Legal must move beyond chasing shiny new AI tools and instead focus on understanding the transformative implications of new technologies.
Well, it’s a wrap for CES 2025. Five and a half days of keynotes, educational sessions, walking exhibit floors, networking, and, well, partying have come to an end. I’m pooped.
I covered the show for Above the Law last week and have been posting my opinions about what I have seen and, most importantly, how what I have seen impacts the law.
What did I see and hear that will have the most significant impact on legal? Three things:
1. While I’m not sure agentic agents will advance as far and as fast as some at CES seem to think, I do believe we will see LLMs advance over the next year to the point that they can successfully respond to prompts with multiple tasks and questions. And make decisions and recommendations based on the prompts. This ability will enable lawyers and legal professionals to reduce time on nonproductive work and enhance efficiencies. I wrote a post at the show on this subject.
2. The deepfake problems and potential are real and getting worse. It will bedevil lawyers and judges. We don’t have a systemic way to deal with this crisis and the gap between what is real and what isn’t. It’s going to affect litigation and legal.
3. Law firm management and supervising lawyers need to deal with the different expectations of the workforce when it comes to technology. Law firm management needs to think about how to deal with the workforce disruption that is coming as AI does more and more tasks that humans now do. If management doesn’t plan, it will be faced with replacing current workers who know and understand firm culture with workers who may have the skills but not the institutional knowledge and commitment.
The bottom line is that it’s time for law firms and in-house legal departments to stop chasing shiny new AI objects and get a better vision of what the technology means and how it will impact what we do and how we do it.
