{"id":111666,"date":"2025-03-24T14:59:38","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T22:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/03\/24\/legalweek-2025-put-an-ai-on-it\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T14:59:38","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T22:59:38","slug":"legalweek-2025-put-an-ai-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/03\/24\/legalweek-2025-put-an-ai-on-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Legalweek 2025: Put An AI On It!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portlandia had a bit about Northwest hipsters putting a bird on every knick knack up for sale. \u201cPut a bird on it\u201d involved shoving birds onto everything from tote bags to homemade pillows. I think about that bit every time another vendor announces that they\u2019ve \u201cput an AI on\u201d their product.<\/p>\n

I suspect this will come up a lot this week.<\/p>\n

Legal technology\u2019s annual pilgrimage to the New York Hilton Midtown commences with Legalweek 2025<\/a> welcoming a motley crew of attorneys and tech vendors. This year\u2019s congregation, boasting over 6,000 attendees from 34 countries, is set to navigate the warrens of the Hilton\u2019s conference space.<\/p>\n

Or at least at one point it was 34 countries. If folks stayed home rather than risk this administration accidentally sending them to a prison in El Salvador, that\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

Doug Austin of eDiscovery Today helpfully creates word clouds based on conference agendas and found that \u201cAI\u201d appears a staggering 250 times<\/a> \u2014 108 more than last year. That\u2019s before he added in similar terms like GenAI. The point is that you\u2019re not listening to someone talk about AI, then you\u2019re probably in the wrong conference room. <\/p>\n

The only exception might be the keynote address tomorrow morning when Rob Lowe takes the stage to discuss \u201cThe Art of Reinvention: Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones.\u201d Perhaps it\u2019s an ominous reference to the soon-to-be displaced junior lawyers performing all the tasks AI can reliably handle. But he\u2019s probably just going to talk about the time he mistakenly ate a carb.<\/p>\n

To be fair to the vendors, they have to inject AI into their products or risk falling behind competitors who do. We make fun of AI\u2019s legal industry failings<\/a> and question its long-term potential<\/a>, but just because its not replacing lawyers and judges \u2014 no matter what the dumbest man in the world thinks<\/a> \u2014 that doesn\u2019t detract from its value in performing the smaller tasks. It\u2019s that infamous Apple story about Steve Jobs challenging the team to shave seconds off the boot up time because that translates to years saved on a grand scale\u2026 just because AI won\u2019t argue a case before the Supreme Court doesn\u2019t make it any less useful for its ability to summarize a mass of transcripts into actionable work product.<\/p>\n

So now let\u2019s brave the rainy Midtown weather and start checking out some AI.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Legalweek 2025: Put An AI On It!<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portlandia had a bit about Northwest hipsters putting a bird on every knick knack up for sale. \u201cPut a bird on it\u201d involved shoving birds onto everything from tote bags to homemade pillows. I think about that bit every time another vendor announces that they\u2019ve \u201cput an AI on\u201d their product.<\/p>\n

I suspect this will come up a lot this week.<\/p>\n

Legal technology\u2019s annual pilgrimage to the New York Hilton Midtown commences with Legalweek 2025<\/a> welcoming a motley crew of attorneys and tech vendors. This year\u2019s congregation, boasting over 6,000 attendees from 34 countries, is set to navigate the warrens of the Hilton\u2019s conference space.<\/p>\n

Or at least at one point it was 34 countries. If folks stayed home rather than risk this administration accidentally sending them to a prison in El Salvador, that\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

Doug Austin of eDiscovery Today helpfully creates word clouds based on conference agendas and found that \u201cAI\u201d appears a staggering 250 times<\/a> \u2014 108 more than last year. That\u2019s before he added in similar terms like GenAI. The point is that you\u2019re not listening to someone talk about AI, then you\u2019re probably in the wrong conference room. <\/p>\n

The only exception might be the keynote address tomorrow morning when Rob Lowe takes the stage to discuss \u201cThe Art of Reinvention: Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones.\u201d Perhaps it\u2019s an ominous reference to the soon-to-be displaced junior lawyers performing all the tasks AI can reliably handle. But he\u2019s probably just going to talk about the time he mistakenly ate a carb.<\/p>\n

To be fair to the vendors, they have to inject AI into their products or risk falling behind competitors who do. We make fun of AI\u2019s legal industry failings<\/a> and question its long-term potential<\/a>, but just because its not replacing lawyers and judges \u2014 no matter what the dumbest man in the world thinks<\/a> \u2014 that doesn\u2019t detract from its value in performing the smaller tasks. It\u2019s that infamous Apple story about Steve Jobs challenging the team to shave seconds off the boot up time because that translates to years saved on a grand scale\u2026 just because AI won\u2019t argue a case before the Supreme Court doesn\u2019t make it any less useful for its ability to summarize a mass of transcripts into actionable work product.<\/p>\n

So now let\u2019s brave the rainy Midtown weather and start checking out some AI.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portlandia had a bit about Northwest hipsters putting a bird on every knick knack up for sale. \u201cPut a bird on it\u201d involved shoving birds onto everything from tote bags to homemade pillows. I think about that bit every time another vendor announces that they\u2019ve \u201cput an AI on\u201d their product. I suspect this will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":111633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Headshot-300x200-ZSAqJj.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}