TLH Ep. 48 AI is Rewriting The Rules of Law Firms. Are You Ready?
Hello, Legal Helm listeners!
Today’s episode explores one of the most transformative forces shaping the legal industry today—artificial intelligence. AI is no longer a distant concept or industry buzzword; it is actively redefining how law firms hire, train, structure their teams, and deliver value to clients.
We’re pleased to welcome Michael McCready, Managing Partner of McCready Law, a nationally recognized personal injury firm with over 30 years of service. Michael has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to legal technology adoption and is widely regarded as a thought leader on AI integration within law firms.
In this episode, we’ll discuss what practical AI adoption really looks like, how firms can move beyond experimentation into implementation, and what leaders must consider as technology reshapes the business and practice of law.
Stay tuned for an insightful and forward-looking conversation.
Your Host
Bim Dave is Helm360’s CEO. With 20+ years in the legal industry, his keen understanding of how law firms and lawyers use technology has propelled Helm360 to the industry’s forefront. A technical expert with a penchant for developing solutions that improve business systems and user experience, Bim has a knack for bringing high quality IT architects and developers together to create innovative, useable solutions to the legal arena.
Our Guest
Michael McGready is managing partner of McCready Law and one of the country’s thought leaders on AI adoption in the legal field. As a practicing attorney of over 30 years, he has devoted his career not only to helping clients secure settlements for personal injury cases, but in progressing his and other firms’ capacity to best serve clients through modern tech adoption—from website creation in the 1990s, to AI implementation today.
Transcript
Bim Dave: Hello everyone and welcome to the Legal Helm, the podcast where we explore how technology, data, and innovation are reshaping the business and practice of law. Today’s episode is a really timely one. AI is not just a buzzword anymore. It is actively changing how law firms hire, train structure themselves and deliver services to clients.
I am joined by Michael McCready, managing partner of McCready Law, a personal injury firm serving clients nationally for 30 years. Michael is widely recognized as a thought leader on AI adoption in the legal sector, and has been ahead of the curve on legal tech since the early days of the internet. I’m really excited to have him on the show.
Michael, welcome to the Legal Helm.
Michael McGready: Oh, thanks for having me. Looking forward to, uh, to chatting.
Bim Dave: Likewise. So before we get into, um, the questions, for those that may not know your story, it would be great if you could just share a little bit about your journey.
Michael McGready: Sure. Uh, so I started my firm, uh, in 1999. Um, and it was just me. Uh, it’s now grown to a team of 20 attorneys and 160 team members. Um, and, uh, and a lot of that growth has been the result of technology. So, one of our firm values is technology. So we’ve always been at the forefront. And of course, so much is happening now with, uh, with ai. Uh, we wanted to make sure that we were well positioned for the, the, the huge changes which are coming to, you know, business in general and law specifically.
Bim Dave: Yeah, absolutely. So, so you were at the, the kind of crux of the time when, you know, websites were, were like a way of being able to market a, a law firm. So, I’d, I’d love to get your thoughts in terms of when, when was the moment that you first realized that technology could be a competitive advantage for a law firm?
Michael McGready: Well, historically, um, the law firms that have adopted technology first, um, have ended up ahead of everyone else. So when, when I started my firm, there were a lot of lawyers who said, I don’t need a website. I’ve got a brochure. This is how I get clients, my brochure, and those law firms that got websites, uh, first. Had a competitive advantage. Uh, and then lawyers would say, I don’t need SEO, I’ve got a website. Everybody’s gonna come to my website. Well, you know, those lawyers that understood the importance of SEO and, and driving, uh, traffic and eventually Google and such, um, and so AI is just the, is the next step.
And so. Lawyers who say, oh, I, I, I, I don’t trust ai or AI’s not, it’s not good enough yet. I’m going to wait. Well, lawyers like myself and others who have been using AI for quite some time. Are already so far ahead of those who have not adopted it, that it’s going to be hard. They’ll, they’ll never catch up. But, uh, even, even to say stay competitive is going to be difficult when, uh, when lawyers refuse, uh, or delay the, the adoption and implementation of AI tools.
Bim Dave: Indeed. Indeed. So let, let’s talk about that big shift that we’re seeing at the moment. So, as you’ve kind of been on that journey of, um, really seeing technology evolve over the years that you’ve been running your law firm, when we see what AI is starting to do in terms of being able to take on some of those routine mundane.
That maybe junior lawyers traditionally would handle. Um, how are you seeing that with both your firm in terms of like rethinking the traditional associate model and what you’re seeing with your peers in the industry?
