How to Build an AI-First Law Firm From Day One (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: All right, final episode. And I mean, I got to be honest, when we put AI on the agenda for this series, my instinct, and I think this is just kind of how it's been for a little bit, was here are the tools that you should know about version. You know, they're all out there. Here's the ones, list them, da-da-da-da-da. But I mean, that's not what we really want to do, is it?

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: I think those episodes exist, and we've done some of them as well, and we're always talking about tools, and anyone who's paid attention to us for any amount of time knows that we always say, you don't start with the tools, right? You start with the problems, and the tools come next. So what we thought, though, that we should absolutely talk about today is something I don't think people are talking about quite enough. I mean, everyone's talking about AI almost in this fearful way, and I think it's time to flip that script and talk about the structural advantage that a lawyer who's launching right now has that didn't exist, I mean, even, I mean, I was going to say, you know, three or four years ago, but the reality is like three or four months ago, as quickly, right, like as quickly as these tools have been changing recently, and what they're able to do today is crazy, insane, good.

[00:01:16] Speaker 1: But I think shifting your mindset to that, like recognizing that these tools exist, they're structurally different, and it requires you to kind of, I don't even want to say change the way that you operate your firm, because we're still like, all the stuff that we said in the previous episodes of this are really getting to putting you in a good position for using these artificial intelligence tools, and we can be specific tool agnostic, you know? But people are absolutely making the mistake of just like looking into the tool and then going, that's not, that doesn't do the magic, you know, and then they give up.

[00:01:55] Speaker 2: Or they're fighting, like they're just kind of retrofitting the tool to the structure that currently exists, right? And that's hard, because now it's like you're fighting with this friction that exists in your systems and your structure, and trying to fix it with AI. And I mean, I think if I were launching a firm today, the good news is, you are at a huge, huge advantage, because you don't have any of that existing structure, and workflows, and existing staff expectations, or even client relationships, right? You get to truly build your firm AI first, and think about, like from a different perspective, I mean, the tool is still solving a problem, but I think you get to think about your whole, I mean, your whole workflow structure differently with AI.

[00:02:54] Speaker 1: I think so, but I think that's a, there's a gap there. You know, there's the, there's the chasm there. So like, what does that, what does the AI native or AI first actually look like? What does it mean in practice for attorneys?

[00:03:12] Speaker 2: We're starting to see this now. I mean, unless, you know, we, I know we said we weren't going to name a tool, but I think it'd be silly not to name like a tool like Claude Cowork, right? Which we can go in now and set up so that new file comes in, and it, it opens all your, it creates all your folders for you, and names them correctly, and it can create the engagement letter, and it can create the first, you know, my case outline. It can just start doing things. I don't know. You know probably better what I'm trying to explain, but like that, that sequence of activities just simply didn't necessarily, it was a lot harder to build. You could do it with the, with the existing tools, but it certainly was a lot harder, and you probably had to have, you know, more technological know-how than you do today.

[00:04:07] Speaker 1: That gets to the difference between automation and AI as well, though. Like, yeah, you could do it to where, if this, then this. If I put this file into this folder, then these, these folders are built. But we're talking about much more like load-bearing, much more basic than that. If like, I have a phone call with a client, and let's just say I have a transcript of that phone call that dumps into a folder, the, something like Claude can go look at that, read the transcript, and then determine what folder structure I can do, you know, based on these skills. So it's, it's actually like fundamental to what we're doing right now, and that's kind of the, the thing. It's, it's, it, it's really in the guts of what you're doing, as opposed to decorative, as opposed to just on the outsides. And so it can, can you kind of help me make that concrete? What does that look like, like day to day?

[00:05:00] Speaker 2: So then let's take it into the substance, because I think this is where stuff gets really interesting. And, you know, I know you and I are working on this in our work even, is because now we can, I'm going to use the word train, because it just feels like the right word, but we can go in and basically instruct or tell or train these AI tools to, to not just understand which folder something should go in. But if a contract comes in from opposing counsel, I can say, Hey, AI, when this type of document comes in, here's the process I want you to do, I want you to go look at the notice provision, and you're looking for these three things. And then I want you to go to this provision, and I want you to consider this, like, then you, you keep going with this, right? So you're, you're, you got to get it out of your head, you got to have that process and that, you know, expertise, kind of being to be able to, to convey that to the tool. But then once you do that, so we've gone beyond a template, right, which is where I think you and I, you know, this is where we were six months ago, it was like, yeah, you have a template with if then statements. So if it's a married couple, put this paragraph in the will. And if it's a single couple, put this paragraph in the will. And now we're, we're like, beyond that, where these tools are functioning with the judge, you know, not the, not the final judgment. So I don't want to use that. But it can apply some judgment, and it can apply more of that nuance into how it's going to read and analyze the document and give me back edits based on who I represent in the matter, right? Not just, not just a template where, hey, this word is different than this word, but really more nuanced output.

