“We often have real, live matters and document sets perfect for testing,” AI Visionary Michelle Six, partner at Kirkland & Ellis, recently told us, “either for the benefit of an ongoing matter or as proof of concept.” The most innovative e-discovery teams already see this, and are positioned for greater success in the near term as technology continues to evolve in the face of explosive data volumes.
Cristin Traylor: What are the biggest areas of opportunity where you feel AI can have an impact?
Michelle Six: In the near term, I expect AI applications for e-discovery use cases will continue to focus on the value plays common to current adoption of technology-assisted review (TAR): what are the tricky requirements of review or fact development that are nearly impossible—based on sheer size, cost, or rapid deadlines—for humans to complete?
For example, what models can we build and train to identify privileged content across multiple client matters? What unsupervised models can be leveraged to quickly identify and redact sensitive information with enough consistency, quality, and defensibility to truly reduce the need for human review and QC?
What AI-powered innovations are you looking forward to implementing in the future?
It is exciting to think about how we can offer legal strategy in support of clients’ efforts to leverage these maturing solutions within their organizations and cloud environments to solve litigation, compliance, and regulatory pain points—before litigation and other needs require the assessment and production of their critical, sensitive business information. For example, automatically flagging potentially privileged content as it’s created would be a great start. Embedding AI-focused contract assessment tools within contract management systems would be another boon.
Any solution that reduces the need to collect and provide company data to an external party will add massive value and efficiency.
In your opinion, what does the integration of AI mean for the future of the human workforce generally and in your specific industry?
What’s true right now is that many of our clients already leverage AI to develop, build, and market their products and services. As usual, the lawyers are playing catch up in the technology adoption lane, and strong law firms will continue to partner with clients to explore and test the value and application of AI in multiple use cases.
This is where firms offering clients a team of cross-disciplined attorneys, advisors, and technologists can pack a one-two punch; it’s also where we find our e-discovery team at Kirkland shines. Far too often we see our clients receive legal advice or gap analyses that do not offer pragmatic strategies well-steeped in the reality of how their teams operate. Business goals and risk-profiles are not understood or kept in mind. As a result, legal and technology “strategies” tend to focus on rules, risks, and expensive tech roadmaps, without offering much in the way of real solutions and thoughtful recommendations for improved processes or technology.
Moving forward, the best teams will offer AI-driven solutions that not only mitigate risk, but add value to our clients’ businesses.
What’s true right now is that many of our clients already leverage AI to develop, build, and market their products and services. As usual, the lawyers are playing catch up in the technology adoption lane, and strong law firms will continue to partner with clients to explore and test the value and application of AI in multiple use cases.
How do you discuss the benefits of AI with colleagues and clients who are hesitant to use it?
Often it is the lack of clearly defined, applicable use cases and associated value that delay adoption of emerging technology—both within law firms and with our clients. I find the best way to show the value is to demonstrate AI use and capabilities on a matter or project, and then identify broader uses across the legal team or even enterprise needs.
Beyond recommending technology and processes, law firms are uniquely positioned to help our clients drive AI assessment, implementation, and adoption. We often have real, live matters and document sets perfect for testing, either for the benefit of an ongoing matter or as proof of concept. Our team already knows the documents, knows most of the facts, and has the willingness (and business relationship upside) to invest time in an assessment. Being able to offer clients the ability to test AI use cases with limited financial investment certainly improves the chances of awareness and adoption. It also improves our chances of identifying the strongest and most promising AI players in the market.
As always, our number one goal is to help our client solve their business needs—better, smarter use of technology to manage legal cost and risk is certainly a key and growing pillar of that mission.
When you’re not working, how do you like to decompress?
I was a professional actress for many years before I became an attorney, and the power of the spoken word to convey emotion (and the power of the written word to create the world of the play) always drew me to the performances I loved the most. The art of behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances is the biggest challenge for actors, and an actor’s job is—above all else—to serve the story with our work. (With discovery, we have the same task. We need to sift through terabytes of data to find those documents and communications that tell the client’s story and set the stage for a successful litigation and trial strategy.)
When not working, I relish every opportunity to spend time with my children: Oliver (14) and Emma (3). For those of you considering raising a teenager and a preschooler at the same time, it is certainly a challenge but also a ton of fun.
Cristin Traylor is the director of law firm strategy marketing at Relativity, where she focuses on the legal technology needs of law firms. She previously served as discovery counsel at McGuireWoods LLP, where she oversaw a multi-faceted team of legal professionals providing experienced discovery assistance and strategic advice to firm clients, including white collar crime matters. Cristin currently serves as Assistant Chapter Director of Richmond Women in e-Discovery and Project Trustee of the EDRM Privilege Log Protocol. She is an active member of Sedona Conference Working Group 1 and holds the Relativity Master certification.
