• Scepticism and apprehension over losing hourly revenue is preventing wider adoption of technology among legal firms
London, 13 June 2018 – Legal firms in the UK could improve their efficiency by 50% by using the artificial intelligence (AI) technology available to them, according to Drooms. The data room provider claimed that, whilst automated machine processes are becoming more and more common place for a variety of industries, in the legal sector, companies have been skeptical regarding the value technology provides and therefore slower in adopting new methods.
“The legal sector is a traditionally conservative market that, with some notable exceptions, has remained largely unchanged for decades,” said Jan Hoffmeister, co-founder of Drooms. “One of the biggest roadblocks to greater adoption of AI technology is the industry’s widespread skepticism which, ironically, is strongest among those who could benefit the most from it.”
However, recent Drooms research of its customer base of due diligence professionals discovered that 72% of respondents said AI technology had sped up the due diligence process, with over half (52%) stating it has the potential to completely transform the work.
“The benefits are clear for in-house counsel having to perform under ever tighter time constraints,” Hoffmeister added. “But some legal firms that charge on an hourly basis might think that using technology threatens their revenue streams. However, using intelligent software to automate due diligence can allow them to focus their efforts on billing for more qualified and detailed advice.”
AI technology has the potential to replace long hours spent on manual analysis and classification of thousands of documents with smart, automated processes. Yet while such technology has been widely adopted in many other industries, legal firms have been sceptical as to the value technology provides and therefore been slower to adopt new methods.
According to recent research among Drooms’ customer base of due diligence professionals, 72% said that the firm’s technology sped up the due diligence process and of these, one in 10 (10%) estimate it reduced time taken by at least 75%. Over half (52%) said AI would completely transform the work processes in their field while 23% said it would have little or no impact.
Drooms’ Findings Manager solution
The Drooms NXG Findings Manager integrates artificial intelligence into the heart of legal due diligence processes through the application of machine learning technology.
AI is slowly replacing the most time-consuming tasks performed manually up to now, such as reading and classifying documents in cases of litigation. This structured data accounts for about 20% of business data; the remaining 80% includes but is not limited to documents in text, image or audio formats. Structuring non-formalised data means making it quickly readable and accessible for analysis.
The challenge is to save considerable time – and therefore substantial savings – for law firms to handle the large volumes of data they are required to.
Drooms has evolved its solutions to offer its users an automated and intelligent due diligence experience.
“The Drooms NXG Findings Manager is able to analyse the content of the documents and helps users streamline the process of evaluation, including identifying risks and opportunities and placing financial value of a finding present within a transaction,” explains Jan Hoffmeister. “With the Drooms NXG Findings Manager, we are proposing to replace time-consuming manual tasks, with self-learning processes to let analysts and lawyers focus on more strategic or higher value-added operations.”
