Provided by Phil Ayton, Director, Sysero
Today’s law firms are increasingly leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance services and streamline their operations. In fact, a recent survey found that nearly three in four lawyers (73%) say they plan to utilise generative AI in their legal work within the next year.
One area that’s ripe for AI-driven innovation is knowledge management. Effective knowledge sharing enables lawyers to draw on the collective expertise and experience of the firm, ensure quality legal services and advice, and power greater productivity. By leveraging AI tools like ChatGPT, law firms can boost efficiency by making it easier for lawyers to uncover the knowledge they need, when they need it.
Most firms today store their knowledge bases within a document management system (DMS), SharePoint depository, or a proprietary knowledge management system (KMS). These systems use metadata, such as document type, author, creation date, tags, etc., to allow users to filter, search and navigate through vast amounts of information efficiently. More advanced KMS applications also support taxonomical metadata, unlimited fields, and employ relevancy search engines. These advanced taxonomies make it easier to manage complex information. They also allow users to uncover information quicker and easier using fewer search terms, while providing context around searches and documents.
While most modern knowledge bases have robust search capabilities, many lack a natural language interface like ChatGPT. ChatGPT serves as a natural language interface by allowing users to interact with it using plain, conversational language, mimicking human-to-human communication. Imagine asking your KMS to create a lockbox clause for a Share Purchase Agreement and receiving the ideal clause tailored to your specific needs. However, getting ChatGPT to understand your specific purpose can be challenging. While you can provide detailed input to guide content generation, the system's vast corpus of information often requires it to make numerous assumptions, which can result in less accurate answers.
Law firms can leverage ChatGPT to offer their lawyers a more intuitive and efficient method for sharing and discovering information across the firm by pairing with their current knowledge bases. This is achievable through an AI framework called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), which combines generative large language models (LLMs) with traditional information retrieval systems. RAG essentially is the process of optimising the output of a large language model (such as ChatGPT), so it references an authoritative knowledge based outside its training data source (such as a knowledge base).
Using RAG, law firms can employ ChatGPT within their own knowledge bases. This approach involves lawyers identifying a select number of documents from within the knowledge base and temporarily providing ChatGPT access to them to cross-reference. Lawyers can then prompt ChatGPT to answer questions such as “what clauses is this document missing?” or “is this document seller or buyer biassed?” or draft new content such as a Material Adverse Clause for a Share Purchase Agreement. By cross-referencing in-house knowledge documents, RAG can verify facts and provide more reliable information, reducing the likelihood of incorrect or fabricated details often associated with LLMs.
Another benefit of RAG is cost efficiency. LLMs such as ChatGPT charge by the word—both for input and generated words—and for storing the index of your knowledge base. Indexing and storing an entire knowledge base and querying it regularly can be expensive. RAG, however, only sends limited amounts of data into the LLM and retains the index for a short period. While RAG isn’t free, it is significantly less expensive to run than a dedicated chatbot. Furthermore, access to the LLM can be controlled and monitored by the law firm, offering security and auditing benefits.
To learn more about applying the natural language capabilities of ChatGPT to improve your firm’s knowledge management, please get in touch with us.
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FAQ
AI enhances knowledge management in law firms by automating document classification, enabling context-aware search, and providing predictive knowledge discovery. It helps with contract analysis, clause identification, and automating legal summaries, reducing manual effort. AI tools also assist in expertise identification, compliance monitoring, and risk management. Additionally, AI captures tacit knowledge from various communications and continuously updates KM repositories, improving efficiency, accuracy, and access to critical legal information, ultimately boosting productivity and decision-making.
AI enhances knowledge sharing by enabling intelligent search, content recommendation, and automated summarization of information. It supports real-time assistance through chatbots and creates knowledge graphs to map relationships between concepts and expertise. AI personalizes learning, captures unstructured data, and predicts knowledge gaps for proactive sharing. Integrated into collaborative platforms, AI helps extract insights from discussions and ensures compliance, making knowledge sharing more efficient, accessible, and collaborative across organizations.