Elisabet HardyHead of product, Elite

In a perfect world, law firms would focus solely on profitable, high-value work, with lawyers spending every moment of the working day on billable tasks and putting all their efforts into revenue-generating and client relationship-building activities. This is obviously not a realistic scenario.

In the real world, a huge amount of time is expended on non-billable, administrative tasks and repetitive, often mundane processes that—while essential to the smooth running and financial health of the firm—distract attention and divert resources.

Technology is key to streamlining routine processes to make them as quick and efficient as possible. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI)—and especially generative AI—has generated much excitement (as well as caution) in the legal profession, for its potential to transform ways of working.

But while many people are pondering what this major revolution might look like, there’s definitely a case for starting small and building up, leveraging the technology in incremental ways to solve critical pain points first before tackling major, sweeping innovations.

There’s definitely a case for starting small and building up, leveraging AI in incremental ways to solve critical pain points first before tackling major, sweeping innovations

AI can be used to powerful effect to create significant process efficiencies, by automating or eliminating labour-intensive tasks that act as a drag on productivity, are prone to error and create little or no real value for the firm. Easing the burden of timekeeping and billing are two standout examples.

Significant amounts of time could be saved by using AI to capture time passively or auto-generate timecard narratives without lawyers having to do it. Firms could get paid faster by harnessing AI to categorise billing rejections automatically, so that the appropriate action can be taken sooner. Even better if e-billing solutions have inbuilt capabilities to ensure invoices are always compliant with client billing guidelines in the first place!

Clearly, human intervention is still required here—but to a much lesser degree. Lawyers, as well as billing and finance professionals, will be empowered by the technology, allowing them to achieve more in less time, and to do so with greater accuracy.

The reality is that low value, everyday activities like this are, in fact, relatively high cost when they’re carried out manually, pulling down profitability. Automating routine processes relieves a great deal of strain on people and budgets, and can unlock value. For many firms, targeting technology at this kind of ‘low-hanging fruit’ first makes a great deal of sense.

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