Michael McGready: Yeah, no, I think, um, I think that that’s a critical point is that, um, that that AI is going to replace a lot of the. Normal, repetitive things that are done in a law firm, whether it’s by administrative staff or paralegals, or gulp attorneys. And the, uh, the, the traditional training for attorneys has been, uh, learned by doing.
And experimenting and, and, and running your, your, your results through the, the, the, uh, senior partner and, and doing these routine tasks that you know. Customers, clients are not gonna want to pay for anymore. They’re not gonna wanna pay for things that can be done by AI now. Uh, you know, jumping ahead a little bit, you know, there’s definitely still a very important role for attorneys. Uh, there has to be a human in the loop with all ai. Someone has got to make sure that the product is, uh, is legally correct. Um, and, uh, before it, before it leaves the office. But to your point, I I, I do think that a lot of entry level legal positions, um, are going to be, you know, largely replaced by ai.
Bim Dave: Yeah, I, I’ve, I’ve heard some people, um, of the school of thought whereby. Where traditionally you may have been hiring a cohort of, you know, lots of, um, junior staff. Does that now switch to still hiring staff of maybe like a smaller pool, but with more technology skills as, as a background? Is that, does that resonate with what you are seeing?
Michael McGready: Yeah, I think, I think so. Uh, so what, what will happen is, you know, lawyers will be able to, uh, produce more legal work with less staff. Uh, and what does that mean? It means probably that it’s going to increase profit. So if you can do the same amount of work, um, and or the same amount of output. With less overhead, with less labor that increases profit. Uh, I think what’s really important to keep in mind is, you know, what law firms are going to do with that profit. Does it just mean that the, the owners get, you know. More money in their pocket, or do they reinvest it in their firm, uh, in, in a way that that benefits their clients and benefits the, the firm itself.
So that’s what I would hope. I mean, that’s certainly what we’re doing as we recognize these cost savings, uh, that AI and technology are bringing, we’re reinvesting that back in the firm and, uh, and reinvesting it in client acquisition and, and, and things like that.
Bim Dave: Hmm. Indeed, indeed. So, so when you are, I mean, if, if you were advising a young lawyer today, or somebody who’s, who’s studying law, uh, right now, what, what skills would you tell them to prioritize?
Michael McGready: Um, so I’d, I’d like to, uh, I’d like to break down the term AI into a couple different components. Okay. First, a a, a non-negotiable is, uh, lawyers need to learn how to craft proper queries and, and use the chat feature. Okay. Uh, that AI does. Um, so when I, when, when I was in law school, um, they had, uh, they had Westlaw and Lexus. And you had to master the Boolean search. And the Boolean search would be slip within three of fall and ice. And if you were good at the Boolean search in creating these, these, uh, questions, you could find your cases. Now I, I’ll be honest, I was never very good at, at the Boolean search. And so I loved when Google came around and, and basically, as we know, it’s natural language.
You can type in whatever you want into Google’s, uh, search and the algorithm. Comes back with, uh, with, with a URL. Okay. With a website that is responsive to your query. Now, here’s the big difference is that AI doesn’t, when you, when you put a query in, AI does not generate or point to a website or URL, it gives you the answer. Okay, so, so it’s a fundamental, uh, change and in order to use AI effectively, at least in the chat feature, um, you need to learn how to create proper queries and how to ask questions and, and, and, and there’s, I, I could talk about proper queries for, for, you know, hours. Uh, but that is a skill that, that, uh, that, that everyone. Law students, lawyers, everyone needs to learn how to get the best out of ai. So, so that’s the first thing. Um, and that can be done, you know, on the individual level. Um, the next thing that I think is important is how. Um, young attorneys, um, are trained on how to use things other than the chat feature. So, for example, agentic ai, um, agent Agentic AI is, is, is going to be able to process a lot of this routine work automatically.
Things that we usually do by manual. Manual work through employees, so forth and so on. Um, they have to understand how these agents work, um, not necessarily how to program them and program, I’m going to use the word air quote, use air quotes, but, but just be familiar how these agentic. AI programs, um, you know, operate because they’re going to have to be, uh, the people who are supervising the results.
And unless you know how these things work, um, it’s, it’s not as effective in terms of the supervision and the guardrails that need to be placed, you know? And, and then finally, um, the use of of, of AI. To refine your craft as an attorney. Um, I think that it, it’s amazing, um, the, the, the, the speed at which lawyers can now generate really high quality output no matter what. Practice area with the use of ai. So, um, yeah, absolutely essential that, that, uh, law students, um, and, and everyone start mastering these new tool, mastering the use of these new tools because that’s all it is. AI is a tool and you need to learn how to use it, and AI should augment or supplement, uh, whatever you’re doing.
