A recent survey exploring trends in litigation and e-discovery has found that 40% of legal professionals are either currently employing generative AI tools in their practice or planning to do so. The 2023 Ediscovery Innovation Report, a collaboration between Everlaw, the Association of Certified E-Discovery Specialists (ACEDS) and the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA), collected information from 245 legal professionals based in the U.S. These professionals represented a breadth of legal contexts, from law firms and corporate legal departments to government agencies and legal service providers.
- Significantly, 40% of respondents indicated their use or anticipated use of generative AI tools. The report sees these figures as indicative of embracing of this relatively new technology by the legal sector.
- The survey also reflects optimism about how generative AI might positively impact the legal field. Over half (51%) agreed or strongly agreed that the introduction of AI would provide more value to clients (51%) and enable prioritisation of higher-value work (65%). Only 29% of respondents expressed concerns that generative AI could risk devaluing legal work in the long run.
- While optimism is prevalent, 72% of respondents indicated that the industry may not be fully prepared for the implications of generative AI; an additional 21% are still undecided.
- In terms of concerns about generative AI, the leading issues are inaccuracy (44%), inability to explain or justify AI operations (17%), and security (14%). Interestingly, only 1% cited cost as an obstacle to implementing generative AI in legal practice.
- The majority of legal professionals stated they would feel comfortable using generative AI for specific e-discovery tasks, such as identifying patterns in datasets and summarizing documents.
The study interestingly draws a correlation between adoption of cloud computing and use of generative AI. The results indicate that legal teams who are ahead in adopting cloud computing compared to those using on-premises or hybrid approaches are more likely to be pioneers in adopting AI and other advanced technologies. The survey found that these ‘cloud adopters’ reported the highest use (56%) of advanced technologies, with most ‘on-premise’ users stating they had not used these tools in the past year.
Regarding adoption of cloud technology, the survey confirms that it is becoming increasingly standard within the legal profession. Key results include:
- Almost all (95%) legal professionals view cloud-based e-discovery as the impending industry norm.
- 56% state that cloud-based e-discovery is currently the default approach, a figure that has grown by 17% year-on-year and nearly doubled over the past two years.
- The remaining 39% predict that cloud-based discovery software will be common within the next one (12%) or two years (27%).
Everlaw conducted the survey during June and July.