Ten years ago, it was still common to find compendiums, legislative codes, file packages and archives as thick as dictionaries on lawyers' desks. Legal knowledge is cumbersome to acquire, to transmit and to weigh up. Digitalisation has taken longer than elsewhere to convert law firms to paperlessness, but here too the covid crisis has accelerated initiatives. “Knowledge, or sometimes know-how, is our technical expertise. It includes standard contracts and opinions, commentaries on legislation and case law, and all the training on technical and legal aspects,” said Bénédicte Kurth, head of knowledge at Allen & Overy Luxembourg. The gradual digitisation of the firm’s archives and processes has been going on for about ten years. Initially, it was a simple document database that was expanded. “Today it goes much further.”
From collective knowledge to a collaborative approach
“When you have a legal problem to solve, it is based on very specific factual situations. Sometimes similar or closely related cases have been solved by other employees. This database tells our collective story and feeds into collaborative solutions,” adds , office senior partner at Allen & Overy. Once all the archives linked to the old investigated files (14,000 decisions), the history of contracts, the types of transactions and memos inherent to the firm have been digitised, the interest is to be able to link them to public updates on the web. Namely: legal and jurisprudential updates, national and European draft laws or international court decisions. All of this knowledge can be found in a collaborative tool called K-Box. Two gigantic data systems that need to find a way to talk to each other so that the knowledge is automatically informed by the latest news in the profession. A bit like an internal Google assistant, without the cookies!
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The project is financially supported by the group. "Within our subsidiary, this costs us around €7,000 per year for around 200 users. The most significant cost comes from the human resources required, in particular our professional support lawyers, who are responsible for reviewing the documents, sorting, categorising and allocating the right keywords in the matrix,” the firm explained.
Digital, me neither
Allen & Overy has integrated into the knowledge system the legal training tools (general training is left to the human resources department) available to its 150 employees. Since covid, and the introduction of teleworking authorised for 40% of the firm's weekly time, young lawyers have been less present in the office. Some of the training courses are carried out completely independently, others are hybrid. “The difficulty lies in knowing how far to go in the digital offer to keep the teams strongly committed. We know that face-to-face training and a direct exchange of experience with senior employees must remain,” noted Kurth. This is also to avoid multitasking, for example (an employee who is knee-deep into the virtual world and is doing the training while keeping an eye on his or her files), or, on the contrary, to prevent a feeling of isolation.
In competing firms, knowledge is also available in digital format. At Arendt & Medernach, there is an intranet and a firm-specific database, and the two tools are complementary. Commitment to using these tools is rewarded internally. “Employees are encouraged to contribute regularly. This is taken into account in their annual appraisals and an annual competition is organised with a prize for the best contributors,” the firm said.
Legaltech to the rescue of tedious tasks
At Clifford Chance, we talked about artificial intelligence. “AI helps us with e-discovery and document review (due diligence) exercises, but we go beyond that. We use our low-cost centres of expertise to provide clients with repetitive services that are less suited to standardisation and full automation,” says Arjan Krans, senior best delivery advisor at Clifford Chance in Luxembourg. Allen & Overy Group has set up Fuse, an in-house Legaltech incubator, based in London. “AI and the tools proposed by startups are integrated into the processes of the subsidiaries, in particular for the automation of recurring tasks and the filling in of standard forms to be sent to the client,” commented Audrey Scarpa, head of Knowledge Tech, the aggregate born of Knowledge and Legaltech.
This database tells our collective story and feeds collaborative solutions.
“On transaction-type operations, we will save three to four times more time when setting up a new contract with the client. Previously, changing a figure in a Word document would lead to the cascade of changes to more than 20 documents... This could lead to the employee finishing late at night,” continued Scarpa, who is also head of risk at the firm. Although her two roles are not intentionally linked, she sees a connection: “The two aspects come together in this example, particularly to avoid the risk of burnout.” Automation through technology is also a competitive time saver, as Arendt & Medernach Luxembourg pointed out: “It allows us to more easily take on transactions with a high volume of documentation and to be more reactive in the closing phase.”
From a successful office to a visionary firm
As elsewhere, technology is used to save human time for more focused work. In large law firms, recurring tasks are usually performed by junior lawyers, who all “pass through” before they can do their full-time consulting work. “We save two to three hours at the start of each project. By relieving them of these automated tasks, we can give them substantive legal advice more quickly,” said Scarpa. According to their statistics, 45% of the firm’s employees use these solutions at least once a month. The model statutes were used 147 times over the last 12 months, i.e., every 2.5 days.
Previously, changing a number in a Word document would result in the cascading of more than 20 documents... This could lead to the employee finishing late at night.
Since technology is evolving faster than the law, the creation of knowledge tech is also a strategic choice that can transform the firm from a high performer to a visionary, according to Mischo. “The larger an organisation is, the more challenging it is to generalise new uses. For us, it is a way of upgrading our junior staff, who will be the future partners of tomorrow, and it is a way of adding value to our business today,” he stressed.
Finally, law firms have understood that setting an example of integrated competence is inspiring for their clients and a potential source of business. In the recent organisational consulting activity developed by Allen & Overy, the firm will be able to advise the client to improve its processes via this type of solution. And perhaps close a loop by bringing new clients to the startups incubated by the firm. A win-win strategy.
This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.