It doesn’t replace it.
Bim Dave: Yeah. Indeed, indeed. Great, great advice. Um, you, so you mentioned one of, one of the, the key terms, um, when you were just speaking about agents and agent workflows. Perhaps just for the, for the people in our audience that may not understand those term, that terminology, would you be able to break that down for us?
Just like in simple terms, what, what does that mean in, in the kind of world of AI?
Michael McGready: Very easy. I’ll tell you some, uh, some a agents that we use in our firm that we have, uh, that we have programmed and built out. So rather than my paralegals calling to verify what the balance of a bill is, uh, we have an agent which does that for us, is that it actually makes the call and it finds out the information we want and, and then. Reports it back to us. Um, those are, those are amazing time savings, ordering medical records. You know, we now have an agent. Um, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s basically, you know, programming the AI and the computer to do tasks. Um, so it’s not just asking a question, it’s creating a workflow and executing it. So, um. This is, this is where AI is right now.
And, and I think that people will, um, gradually come to see more and more agentic ai, uh, make its way into the workforce. Uh, we’re, we’re fairly careful, um, right now is we don’t have, um, client facing, um, agentic ai, although we have the technology to do it. I mean, we can have, we can have, you know, a voice. AI agent. Have full conversations with our clients. They can do, they can do intake, they can get information, uh, that technology is here. Um, but in terms of, uh, client and, you know, listen, by the time this podcast comes out, maybe, maybe things will have changed. Um, but the way that, that I feel about it is that I don’t think that, uh, the general public is quite ready to have the full interaction with an AI agent, at least from the law, from a lawyer’s perspective. Um, once, once companies like Amazon or American Express, you know, once people start interacting with AI agents. With these larger companies and it becomes a little bit more accepted, you know, then I think it’s something that we would roll out, uh, from the, uh, you know, from, from my perspective. But I hate to use the word, the world’s not ready for what we have right now.
Um, and we just need to wait. I don’t want to be that one. Uh, because it, it, it is. It is a fundamental shift that we are all going to have to understand is it is what the future is. You can’t, you can’t ignore it.
Bim Dave: Mm. Yes. Uh, I, I agree totally. So you gave some really good examples of, of how you are, um, putting AI to practical use within your firm, and is that, it sounds like some of the areas you’re looking at. Um, our automation where like somebody would’ve previously done this manually. And you’ve kind of automated those, um, that, that use case.
Are there other areas around like productivity or knowledge access that you are also doing? Like any, any other, um, tangible kind of, um, scenarios that, that you’re leveraging AI to make, uh, make significant savings or, um, improvements in the way that you deliver site service to clients?
Michael McGready: Yeah. Uh, before I, I talk a little bit about that. Um, here’s, here’s something really easy to do. I am go into chat, GPT or whatever. I am a lawyer. This is the kind of law that I practice, please. Give me 10 ca use cases for ag agentic ai, which I can implement in my firm right now, and it’s gonna give you a, a, a list, right?
And, and start there. I, I think that too many lawyers are, um, are overwhelmed and they feel like, oh my gosh, things are changing so quickly and I don’t understand this, and, and, and I just wanna stick my head in the sand. Well. My advice to, to, to lawyers is, you know, start with the low hanging fruit, right?
Just something, just find some task that’s very small, that’s very repetitive, that can be, uh, that can be reviewed, uh, and approved by a human in the loop, um, as easily as possible. Don’t think about rolling out AI from beginning to end in your law firm. So, you know, take small steps. So a AI is really good at a couple things.
One is agents, which we just talked about. Uh, second is, um, analysis. And, you know, AI can, can process vast sums of of data. Um, the human mind. You know, is limited in our capacity. There’s, there’s, there is a limitation to how much we as a human being can comprehend or, or analyze. And, and AI doesn’t have that.
So, it’s really limitless. Whatever you feed. Ai, whatever data that you give it, it can analyze. Um, now an important point I always like to stress is that AI doesn’t think, okay, AI predicts. And when you, when you ask a query, it predicts what the response will be. It doesn’t think, and, and that’s an important, um, an important point for people to understand is when AI predicts. Sometimes AI gets it wrong. Okay. And, and you get a hallucination. Um, but, but from an analysis standpoint. I mean, we use AI with everything. It’s revolutionized what we’ve done. Um, it, it spots trends that we never saw. You know, we, we analyze our marketing and our, our profit and loss and our, and our productivity and, and just all sorts of things.
