Legal Chatbots May Take Time But 'Are Worth the Effort'

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Have you ever interfaced with a "virtual assistant"? Chances are, it's not a person at all. Chatbots have become ubiquitous in business over the last decade, aiding in everything from online shopping to banking, and legal is no exception. Forward-thinking corporate legal departments and law firms are looking to find new ways to integrate chatbots into daily work to take pressure off of attorneys and paralegals—but getting them up and running efficiently isn't an easy task.

As part of the run-up to Legalweek 2020, Legaltech News is chatting with a number of speakers from this year's sessions to know. Today's Q&A is with Francine French, lead e-discovery manager at GSK. Her Legaltech session "Optimizing the Role of ChatBots in Legal" will take place on Wednesday, February 5, at 3 p.m.

You can register for the show, taking place at the New York Midtown Hilton between February 3-6, at Legalweekshow.com.

Legaltech News: What do you think legal tech looks like in 10 years? What will be the biggest opportunities and challenges?

Francine French: I would hope that legal tech would be fully embraced and not just seen as an area that is only necessary some of the time. Those days are long gone, and legal tech whether one likes it or not is a vital must when it comes to legal, e-discovery and overall information governance for a company. I hope this will lead to greater strides in technology, particularly AI. But as with new technology there will always be those that resist, so it is our job to educate our colleagues and peers to utilize and embed these new best in class technologies throughout our companies, in particular legal.

What is the biggest misconception you think still persists about legal technology?

That legal technology is only needed within the larger corporations or firms. Every firm or company should have some individual or team that has background or expertise in legal technology. Additionally, the need for legal technology is only becoming greater, and the sooner firms and companies understand and embrace legal technology, the better off they will be from both a legal cost savings and risk mitigation perspective.

Francine French, lead e-discovery manager at GSK. Courtesy photo.

What do you hope attendees take away from your Legalweek session?

I hope our session will give the attendees a better understanding on how to best incorporate the bots in their companies and firms and provide them with best practices to develop a successful and well-taught chatbot to respond to their business needs.

Are you typically focused on using chatbots internally, for solving client-facing issues, or both?

We look to use chatbots internally to answer frequently asked questions related to the area of information governance. Our internal business clients across the company are able to ask the chatbot questions, and the bot will respond with the proper answer that it has been trained to give. We have been able to re-train and improve the bot with the questions and feedback given from the users across the globe.

The key idea around chatbots are to make "work life" easier overall and also run the legal organization like a business. There has been great success to chatbots in other areas of the company, and we have been able to gain better understandings from their experiences, thus bolstering ours and many other chatbots in the process.

What are some of the barriers preventing chatbots from being more commonly used?

Cost and willingness to take the time to develop, train and teach the bot so it can successfully assist the users with their needs.

Are chatbots only for decision tree, low-value work, or is there more learning that could be going on with them?

From my team's experience, there is definitely more learning and socialization capabilities that can be developed with the chatbots. Building these enhancements do take time, but they are worth the effort to have a tool that in the end will save on cost and time, as actual individuals will not need to be assisting with these daily frequently asked questions. Chatbots are an investment, and you need to have a project management team and team leads from the business to set aside the time and make the success of the bot a priority.