During the EMEA NewLaw Summit event, organized by PwC, the challenges of the legal profession in the face of AI were discussed.
Three executives from large corporations participated in the round table. And the conclusion was clear: the role of the legal professional will be transformed in the coming years. Moderated by Patricia Manco, partner at PwC Tax & Legal, the participants pointed out the trends they foresee in their own companies and in the sector as a whole.
The meeting took place within the framework of the EMEA NewLaw Summit, an event organized by PwC and focused on the impact of new technologies in the legal and tax fields. It started with the obvious. All participants agreed that the legal function is becoming more technical. "It is clear that the pressure is increasing, and we have to adapt as best we can," said Ana Gómez, group director and deputy secretary of the Amadeus board of directors.
During the roundtable discussion, we delved into what is to come for the legal profession. "I think the profile of the corporate lawyer is going to change," says Pablo Olivera, head of Aleatica's legal department. "Until now you needed specialists in each subject. And surely there is going to be a part of common law or non-super-specialized law that artificial intelligence is going to give us. The profile of the lawyer is going to change a little bit to a manager. You will have to make decisions much more quickly".
Olivera expressed his opinion that law firms will take on the most specialized part of the law, while the tasks that do not add much value will be done by artificial intelligence: "We are going to have lawyers, managers, tech-savvy, who will have to manage well in companies. And, on the other hand, super-specialized lawyers in law firms".
Another participant, Asier Crespo, legal director of Microsoft Spain and Portugal, argued that technological transformation occurs in all the clients his company works with. He emphasized the difficulty of implementation, which involves different areas of a company: "It is not the typical Plug and Play project, it is not the typical project that is carried out by the IT department, such as the implementation of Excel or Word. The IT department needs to work closely with the legal department from the beginning. The legal department has to put its needs on the table, while the technical department has to come up with possible solutions and then reach an understanding.
"I think the challenge of technological change is knowing how to adapt it to your environment. Every company is different. Just as Excel was applied in companies in a different way, for us lawyers, artificial intelligence is a challenge that is going to impose a cultural change on us," commented Olivera. "When I started, we had three lawyers and five secretaries. And we would handwrite everything. We would write the appeals and the models we had on paper photocopies; we would cut them out, we would glue them," he said, referring to the transformations that have taken place over the years.
Changes are coming for everyone, as Olivera said: "If we don't transform ourselves, they will throw us out. And I think that right now the big question, for those of us who are lucky enough to run the legal department of a large company, is what to do. The Aleatica executive commented that AI has yet to mature and emphasized that one of the big challenges right now is not making the wrong decision.
There are other more generic tasks that require less thought. Microsoft's Crespo speaks of Copilot as a digital assistant. It's not a specialized tool in law, but it is generic. "When you sometimes have three calls at the same time, now you can choose to have Copilot go to the meeting," the executive said, adding that the AI can make a transcript or tell the user if he has been spoken about in the meeting. This and other uses of AI software would have saved Microsoft employees an average of four hours a week, Crespo said.
Talent management in the age of AI
Among all the issues yet to be determined in the face of the new era that AI opens in the legal sector, talent management is one of the most important. Ana Gómez, from Amadeus, recalled that it is necessary to take into account how younger people think. "From my point of view, they are more short-termist. When we started working, you signed up for everything because what you wanted was to learn. And now the questions they ask you are very different. It's a very different mentality and you have to know how to manage it".
For Crespo, the way in which junior lawyers have been trained is going to change: "There is going to be a revolution in the legal profession and we have to be aware of it. Before, we used to do first drafts, give them to the senior lawyer and they would give them back to you corrected. They told me the first time: 'I could make the changes, but if I make them, you don't learn'. Frankly, that's the way we learned."
This more artisanal way of learning will be transformed. Gómez reflected on the advantage of leaving repetitive tasks behind: "Technology is going to help us to eliminate all that routine work. Maybe it will help us to focus people on the more technical part, the more human part". During the roundtable discussion, the idea emerged that juniors would be the ones to take the most advantage of artificial intelligence. They are the most agile with new technologies and have the most repetitive tasks. However, there is another current that thinks that it is precisely the seniors who can make the most of these tools.
"Then I believe that there will be a cultural element in companies, an element of experience, which is given to you by the senior position, which is the one that arbitrates," said Olivera, referring to the expression 'the young know the rules, the old know the exceptions'.
In any case, they all agreed that it is a matter of striking a balance between artificial intelligence and people's capabilities. "In the end, we have to try to ensure that everyone is where they can give their best and where they can shine the most," said Gómez. "Everyone should do what he or she does best, because this is a gear. Everyone has their part to play, and then everything comes together so that the result is the best possible.