We’re applying ai. Um, and then the third area that AI is really good at is auditing. Right. So keeping track of productivity in, in our, in our office, you know, we use AI to make sure that everyone remains productive. Um, and, uh, and, and so, you know, there, there are so many uses of ai. Um, that you can apply in whatever business you are.
So yes, we are in the business of law and we apply it a lot to, to our, to our legal output. But, but even from a pure business standpoint, uh, you know, we’re using AI for everything. Um, and, uh, and, and it just. Because my firm has always been technology first. Uh, my team, um, everybody that works with me, you know, understands and accepts, uh, my implementation of this.
And, and they, they, they. You know, I have buy-in people. If Michael says we’re going to do this, and this is the reason why we’re doing it, you know, people will follow because, um, because of what we’ve built out here. Um, but, but that’s, uh, you know, something else that I think a lot of people don’t understand the importance, um, is rolling out AI in a, in a certain. You know, uh, method, um, in a way that your team actually uses it and uses it effectively. Um, I was reading, you know, I forget where the study was, but you know, lots of people are saying, yeah, we have all this AI technology, but we’re not seeing any, you know, any gains from it. Well, that’s probably true because you can’t expect just to throw AI into your, uh, you know, into your business and. Expect everybody to understand it and use it. It it needs, it’s a tool that needs training and acceptance.
Bim Dave: Yeah, that, that’s a really good point. Um, I think I was reading a similar, similar study where, um, the actual, the, the value that people expected to get from ai, um, fell far below, you know, the expectation level. And I think a part of it is the, the kind of lack of preparation in terms of how do we apply it, what are the stages to get to a destination where we can get meaningful.
Responses out of it, because some of it is related to just the data that we hold within, within our law firms. So, um, I’m keen to get your your view in terms of, so if, if I’m a, if I’m a law firm, uh, managing partner, listening today, who’s been kind of the, the follower of technology versus the leader in technology and they’re now realizing that actually.
I need to do something to kind of get, get with the program and, and start to invest in this area. What would you say are the kind of key pre-steps, I guess, before we, before you start to implement some of this technology, what would you say is the, the right approach?
Michael McGready: Yeah, I, I. I would say first you need to take a real serious look in the mirror about how your law firm is being run now, because AI is not going to rescue your law firm if it’s poorly run. Okay. And, and, and I think that a lot of people are looking at AI as this savior. Um, but if your law firm doesn’t have the basics and the foundation, uh, AI is not going to fix that for you.
So, you know, start, I mean, if you, if you really are that far behind, you need to learn more about business principles and, and, and, you know, yes, you can practice law. Uh, but you or someone else in your firm needs to make sure that your office is being run like a business. Once you have that, then you can start investigating, you know, how to apply technology. Um, and if, if you have no idea, you know the difference between chat PT and Gemini, I’m just being facetious here. Um, you do need to start talking to some people, uh, that, uh, that can help you. Um, through this. Um, but there’s a whole science, it’s called change management. And if you want change to an organization, uh, there are certain documented steps and best practices to do it. So for example, when we want to roll out a new technology, Michael doesn’t just turn on a switch and say, Hey, here’s this new program. Okay, everybody use it. Uh, generally speaking, we, we, we figure out, you know, what we want this program to do. Um, we set up what our expectations are upon full implementation because we wanna measure it. Listen, some of this technology doesn’t work. Okay? And, and, and no matter how much your team, um, has buy-in, it’s just not. You know, it’s not worthwhile. So, so we set up, um, you know, a baseline, where are we now, you know, where do we expect it to go? And if it goes well, you know, has this technology, has this program, uh, served, served our purposes.
So that’s the first thing that we do. Um, next is we try to figure out who’s gonna benefit from it. Um, different programs benefit different areas in your law firm and, and is this a lawyer focused, um, program? Is this, uh, a paralegal program? Is this a medical records department? So kind of figure out, you know, who’s going to be the target for this technology. Um, and then we typically will have. You know, we’ll identify, uh, someone who’s, you know, in that department, let’s say it, it’s one of the attorneys, um, who, you know, historically has been a big advocate, um, to, for, for technology. And, and we roll it out to 1, 2, 3 people. To start. Um, and then they can start talking about it and talking about their use, and then gradually roll it out to others.
