In July 2024, Relativity hosted a webinar featuring regional legal experts to delve into how the rapid increase and broad range of data has prompted the industry to re-evaluate traditional processes, creating a timely demand for AI-driven solutions. The panel included:
- Gino Bello, Head of Southeast Asia Technology at FTI Consulting Singapore
- Jayant Saran, Partner at Deloitte India
- Loong Tse Chuan, Partner at Allen & Gledhill
- Benjamin Ng, Senior Account Executive at Relativity (moderator)
The discussion provided valuable insights into evolving data dynamics, regulatory impacts on technology adoption, and the pivotal role of human-AI collaboration in enhancing legal processes.
Over the past decade, the legal industry has witnessed a massive transformation driven by the surge in data volume, complexity, and diversity. As a result of this data explosion, the legal industry’s approaches to traditional processes have been redefined and the need for both technology and AI-driven solutions has been significantly underscored. From this conversation among experts in the legal industry, one thing was clear: the legal profession stands at a pivotal moment of exciting opportunity and evolution.
The four main topics and takeaways from the webinar, Streamlining Legal Processes in an Era of Data Abundance, are summarised below.
Adapting to the Data Landscape Shift
Data today is vast, diverse, and even unruly and shapes our world. With the seismic shift in the data landscape, there calls for an equally seismic shift in how legal data is managed, interpreted, and regulated. In response, legal professionals must do what they do best—adapt.
When asked how legal professionals are responding to the complexity of data, the panelists agreed that they face a number of challenges such as growing volumes and the emergence of novel data types.
Bello shared that the days of handling hundreds of records and thousands of emails are gone. It is now hundreds of millions of records and tens of thousands of emails. And, on top of emails, there are more novel data types such as text messages, voice notes, instant messages, and ephemeral communications. Reviewing immense amounts of data would not be efficiently or effectively possible without technology to aid legal teams.
Bello went on to detail that, when it comes to an investigation, the facts of “who did what, when, where, and how” are typically now housed in off-channel communications like Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, KakaoTalk, WeChat, et cetera, whereas it used to live in email correspondence. This form of short message communication is only becoming more prevalent, making navigating it imperative.
Loong then highlighted the scale of data management challenges, adding that the average data size per custodian is now 12.5 gigabytes, which equates to roughly 8 million pages of text.
Loong emphasised the role that technology has in breaking down these challenges, stating, “It’s entirely fitting that the legal profession uses technology solutions to cope with the proliferation of data.”
Lastly, with this unprecedented influx of data come new judicial guidelines. As Loong noted, “The courts have implemented rules which attempt to directly address information inflation … the Singapore courts, for example, have introduced practice direction on e-discovery, which encourages parties to collaborate on an electronic discovery protocol.”
Saran concluded the conversation, adding that, for any data being worked with, there will be a need for platforms to help legal professionals work through it both speedily and intelligently.
How to Navigate Regulatory Challenges
Regulatory compliance is becoming increasingly important as the legal landscape evolves. In the United States, the SEC’s recent fines—totaling nearly $2 billion for failures in retaining off-channel communications—highlight the need for proactive data management. Companies must leverage advanced, AI-driven solutions to handle the growing data volume and complexity. In today’s landscape, large data volumes are not an excuse for non-compliance.
Loong shared that the main regulatory challenges he faces relate to data privacy, security, and confidentiality. Different countries have different regulations such as Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA), England’s Data Protection Act, and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Before adopting any new technology, legal professionals must fully understand regional data policies and ensure compliance with relevant regulations.
On that note, Loong also remarked on the future of these region-specific regulations. He remarked, “Going forward, I expect to see ethical guidance on the use of new legal technology from the courts. Courts in the UK issued guidance last year and I expect other jurisdictions to follow suit.” While there are currently different regulations in different jurisdictions, Loong expects and hopes to see greater convergence on common standards.
When asked about the nature of how regulatory frameworks evolve, Saran shared that “regulatory frameworks are always playing catch up to technology.” The technology comes first, and regulatory elements follow. The proliferation of personal data through channels like email and texts precedes the establishment of personal data regulations. We are now in the era of regulations rolling out to meet “emerged” technologies.
The Importance of Human-AI Collaboration
AI is transforming how we approach legal tasks, but the prevailing sentiment is clear: AI complements lawyers rather than replacing them. AI cannot exist in a vacuum of its own; its outputs require checking, verification, and approval from the expertise of a human to provide value.
While humans are clearly essential to AI, it is crucial for practitioners to understand how humans and AI can work together. Saran highlighted a few considerations for effective collaboration between humans and AI in legal work:
1. Clearly Define Objectives
The first step is knowing what you are looking for and the objective of using AI in that particular instance. Setting clear goals ensures that the technology is applied effectively and that humans are actively learning from the AI and interpreting its outputs. Having a defined framework helped Saran’s team successfully close a matter five to six months earlier than traditional methods would have allowed.
2. Curate Quality Data
What most people neglect to think of in terms of working with AI is that AI is not a magic solution that can thrive without intention. What source data is being used to train your AI? Is it accurate? Relevant? Unbiased? The success of human-AI collaboration depends on the quality of the data shaping your AI’s learning. Saran highlighted that AI’s effectiveness is closely linked to the quality and relevance of its training data.
3. Don’t Depend on AI to Act on Data Insights
Saran stressed that interpreting and turning data into actionable information remains a human responsibility. The potential of AI is limited without human interpretation; its true value comes from how it is analysed and applied. While AI can assist, humans must evaluate and make decisions based on the AI’s outputs.
The panelists agreed that integrating technology effectively within legal teams is key to driving progress and innovation in the field. Reflecting on the future of the legal profession, Ng cited the Chief Justice of Singapore’s vision of law firms evolving from a pyramid structure with a big base of associates that supports a progressively narrower peak of partners to a “rocket ship” structure. The narrow peak will remain, but the base of associates will be much thinner and much more tech-enabled across the board.
Trends Emerging at the Intersection of Legal Processes and Technology
The panelists had a unified perspective on the future of technology in the legal industry, agreeing that changes will unfold gradually rather than instantly. The legal workforce will become more tech-enabled and savvy as it becomes increasingly necessary.
Bello noticed that, for those that express readiness to bring in new technology, teams are still hesitant to bring in the new systems they know they want. He predicts that, rather than introducing brand new systems, teams will look to “bolt on” technologies to expand the capabilities of existing systems. With existing systems they may have been around for decades, making the move to add a particular technology for a particular purpose is less disruptive and within the comfort zone of historically hesitant teams. Bello expressed that this approach would allow teams to take small steps towards implementing new technology while retaining the existing systems that are still serving business needs.
When asked how to build trust in AI-driven initiatives, Saran emphasised that the inner workings of AI can be difficult to explain. Instead, the way to build confidence and trust in AI is to ensure that there is human sign off, that the results are replicable, and that the model is doing what a human would have done, making the same judgements a human would. With repeated use and demonstrated success, there will come an increased trust in AI.
Loong concluded the conversation by expanding, robust testing will maximise the reliability of AI and that repeated successes are critical. However, AI tools must be used appropriately, and their limitations must be understood. When done well, AI can be an invaluable asset but, without lawyers properly verifying its outputs, there are risks of hallucinations, misinformation, injustice, and more.
The webinar discussion highlighted how the rapid evolution of the legal landscape and the abundance of data poses challenges directly affecting legal teams, as well as the fundamental role of technology in resolving them. For more insights, the webinar is on-demand here. To explore solutions and delve into the issues currently shaping the legal landscape, you can view our full series of webinars here.
Georgia Foster is managing director and vice president of international sales at Relativity.
