According to Morae\u2019s research, only 26% of legal leaders feel confident that their organizations\u2019 information is ready for effective AI analysis. Only 37% say they even know where all their legal information is stored.<\/p>\n
The striking gap illustrates the importance of information governance and how firms need to prioritize it before adopting more tools that process bad data at extraordinary speed.<\/p>\n
\u2018ROT\u2019 Doesn\u2019t Become Fresh Data<\/strong><\/p>\n Information-governance professionals use \u201cROT\u201d to describe redundant, obsolete, and trivial data points. When AI enters the picture, the clutter can shape the output.<\/p>\n Consider a contract that exists in 15 versions, each with its own edits, comments, and abandoned negotiating positions. A lawyer reviewing search results can investigate which copy was executed. An AI system given access to all 15 may treat each as useful evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same goes for a 20-year-old agreement that no longer governs the relationship, or trivial notes such as text messages about a lunch with the client.<\/p>\n \u201cAI doesn\u2019t inherently know which information is authoritative, current, or appropriate,\u201d Thies said. \u201cBut it is utilizing it in its outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n Risk Can Arise With the Wrong Response<\/strong><\/p>\n Bad information hygiene also creates exposure to risk. Only 30% of legal leaders are confident that their information is properly classified as confidential or sensitive, and AI-enabled software struggles to tell the difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNot all data is equal,\u201d Thies said. \u201cYou have certain information that is high risk, high obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n Organizations have regulatory reasons to retain certain records and an obligation to protect personally identifiable information from cybersecurity breaches. Yet material like this often sits in the same sprawling information environment as ordinary business files.<\/p>\n Thies offered the scenario of someone who has been keeping HR files on a shared drive. The arrangement may have felt safe if that employee was the only person using the folder, but the guardrail disappears when an AI system gains access.<\/p>\n Failing to properly classify or index information beforehand creates a potential privacy incident with Social Security numbers or health information. The system locates personally identifiable information, confidential business records, or privileged material and could expose those materials to someone who never should have seen it.<\/p>\n Relevance Has to Be Established First<\/strong><\/p>\n The fragmented landscape of a typical firm\u2019s information potentially gives new meaning to the sentiment \u201cgarbage in, garbage out,\u201d Thies said.<\/p>\n A retention policy should bring order to that landscape, but in many firms the policy exists mainly on paper. Many organizations aren\u2019t confident it has been applied to properly dispose of records when they\u2019re eligible.<\/p>\n Records that are no longer relevant remain available to an LLM alongside current, authoritative material.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAI lacks the organizational context unless it is given parameters through the governance of that information,\u201d Thies said. \u201cHere\u2019s where we keep our official records in this repository. This is what you can rely upon. This is where we\u2019re going to point our LLMs to use this information.\u201d<\/p>\n Information Governance as an AI Enabler<\/strong><\/p>\n Legal organizations are pouring money into AI because the potential productivity gains are significant. Trust, however, has not followed.<\/p>\n Only 33% of senior legal professionals trust the results of AI-assisted legal work, according to a Morae survey of 850 senior legal professionals. And 67% are concerned the cost of human verification is outweighing the productivity benefits of AI.<\/p>\n Thies noted that information governance is not an administrative brake on innovation. Rather, it\u2019s a reminder to take an honest account of what their systems contain and where their highest-value information lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n Otherwise, AI won\u2019t provide trusted and reliable results.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe industry can get there, but only by confronting the condition of its information first,\u201d Thies said. \u201cRight now, we know we\u2019re not there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n \n The post Is \u2018ROT\u2019 Data Thwarting Your Firm\u2019s AI Adoption?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n Before generative AI, finding information inside a law firm generally followed a familiar pattern of search, retrieve, and evaluate. It had to be that way.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an open secret that firms have spent years scattering information among document-management platforms, inboxes, file shares, SharePoint sites, and business applications. But at least until a lawyer judged which of the five versions of a contract was the final, no one wrote a brief or took any next steps in a case.<\/p>\n Now, AI absorbs material from across an organization and delivers a polished answer, often without clarifying how it got there or acknowledging the disorder hiding in the underlying data.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/abovethelaw.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/04_Editorial_Data_Readiness_1280x720-1024x576.jpeg\" "\\"\\"")
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