And then you need to make sure that you know that they have the training, um, and, uh, and the communication to constantly use this program and refine how you’re using it. Um, I mean, here’s, here’s an example. I mean, this is how we, another thing that we do in our firm is. To encourage people to use, uh, chat, the chat feature. Um, in ai, anytime someone has a new query or a new use, uh, we publicize it and, Hey, I just used this to. You know, to develop a cross-examination on a biomechanical engineer, right? And, and here’s, here’s the, here’s here are the prompts that I used and I’m really proud of the output. Um, and when people start seeing their coworkers using this, um, everybody wants to jump on board. Um, now. Not everyone does. So here’s another step that we take is that, uh, with all, with, with every, every AI program that we use, it all has, um, user statistics. So we can tell exactly who at our firm is using this and um, and who’s not using it. So, you know, we will, we will broadcast that among the team. So if it’s a lawyer. Uh, if it’s a a lawyer program. You know, we will broadcast the usage and there’s a little bit of healthy competition there. Nobody wants to be at the bottom. Um, and, uh, and so maybe it’s a little bit of the, you know, the carrot and the stick or shaming people. Uh, but we found that that lead, that’s not, we don’t do that. The first week, you know, we do that afterwards, so we’re monitoring it, but at some point we wanna make sure that we have uniform adoption. And if someone’s not using it, you know, we can, we can talk to them, you know, what, what, what’s the, what’s the hold back? Right. What, what is it that is causing you not to use this new tool? Well, you know, I, I just don’t understand it yet. Well, then we get more training. We sit down with them and make sure that they understand, Hey, here’s some things that you can do. Here’s some other things that you may use, and, and we encourage that until we have, you know, universal usage throughout the firm.
Bim Dave: Yeah. No, that, that’s excellent. And I, I love. The focus on change management, because I think that’s often, uh, uh, overlooked in terms of how much you need to prioritize that. Not just with, um, implementing ai, but really any technology, uh, adoption, uh, as it were. Um, so it’s really good that that’s, that’s kind of a priority for you guys and that’s probably what’s led to some of the success of, of rolling out some of these solutions.
Um, and what, when I, when I think about, um, any, any, any kind of technology solution, it is a solution to a problem, right? And you’ve quite. Um, nicely laid out like some of the practical use cases, um, that you guys have been focused on, in, in, in, in terms of implementing AI around that to solve a problem. Now there’s, I guess there’s a couple of ways to, to think about the solution.
And the solution could be, you know, uh, build in-house because there’s so much available to us, um, practically off the shelf that, um, that, that you can kind of build these agent workflows, um, on your own using products like NA 10 and other things that maybe open source in building in-house. There’s a second option, which is working with external vendors where you don’t have the skills in-house to be able to go and help you build whatever you want.
Your own custom agent workflows. And then there’s the third option, I guess, of, um, uh, buying off shelf, right? There’s off the shelf solutions that incorporate AI in, in those to solve a problem. How, how, how are you thinking about that in terms of the way that you solve some of those problems? In terms of the how aspect of it?
Michael McGready: Yeah. I mean, you know, not, not every firm is my firm. Okay. Um, and, and we’re built. We, we, we build out almost everything ourselves. Um, but, but once again, you know. WI can’t say that every firm would be able to do what we’re doing now. Now, I, I predict that in the not too distant future that, that every firm will be able to do what we’re doing now, um, the, the, the, the technology behind this is, um, is, is becoming more and more, um. Uh, accessible. Um, but, uh, but you, you’re absolutely right. You know, do you build it yourself? Do you buy it or you do you lease it? Um, and, and depending on where you are and all of this thing, all of this stuff costs money. But what I would recommend is, you know, to start building out your workflows. So when you are prepared for this, you can. Create an agent that’s able to do this, but if you don’t have a standard workflow of things that you do, how, how, how do you expect a computer to do it? I mean, you need to know your own internal processes and, and with these workflows. Um, the way that I look at it is, you know, either you’re gonna build out these workflows yourself or you’re gonna pay someone, you know, down the line to do it.
And, um, uh, but it all starts with, you know, understanding exactly how you process, uh, uh, your, your, um, your legal, your leader, legal, your legal work.
Bim Dave: Is, is there anything that surprised you when you, when you were kind of building out some of these, um, real world, uh, legal workflows using ai, did anything stand out as like a, a surprise in terms of either impact or, um, difficulty level of implementing or anything like that?
