There is no escaping that, with the proliferation of AI-powered tools, the role of legal professionals in corporate legal teams is beginning to change and evolve. Based on our experience, those professionals who can adapt their workflows to the next generation of AI-powered tools – while understanding their benefits and limitations – will have the most success in this ever-changing space.

Subject matter experts (SMEs) in corporate legal teams and other parts of the organization have domain expertise and deal with legal, regulatory, or compliance issues that arise throughout the enterprise. Depending on the organization, SMEs may include attorneys, compliance professionals, HR professionals, and more. They are essential - breaking down complex legal, compliance requirements and industry standards into simple, actionable advice, helping their business colleagues make compliant and proper decisions. Their tailored insights and risk-based advice enable business teams to tackle pressing legal questions, while keeping the organization running smoothly and in line with strategic goals.

In many organizations, business users direct routine questions to the legal team or other SMEs. Routine queries, such as “how much parental leave can I take?” or “who can sign a sales contract over [a certain value]?” flood SMEs' inboxes or messaging channels along with more complex queries, such as “are we able to agree the enhanced liability clause proposed [by the counterparty]?” or “what are the penalties for breaking our NYC lease agreement?" While the value of these queries is not equal, subject matter experts on the legal team are likely to spend the same amount of time answering routine lower value questions as they do higher value queries.

However, lawyers have specialized knowledge that is often not needed for handling routine questions. When lawyers spend time addressing these routine queries, instead of focusing on more complex legal issues that need their expertise, it leads to slower response times for business users who are seeking quick answers. This delay adversely affects the relationship between the legal team and other departments within the organization. Additionally, relying on lawyers for routine questions can lead to unnecessary increases in their workload, as business users may choose to direct straightforward and simple questions to the legal team, rather than using alternative and potentially faster sources of information, such as self-service AI powered tools.

When lawyers answer basic queries that are administrative and do not require subject matter expertise, it leads to job dissatisfaction. They may feel their hard-earned skills are underutilized and that their role is reduced to a mere FAQ responder rather than a strategic advisor. In light of the drawbacks of lawyers answering routine questions, corporate legal teams can utilize AI-powered tools to manage the more routine work of the legal department.

AI-powered tools, like Coheso, can act as junior members within corporate legal teams, addressing routine inquiries and providing immediate responses to many questions from business colleagues. These "digital workers" alleviate the workload of lawyers and other SMEs by managing repetitive tasks, enabling lawyers and other SMEs to concentrate on more complex and strategic issues.

Based on our experience, there are several steps that AI tools can take to give legal teams and other SMEs the reassurance and confidence to roll out an AI-powered tool to manage administrative tasks and answer routine questions.

Evidence-based Responses

An AI hallucination arises when a large language model that underpins an AI solution generates erroneous or misleading responses. The potential for hallucinations and inaccurate responses has often caused legal professionals to be reluctant to adopt AI technology.

Companies offering AI tools may address these concerns in a myriad of ways. A technical focus on making such tools as accurate as possible for a particular vertical is critical. For example, by providing users with grounded answers to their questions and presenting the source or evidence upon which the answer is based within a company’s own policies, guidelines, and contracts, Coheso users can see that responses are supported by the company’s own source documents, boosting trust and reliability in the AI system. Business users can therefore receive prompt responses 24/7 to their routine questions, allowing lawyers and other SMEs to focus on strategic high value tasks.

It is also critical that AI systems can determine what questions they cannot answer and provide a workflow for those situations. When using Coheso, for example, if an answer is not found in the content uploaded, the tool lets the requestor know that it is unable to generate a response because no relevant information exists in the content scanned. It proceeds to offer business users the option to seek help from the legal team or other SMEs within the platform, sending a message to the legal team or the relevant SME with all the necessary details, so that the right person gets back to the requestor with the answer.

Escalation Pathways

Another way to utilize AI in this intake process is to help triage more complex queries. For example, with Coheso, complex queries or requests for detailed legal help can be seamlessly directed to the legal department from within the platform. Business users are prompted to provide additional information pertinent to the request, ensuring that all necessary details are captured. This is done through a dynamic intake form that is fully customizable to meet the needs of the legal team and specific use cases. Once the legal requests, along with the relevant information and accompanying documents, are submitted, they undergo dynamic triage. The system intelligently routes the requests to the right team or SME within the legal department, ensuring that each query is handled by a professional with the right expertise.

Furthermore, by monitoring trends using the AI tool’s data analytics, legal teams can gain insights into recurring issues that require escalation, allowing them to address root causes proactively, refine their processes and update their knowledge base where gaps have been identified.

Logs and Audit Trails

The ability to apply human oversight proactively overcomes resistance to using AI systems to answer routine questions. For example, access to logs and a detailed audit trail in Coheso allow SMEs to have oversight of the questions asked by business users, as well as the responses generated by the AI tool. Details, such as the name of the requestor, complete with timestamps, are captured dynamically. As a further step, in Coheso, legal teams can, at their option, require that the legal department reviews AI-generated responses before they go back to the business user, a particularly helpful option as an intermediary step to gain organizational comfort as an AI tool is initially rolled out. Regardless of the exact features involved, giving users more options with respect to AI-oversight by supporting both prospective and retrospective review can help build further trust in AI tools.

Conclusion

AI-powered platforms, like Coheso, are designed to be at the forefront of the intersection between human expertise and artificial intelligence, supercharging productivity and efficiency in legal departments. This does not mean that SMEs will become obsolete – far from it. Instead, the role of SMEs will continue to evolve alongside the new ways in which legal services are delivered. We have found that organizations that adopt AI tools foster a culture of innovation, boost job satisfaction, and improve the delivery of legal services.