The Latin American Lawyer September 2018 LATAM MAGAZINE SEPT18 | Page 16

The Big Question
How can law firms benefit from
artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already
playing a key role in streamlining law
firms’ day-to-day operations. From
due diligence and research to data
analytics, AI is being used to forecast
the outcome of litigation, automate
document creation, and improve
billing processes. Harnessing AI allows
law firms to save valuable time and
also avoid simple human errors, and
this form of technology is poised to
play a wider role in law firms’ everyday
work.
The Latin American Lawyer asked a
selection of leading lawyers in the
region what additional benefits AI
could offer law firms. While the use
of AI can lead to time savings of up
to 90 per cent for firms, lawyers warn
that, when using such technology, it
is important not to lose sight of some
of the fundamental principles of the
profession, such as “responsibility and
confidentiality”.
“The use of blockchain and artificial intelligence have very much become a fashion in
the legal services industry. We frequently see publicity from tech consultancies offering
services to law firms, promising to take their practices to a new level with big data, and
artificial intelligence, for example. We didn’t see that five or so years ago and now we’re
seeing a new reality for the law profession.
In Galicia Abogados, while we are fully convinced that the use of IT is one of the
drivers of change in the modern world, we also believe that a proper organisational
transformation does not only depend on having the best technology, but also on having
efficient management processes and a professional team capable of taking advantage
of these new tools. As a result of that conviction, and giving consideration to the transformation needed
to ensure our business model enables us to provide a better service to our clients, we recently created a
strategic projects management team, which is in charge of analysing and redesigning our processes and
researching the development of technologies applied to legal services in Latin America.
We are convinced that our firm will benefit from a combination of processes, technology and human talent,
and we have designed a training strategy so that all of our lawyers begin to prepare for the challenges that
AI will bring.”
Manuel Galicia
Head Partner
Galicia Abogados, Mexico
14 • THE LATIN AMERICAN LAWYER • September 2018
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