[00:06:55] Speaker 1: And I think the important thing here, yeah, more nuanced output, but the way you get that nuanced output, kind of going back to our previous three episodes here is, is by having solid documentation of like, if you can articulate why you make certain decisions, a lot of times, and way more than I expect, you can offload a significant portion of that onto these AI tools. And it's not just if this than this. It really does get into a little bit of the nuance. Like, we prefer this style of, of contract negotiation or something like that. And then, like you're saying, it doesn't make the final decision. You still put a human in the loop. But in order to be able to, to use those sorts of, of things, in order to be able to really harness that power, you have to, to, you have to bring the artificial intelligence into like the guts of what you do, like everything that you're doing. And so an established firm trying to like, put that on top of how they do things, it's, it's really a little bit tough. You know, they'd have to undo like years of workflows before they can do that. But even then, I'd tell them to do it.

[00:08:16] Speaker 2: For sure. If you have an established firm, this should be a huge priority for you. And, but if you're launching, I guess the other advantage here, and this is, this is, this is where we see, you know, AI is going to start shining this light on issues that have existed that we've talked about in the first three episodes, like in other firms, because we go back to the business model, right? And so now if you're launching today, you have a chance to really figure out how can you use these tools to leverage and develop an amazing work product more efficiently. So probably with less time, less of your brain power, and then how are you going to price that? What are you going to charge? What does that scope look like? You know, you're really, so you're, it's not separate. So for a lot of the firms you and I are working with right now, they have all of this established, like you said, and we're just kind of coming in and trying to put AI in place. And we've actually had firms say to us, hey, if you do that, I'm not going to be able to make as much money because if I take the thing that takes 10 hours down to 10 minutes, how do I charge for that? And so they're trying to figure out what they are going to, how this is going to impact their business model. But the firm launching today, they get to be in the driver's seat from the beginning and kind of have all of this in front of them, building it and making these considerations at the same time.

[00:09:44] Speaker 1: I think there's, that's almost magical at this point is you have that clean slate and you don't have to make the decision of do I do this, do I charge hourly or not? I mean, like you do make that decision. You don't have to say like, how do I figure out how to not charge hourly? You get to figure out like, well, maybe you do a different type of practice or something. So for someone who's about to launch or who just launched and they haven't built their workflows yet, again, where do they actually start here? Because I want to get into kind of rubber meets the road, sort of how do I really do this? Where would they start?

[00:10:20] Speaker 2: Well, we talked about in the last episode, mapping out your processes. And I think that when, and the same is true for our substantive law workflow. I think a lot of times we don't even realize that a workflow is happening because so much of it is in our brain. But I know, I mean, when you and I practice law, if I'd, when I was training my new associates on how to, you know, write a summary judgment brief, I would say, okay, well, here's where we're going to start. We, you know, we always had a case outline. I don't, I'm always surprised how many firms I don't have one of those, but that's, but we had, you know, our case outline said, here's the cause of action we're trying to establish. Here's the elements of that cause of action. Here's the evidence that we believe supports each of those things. And so then if you, if you've done that good work, then writing the motion for summary judgment should be easy, right? But I would outline the process. So first I'm going to, you know, look at this, and then I'm going to look at this, and then I'm going to analyze this, and then I'm going to go research this, and then I'm going to draft my facts section, and then I'm going to, you know, so what I am doing is, guess what, a workflow. I just don't realize that I do it that way, that I approach that. And same thing, responding to discovery requests. I'm going to read the other side's request, and I'm in, I'm intuitively just thinking of objections. I'm thinking of general objections. I'm thinking of specific objections. I'm thinking of how I want to respond. I'm making a list of what I want to ask the client about so I can get, you know, more information. All of that happens, and we need to now document those things. We've got to get it, it's now even more important to get it out of our heads because that's what's going to allow us to basically delegate it. We talked about this before, delegating to your team, only now we're delegating to our AI tool, and we're giving it all that context and instructions that we want it to follow whenever it, whenever it's doing a task for us. Whether, by the way, and it could be something completely on the other side of the, you know, business, which is like in marketing. Hey, when you write marketing content for me, I want you to use this voice, and I want you to show up this way, and this is how I want to be known in the marketplace. Versus like when I'm writing a legal brief, I want you to use this voice, and here's how I want you to show up. Like all of this information and nuanced instruction you can feed to your AI tool, which is just going to make your output that much better.

[00:12:50] Speaker 1: Well, and for people that, that are like, oh well, I don't know if I'm using an AI tool right now. Like this is not advice that is, that is strict just to AI. Like I've found that this mentality, using Claude, or using ChatGPT, or using these agents, and having to have the documentation necessary to really get proper output from these things, has made me document my processes better for humans that I work with. I have been able to offload other things of mine to people, and I think that it's because I look at it and go, okay, there's, there's absolutely going to be a value to me documenting this. And so I just document everything, and, and you make those little decisions. I, recently, I had to make a decision as to why I wanted specific titles on, on, on our thumbnails for some of our videos. Well, I'd never thought about that before, but making that decision actually helped me with a, a person that I work with, you know? But like, so it's not just for AI that we make these workflows, but if you have those, it's really, really going to help, you know, with, with bringing the artificial intelligence in instead of bolting it on.

