Dentons, with over 10,000 employees, has integrated the use of AI into its daily processes.
Spanish law firms Cuatrecasas and Garrigues have developed their own AI tools to speed up document review, legal searches, or drafting.
Artificial intelligence tools have been used in law firms for some time. The novelty is generative artificial intelligence, which can write texts and documents as well as other materials, graphics, or audio files. And there are already large law firms using this technology for their work.
The introduction of generative AI has started slowly but is gathering pace. Proof of this can be seen in the announcements made by major law firms in recent months.
Dentons: A tool based on GPT-4
One of the largest law firms in the world, Dentons, has announced that it is using a proprietary generative AI tool. This is a version of ChatGPT based on the GPT-4 model from OpenAI. It is called 'fleetAI' and, as expected, specializes in legal issues.
This proprietary AI enables Dentons' lawyers to streamline legal search and research, generate texts, and identify relevant legal arguments. The system is designed to introduce documents to automatically analyze and extract key data, such as clauses and obligations.
The implementation of this AI tool is significant and marks a trend in the legal sector, considering Dentons has more than 10,000 lawyers and operates in 80 countries. The firm has also worked with Microsoft to ensure that all information entered into fleetAI is managed securely. For example, the data is deleted after 30 days and is not used to train the model. The company has been using the tool since August 2023 and has new versions in development.
Gunderson Dettmer's own AI
The law firm Gunderson Dettmer with more than 400 employees, mainly in the USA but also in Brazil and other countries, will have its work enhanced by AI. The firm has already launched its ChatGD tool, which is also intended for internal and in-house use. It has two main functions: a chatbot that can be asked general questions and a RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) mode that enriches queries with all kinds of context, such as legal agreements.
This allows lawyers to upload documents or groups of documents and ask queries, with the AI drawing on this context to provide answers. Thank you to its generative capabilities, the tool also enables text to be modified. For all this, ChatGD uses artificial intelligence models from OpenAI and other providers such as Anthropic, Google Engines, or Meta's Llama 2.
To achieve a successful implementation, Gunderson Dettmer has created a guide for its lawyers on the use of generative AI. This document aims to create an appropriate operational framework to protect clients' confidential information and ensure the accuracy and quality of the firm's work.
Garrigues and Cuatrecasas: proprietary tools in alliance with Harvey
The two major law firms in Spain, Garrigues and Cuatrecasas, have also thrown themselves into AI. Cuatrecasas has launched its own platform, developed with the collaboration of over 150 lawyers and professionals from all departments of the company. The tool is part of the result of an investment of 64 million euros in innovation and digitalization over the last five years.
Garrigues' tool is proprietary and combines different models, such as the startup Harvey, ChatGPT, or Vertex Gemini. The law firm, which employs over 2,000 people, was one of the first in Spain to develop its own AI for legal tasks.
The other large law firm that has introduced AI is Cuatrecasas, which also employs around 2,000 professionals. In this case, the company has partnered with Harvey (a startup in which OpenAI has invested) to develop a tool that enables the drafting of texts, the analysis of documents, and the retrieval of legal information.
The tool for internal use is called CELIA (Cuatrecasas Legal Expert AI) and also integrates technologies such as GPT-4 from OpenAI. The company conducted a test with over 100 lawyers to determine the benefits of the tool. Cuatrecasas has found that CELIA can increase operational agility by providing answers to everyday questions, such as a legal query on a 400-page contract. It is also useful when reviewing texts or due diligence processes, as well as when drafting contracts and other legal texts.