Michael McGready: Yeah, I mean, listen, I, uh, I, I, I, you know, full speed ahead, right? And oh, I wanna use as much of this as possible. Um, and, and, you know, fortunately, you know, my team, you know. Brought up. The point is, and, and this is, I really need to stress this, is that there is a, a responsible use of ai and you have to set up guardrails. Uh, you cannot just unleash all of this horsepower at once, you know, without setting up the guardrails at first. And here’s the lesson. You know, I, I said, oh, this is wonderful. We can put. You know, 30 years of, of my law firm and all of this work product into a, you know, into a custom LLM or into a database, and then we can ask it questions and get all of our collective wisdom over 30 years.
And that is, and we, we have done that. But when I first started, um, you know, someone in my firm said, you know. What if someone says a query, you know, what does Michael really think about me and my work product? Whoa. Right. And so we realized is that we had to silo certain information. We couldn’t just put everything every in into a database that everybody had access to. So, uh, we, we worked on, um, uh, uh, uh, um, silos and, um, and, and data management and who has access to what, uh, so forth and so on. So that’s important. Um, and then as we started, so to answer your question, it surprised me about, um, you know, that how important doing these guardrails, uh, to start. But you know, even now, any product that leaves our firm, you know, we have an audit trail and, and, and we can track what was done by ai, but more importantly is who approved it. Okay. You know, who reviewed this, uh, and approved it before it went out the door. Um, and, and having this audit trail and this responsibility and accountability, uh, is absolutely essential. And I, and I just don’t hear, uh, people talking as much about that. Um, this is an amazing tool, but it’s, it’s, it’s not infallible and it is simply a tool. There still has to be that human element to make sure that, uh, you know, that, that we’re delivering a correct legal, uh, service.
Bim Dave: Hmm. Absolutely. So, so you kind of touched a little bit on the client impact side of things in terms of how you deliver, um, services to client and the direct impact in terms of, um, the, you know, your, your end customer as it were. Um, do you, do you have a sense as to whether, I think you ki, you kind of alluded earlier there.
There’s more of a demand on the client side for you to be being, to be more efficient using whatever technology um, you have available to you. Do you think the clients, um, notice or care about the technology that you are using behind the scenes in terms of the, the way you deliver service to them?
Michael McGready: Um, I, I, I, I haven’t, I haven’t come across that. Okay. I have not gotten, you know, pushback. Uh, nor have I gotten even much interest about how we’re delivering the legals product. Um, we did have to adjust our retainer letter, our contract with the client that says, you know, that we use ai, uh, in the course of our representation. Um, we do allow them to opt out. Now, we, we also talk about, you know, we, it’s confidential, it’s co, you know, uh, the privacy restrictions. The confidentiality that’s all maintained. But if you care to opt out, you know, please let us know. Um, no one has opted out. In fact, no one has even. Even questioned that, uh, that clause in our retainer agreement.
So, I think it’s largely, uh, something that’s not important, uh, to clients. Uh, but as attorneys, it is our ethical duty to make, make sure that we stay within the, the, um, you know, the, the confines of our professional obligation, which means confidentiality and privacy. Um, and, and that’s something else that I think that law firm owners, uh, need to make sure is that any AI product that they’re using does maintain those client confidences. And, uh, if, if, you know, if, if, if you don’t think. Someone in your office is using chat GPT for their work. You’re mistaken. Okay. Someone is using it, whether you know about it or not. And so creating an AI use policy in the firm is, uh, is a, is a, is a very good first step. Oh, what is an AI use policy? Well. Why don’t you ask chat, GPT, create an AI use policy for me and it’s gonna spit it out. Um, but, uh, to, to my point about the privacy. Um, a lot of people don’t realize, um, that the default setting for, uh, for, uh, AI for chat is to use your data to make, to improve the model. Okay. To improve, uh, the LLM. Uh, the large language model, uh, that is absolutely not what you want with client information. Um, and, and you have to make sure anyone using AI has the proper privacy settings, uh, to allow that. Information that you’re using with AI to remain in the law firm and not, and not go out to train the model to be better. Um, so if, if your paralegal’s got his or her own chat, GPT account, and they’re using it for work. Um, yeah, which, you know, we encourage, we encourage the use of it, but, uh, you as a law firm owner need to make sure that they understand, uh, that there are privacy, uh, settings and that, that if they were to use it now we, we don’t recommend anyone in the firm to use their private. Chat, GPT account, we have an enter enterprise level, um, uh, a license. Um, but, uh, but you know, if, if you’re just starting out, you know, you need to make sure that your whole team is aware of what can and cannot be done with, uh, with AI.
Bim Dave: Mm. Yeah, indeed. What, what are you thinking in terms of how you price service with the, um, kind of, you know, the inno the ongoing innovation that AI is bringing and time savings, et cetera? Does that mean that you’re thinking differently about how you build clients as well in future, or how you price, uh, your legal work?
