of profitable innovation.
Ari Kaplan: What are the most typical challenges your shoppers are dealing with?
Aaron Crews: They’re being requested to do extra with much less. Authorized departments are price facilities, and organizations are more and more scrutinizing them. The important thing for them is to concentrate on working the authorized division as a enterprise. Shoppers are additionally struggling to grasp how they will work extra successfully, significantly by way of the sensible utility of generative AI. Authorized departments additionally battle with elevating the visibility of their actions, and authorized operations is an important lever that organizations can pull, though authorized operations is commonly under-resourced. Information and evaluation are the lifeblood of the impression authorized operations groups can have, however they hardly ever have further knowledge scientists and analysts simply mendacity round.
Ari Kaplan: The place do you see legislation corporations in authorized departments investing in litigation and e-discovery providers?
Aaron Crews: Regulation corporations are more and more taking a look at other ways of getting captive ALSPs and worthwhile e-discovery teams to serve shoppers within the fashionable world. They don’t essentially need to give the entire income related to that work to a third-party supplier. However these funding choices are trade-offs for legislation corporations as a result of, as partnerships, investing in these practices limits the income companions share on the finish of the 12 months. Many legislation corporations are evaluating learn how to construct their inside capabilities whereas outsourcing the know-how and the infrastructure. Some outsource the assessment part and preserve the processing and internet hosting. Shoppers additionally spend money on exterior counsel administration and key strategic leaders, akin to innovation officers, much like legislation corporations.
Ari Kaplan: You could have served in numerous management positions all through your profession. How is management evolving?
Aaron Crews: It’s extra diffuse. Once I was a legislation agency lawyer, I traveled so much, however I additionally had an workplace and was in it so much. Once I was in-house, I labored within the workplace. The pandemic and the growth of digital work make mentoring and motivating individuals harder. EQ is more difficult, but it is without doubt one of the most essential issues a frontrunner can carry to the office by motivating and mentoring, shaping the group’s path, influencing groups and provoking people. All of that’s harder in a digital world. As a frontrunner, I’ve tried to spend so much of time constructing these abilities. Our CEO, James Schellhase, is superb at bringing individuals collectively, making a unified message, and deploying his staff to work on the plan. This can be a large evolution in management, which is way much less directive and way more centered on trusting however verifying. Leaders should even be conversant within the relevant applied sciences for his or her corporations and shoppers. In the end, it’s important to dedicate the time to consider driving the group ahead in a harder world the place points appear to speed up on a regular basis.
Take heed to the entire interview at Reinventing Professionals.
Ari Kaplan often interviews leaders within the authorized {industry} and within the broader skilled providers group to share perspective, spotlight transformative change and introduce new know-how at his blog and on iTunes.
This column displays the opinions of the creator and never essentially the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Affiliation.
