AI tools are still the shiny new object in legal. But how can you thoroughly evaluate your needs and find the right tools to support them? It’s not an easy task, but VQ Forum speaker Friedrich Blase, has a lot of best practice and tips to share after conducting an extensive comparative trial of nine well-publicized AI contract analysis vendors on behalf of a consortium of six corporate legal departments.
In the latest issue of Legal IT Today, he explains how the process that consumed more than 18 months was carried out and what pitfalls you should avoid.
The first obstacle that Friedrich Blase points out is, what is referred to by Gerry Riskin as the ‘Mount Everest Syndrome’, that lawyers have difficulties in settling for good enough and always want to “climb the Mount Everest at the same time”. In the end, nothing is accomplished as the task grew too big and too far from the original scope.
The second obstacle is to compare apples with apples and not with something else. As Friedrich Blase experienced during his trial the solutions come in different types, (i) the more out-of-the-box ones and (ii) the professional services approach featuring offerings disguised as AI technology. The latter one was not conductive to an extensive apples-to-apples trial and had an intense service-heavy people component. There were also difficulties in getting the participating vendors to understand the process and respond to the actual requests. After an initial large vendor invitation process, in the end only nine analysis tools were able to meet the requirements for participating in the trial.
Read more about the trial on pages 26-29 here: Legal IT Today
And don’t miss the opportunity to listen to Friedrich Blase at VQ Forum on 17 October 2019 in Stockholm.
Find more information here: VQ Forum