Michael McGready: Um, so, uh, my particular area of law, personal injury, uh, we don’t bill clients. We, we charge a percentage of the recovery. Um, and, and it’s a contingency fee, meaning if we don’t make a recovery, we don’t get paid. So it’s a little bit different than the traditional, uh, model of the billable hour. You spend an hour drafting something and you build a client for, for your time. Um, so with my particular area of practice, um, if we can become more efficient, uh, in what we do, it means that we’re able to, you know, process our client’s case. In a more time effective manner, uh, and that in that increases profit. So with, with the billable hour, same thing is that, um, uh, but, but I, I, I, I, I predict a pretty, uh, sizeable seismic shift from the billable hour based on ai, because frankly, clients are just not gonna wanna be billed by the hour. So I think that you’re going to see a shift to much more of project billing, um, or, or almost a la carte. So if you need this done, this is what our fee is, a flat fee. Um, for more of the, uh, the, uh, the routine legal work, listen, there’s always going to be a place for the top legal talent. Um, you know when, when, when your business is on the line, you know you want the best lawyer that you can get. Uh, but do you need the top lawyer to fill out articles of incorporation? Probably not. You know, even now with contract review, I mean, there’s, there’s amazing products out there that are going to, you know, change how lawyers, um, uh, bill their clients. You, you simply can’t bill for 10 hours of analysis. When AI can review it in a matter of minutes, and then, uh, and then you apply your expertise to polish it and to review it and make sure that, you know, the AI product is, uh, ultimately got your stamp of approval on it.
Bim Dave: Yep. Very true. Very true. So, um, recently in the news, I’m, I’m sure you’re aware, um, there was an announcement from Anthropic about a new legal plugin for cowork, one of their, their solutions. I’m really interested to get your take on that. ’cause obviously that had a big impact on the market. Some of, some legacy providers like Thomson Reitz has had, you know, billions wiped off their value.
Um, so interested to get your take on that and what that means for, um, the industry as a whole.
Michael McGready: Yeah, listen, that announcement was only a week or two ago, so whatever I’m going to say right now, uh, is going to be different by the time you’re listening to this podcast. Um, so you’ve got, you know, the, the, the four largest lms and Claude Anthropic is one of them. Um, and this is their first step into. Uh, into legal, um, and legal tech is a huge business. And there are, there are lots of players and there’s lots of money coming into this. Uh, but that’s basically what, uh, clai, anthropic is proposing is that they will have these agentic ai, these AI agents already built out for you. Um, in your workflow, um, and then also allow you to, to build your own in a, in a very, very simplistic way. So, um, I, I think that it’s going to, I think it’s gonna be a, a really, really big development. Um, and I think that the other, um, the other LLMs are probably gonna follow. Uh, follow Claude Anthropic, um, and what it does to the other tech companies and the vendors that are out there now. Um, you know, it, it could, it could have a very disruptive effect on them and, and the futures of their business model.
So, yeah, big news. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.
Bim Dave: Yeah, indeed. It’s very, very interesting to see how it all unfolds. Um, with, with the fact that it seems like, you know, we, we started, um, the kind of journey of discovering these AI solutions with chat and GPT, for example, being, you know, the one, the one that had, you know, the, the best LLM that gave you the best answers.
Then it’s kind of shifted over time. Uh, and it kind of seems to, to hop around between, um, Gemini, uh, clawed or, or, or wherever. And we dunno where it’s gonna go in, where we dunno where it’s gonna go in future. So is it, I guess my, my question is, is it smart for firms to be thinking LLM agnostically and, and actually thinking that it could be any LLM in future that you use to, to be able to develop some of these.
Solutions or is it wise to kind of partner with some, you know, a specific, um, vendor that’s out there to be able to build some of these solutions? What, what’s your view on that?
Michael McGready: I, that’s a, that’s a great question. Um, I think for what we do as attorneys, uh, that the, the, the, the LLMs are largely interchangeable. Okay. You know, each of them does have their strengths. You know, one of ’em is better at coding, one of them is better at. Uh, creativity. Um, and I couldn’t even tell you which ones, but you know, for, for most people they, they, I think they could be interchangeable. Um, the, they’re all fighting for market share right now. Okay. And, uh, it, it, it’s why Uber is now a, uh, you know, now a verb is, oh, I got a, I got an Uber here. And you don’t say, I’m going to Lyft here. Okay. So, you know, Uber gobbled up so much of the market space, and I think that’s where these LLMs are trying to, to, uh, you know, there, there were a lot of other, uh, um, uh, browsers out there before Google Chrome.
