Hasler: Programme is giving trainees confidence
A law firm is using teams of trainee solicitors to find problems that can be solved by artificial intelligence (AI), develop solutions and present them to managers.
They have already developed five proofs of concept and identified 48 more, pitching directly to partners on how and where to deploy AI tools.
Martin Hasler, innovation manager at VWV, said 26 trainees at the firm – which has over 500 staff at offices in Bristol, London and Birmingham – were currently working on innovation programmes involving AI, most of it generative AI.
“What we’re learning is that there is a lot of potential and work needed to realise that potential. It’s not a case of plug and play.
“We have to understand what the problems are and what can be achieved. You can solve problems with AI that you can’t solve with traditional products.”
Mr Hasler said the first six-month cycle of the AI innovation programme ended in August and involved a mixture of new and more experienced trainees, and those who had been paralegals. A second cycle had begun, focused mainly on adoption.
When the programme started in March, trainees were divided into teams which went into the business “looking for problems” and found from around 50 “challenges” where AI could transform or improve the situation.
One of these related to the meeting notes which trainees traditionally take down manually and use to produce attendance notes. Trainees found that using an AI meeting assistant to provide a first draft could reduce the time spent on attendance notes by more than a half.
Mr Hasler said use of the tool could also help trainees “play a meaningful part in the meeting”.
A pilot of the transcription tool ends this week and he was hoping it would approved by management and rolled out across the firm.
Trainees have been also working with Robin AI in the firm’s commercial property department to test a tool that speeds up the generation of reports on title, the aim being for AI to produce the first draft.
Mr Hasler said this could cut the time spent writing reports on title by half.
Also being tested following research by trainees is an AI tool which could speed up the billing process by producing reports on work in progress.
Meanwhile, a document management tool was being piloted from next week to help lawyers searching through precedents or for previous examples of documents they had drafted.
Mr Hasler said trainees wrote a business case for each product before presenting them to a management committee of the law firm, including the managing partner and relevant head of department.
“It’s an opportunity trainees do not normally have and it’s valuable both for them and the board.”
Mr Hasler said he had noticed that the “mindset” of trainees often changed after the presentations and they were “much more confident” as a result.
He added: “Trainees are the lawyers of the future and the future leaders of our business. GenAI will be integrated into everything we do and understanding it will be vital.”
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