[00:14:08] Speaker 2: And the cool thing, I think, is that now the AI tool can help you. So it's very meta, right? But you can go to the AI tool and be like, hey, help me give you instructions, or what kind of instructions should I give you to do this type of task? And ask me questions, or I've created this workflow, and this is what I think I do when I respond to a motion for summary judgment, but you also have, you know, what am I missing? Or where are some gaps? What could I do differently? Or where should I automate? Or where should I leverage a different tool? And so the AI can also help you do this work, which is so cool and fun.

[00:14:45] Speaker 1: I have a specific set of prompts that I have for creating SOPs, you know, that I feed into, into chat, or I like your example of sit down, turn on the, the, you know, audio version and just talk to it. Yeah, it is, it is becoming much, much faster than, than it was to do this stuff. So what is, what is a mistake that you see? You know, we're talking about, you got to document these things, you've got to build it into, into your systems. You've got to be kind of AI first when you think about these things. But what, what's the, what's the mistake that you most often see people who are excited about AI, but they're, they're just not getting anything from it. And they're like, well, this is trash because I'm not getting anything, but it's cool.

[00:15:32] Speaker 2: I think we still see a lot of people using it reactively instead of architecturally. And I think, I think we still see a lot of people kind of think of it as an editor for, for drafting, you know, help me write this email or help me make this email sound better. And that's fine, right? Like it's, that's, that could be helpful. But one, it's not, it's not leveraging the tool the way it could be. It's just maybe a faster way to do the same thing you're already doing. But, you know, the firms that I think are getting real strategic value are the ones who are sitting down and asking, like, if I redesign this workflow from scratch, knowing that AI exists, what would it look like? I mean, I did this today with, you know, we're, we're making some decisions about hiring for our marketing team. And I was like, here's how, here are the fundamental tasks right now that our marketing team does. Help me rethink this if, you know, in an age of AI, because I don't want to just assume that I'm just going to hire the same people to do the same things. Like, how should I be thinking about our team differently? And it just took me down. And by the way, people are so worried that AI is going to replace their job. I mean, ultimately, the conclusions that I'm currently sitting with is we're still going to hire people, but we're just going to hire a different person that I think where I started from, because I used it as my thought partner. And it went down this whole exercise of, of helping me think about this part of our business differently. Like, that's pretty cool leverage.

[00:17:08] Speaker 1: I love that framing. Because again, we're, this is not Google search on steroids. It is, it's a fundamentally different thing, you know, using it as your thought partner. And we talk about that many, many times. But that idea also connects to something bigger, you know, with what we've been talking about. This, this whole series has been about designing intentionally, rather than just defaulting and falling backward into it. And honestly, AI is just the most current version of that same question.

[00:17:40] Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I think if we leave, if we leave folks with anything, it really is this it's we're back where we started, which is design your firm today, like you're going to sell it one day, even if you never do. But you're being intentional about designing the business that you want about designing a firm that's built on systems that doesn't need you in the middle of every decision. It's not running on your personal heroics. But it's running on documented workflows and clear processes. And maybe AI has now gone in and augmented some of those processes. That's what we're trying to build is be intentional and designing your firm with clarity.

[00:18:27] Speaker 1: The thing that excites me about right now with that, so we've should have been doing that 20 years ago, you just didn't have AI to help you. And technology advances continue to happen. But the thing that excites me about that is that it is you're getting so much power out of designing these workflows. When you do create these workflows and processes, you're able to offload so much. It is so much easier to get away from the heroics and into running a design firm now.

[00:19:02] Speaker 2: To everyone who's been with us for this entire series, I know it's been a lot of information. But just keep in mind, lawyers don't fail because they're bad lawyers. Their businesses are failing because they built their firm by accident. But the good news is, and you and I both know this, we've seen it, we've watched it, we've helped firms do it, is that it's fixable. You can come in and you can redesign your firm. You can get super intentional. I mean, it will take you some time and effort. It's not just going to happen magically or overnight. But we've both seen firms that we've worked with, you know, make that shift. And they're not just more profitable. They're really just, they're more proud of what they've built.

[00:19:47] Speaker 1: Well, so if somebody wants that kind of strategic support, Stephanie.

[00:19:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, Lawyer's Lab is where we do this work. It's not coaching in a generic sense. It's very diagnostic. It's specific. It's built for law firm owners who are serious about designing something that lasts and who are ready to roll up their sleeves and do the work. So if that's you, come find us. We'll make sure our links in the show notes. And truly, thank you. Thank you for spending your time with us, thinking about your business. You know, I know not every lawyer does that. But the ones who do, they absolutely build better firms.

[00:20:25] Speaker 1: That is a great place to wrap up our series. Thank you, Stephanie, for all four of these episodes. This has been really some of the most useful content I think we've made. I've enjoyed this one.

[00:20:39] Speaker 2: Same.