Okay. Uh, but where are they now? Google Chrome gobbled up most of the market space and maybe safari, but, um, so I think the same thing is gonna play out with the LLMs. Um, now where I think that it’s going is that. I think that in the near future that every law firm will have their own internal LLM, um, and they will supply the data, uh, to it, uh, and, and, uh, and, and, and perhaps, you know, utilize some of the data or the capabilities from some of these other LLMs.
But I think the future is. Going to be lots of individual LLMs that we’ll make use of, and, and that’s where we are in my firm. Um, and this is, this is something that I’m very passionate about, is that. Um, is there’s, there’s bias in these LLMs and the material that you train an LLM. And, and, and once again, if you’re not familiar, LLM is large language model.
Okay? And that’s what these AI companies are. There are l lms, um, but there’s, there’s inherent bias in the data that, uh, is. Being used to train these LLMs. So for example, if you ask an LLM create me a, uh, an image of a lawyer arguing in front of a judge, you know, odds are it’s going to be a white male in a suit. Arguing before a white male in robe, in a robe with white hair. Okay? That just because that is what the inherent bias of the system is, that’s what it, the, the LLM predicts that what you want. And if you want something else, you know, you need to specify that. Um, but the great thing. By creating your own LLM is, you can direct it in a way that meets your needs.
So, for example, you know, we have certain, uh, firm values that, that are non-negotiable. This is who we are, it’s our core. So we use those firm values in our LLM. And, uh, and it impacts what the, what the answers are that come out. So, uh, like I mentioned, one of our firm values is technology. And so, you know, because our LLM knows that it’s going to take that into consideration with the answers that it provides us.
Whereas if we said we are, you know, technologically, you know, behind the times, then it’s gonna give you a different answer. So, so creating. The an LLM internally, um, and programming it in a way that reflects, you know, who you are and, and what you do. I think that’s where the, that’s, that’s where, uh, you know, the world is going.
Bim Dave: Yeah, totally agree. Michael, that’s been fantastic. I just wanna have a, a couple of wrap up questions for you, if I may.
Michael McGready: Of course.
Bim Dave: The first of which being, if you could use all of this wonderful AI technology to build yourself a time machine and go back to yourself at age 18, what advice would you give yourself?
Michael McGready: Uh, don’t be a lawyer and go into tech. Uh, you know, I’m a lawyer who does tech. Uh, I would’ve flipped the, the, the, the script around and been tech, uh, but, uh, you know, a little bit facetious there. But, um, uh, no, I, I, I would’ve, uh, I would encourage, I would have encouraged myself to, to think outside of the box, um, that, you know, law has a way of doing it.
And law, you know. Doesn’t change very quickly. Uh, it doesn’t adapt as well. And so, uh, I got caught up in that, you know, running a law firm. This is the way a law firm is run. I, I, I wish that I had learned about thinking outside of the box at an earlier age.
Bim Dave: Indeed, indeed, one AI tool every lawyer should try. I.
Michael McGready: Uh, certainly chat, GPT. Um, and then see the thing is this, is that there are so many individualized vendors out there based on your practice area. So I do personal injury and uh, and we use a program called Even Up. It’s great. Love it. That’s not gonna work if you are a real estate lawyer, if you’re a bankruptcy lawyer.
So, you know, everybody has to understand, uh, you know, chat GPT or you know, the LLMs. Uh, but vendors are gonna be much more, uh, uh, practice area specific.
Bim Dave: Indeed. And just finally, if you, if you step back and kind of reflect on your career from building websites in the nineties to implementing AI today, what lessons stands out to you about innovation in law? I.
Michael McGready: Um, the, the speed of change is increasing. So, uh, the things that are happening now, you know, we have never experienced the pace of change like we are doing now. Yes, the worldwide web inter revolutionized, uh, the world. Uh, but it was a lot slower buildup. Um, if you, there, there, there are surveys out there, uh, that show the adoption of.
People to the internet, you know, what percentage of people were using the internet at, at what time? Uh, and now the percentage of people that are using AI and it’s night and day, the, the adoption rate has, you know, has dwarfed what we’ve ever had in the past. So, uh, you know, you can’t, you can’t ignore this.
You absolutely can’t ignore this.
Bim Dave: Amazing. Michael, thank you so much for your time today. It’s been really, um, insightful, great learning experience and I’m sure there’s a lot of value in there and nuggets in there for our audience. Really appreciate you coming on.
Michael McGready: Well, thanks so much for having me.