5 Reasons Why AI Won’t Replace Human Legal Bill Reviewers
The corporate legal industry is continually evolving. One of the latest developments on the horizon is the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) technology into legal bill review processes. While AI can be a valuable tool for increasing efficiency, improving accuracy, and streamlining otherwise siloed legal departments, it won’t replace human expertise.
AI has the ability to analyze vast amounts of data quickly and accurately to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks and allow legal professionals to focus on higher-value work. However, while AI is designed to replace manual labor with a more effective and faster way of working, it cannot override the need for human input. Instead, it will be a “complementarity” to human bill reviewers, i.e., it will enhance the quality of their work and enable them to perform more efficiently.
Here are 5 reasons why human reviewers will remain valuable and cannot be fully replaced by AI in the legal bill review process:
1. AI Needs Human Expertise to Function
Artificial intelligence would not exist without human intelligence. For example, developers write the code with which AI is developed, must input the data AI machines operate with, and actually operate the machines. As AI application continues to expand within the legal industry, so will the need for the services of lawyers. People must create, operate and maintain the machines, and design the machine's AI processes. AI might be capable of rapid learning, but it lacks common sense and is incapable of reasoning and contesting facts to the degree that human reviewers can. Legal bill review requires creativity and problem-solving skills that algorithms and robots will never have.
2. AI Has No Emotional Intelligence
AI attempts to imitate human intelligence, but a person’s emotional intelligence is not simple to replicate. Why? Because emotional intelligence is driven by empathy and a deep understanding of the human experience, something AI simply does not have. Most in-house legal departments want to build strong, long-term relationships with their outside counsel, and although AI can do many things, forming solid relationships is not one of them. Although AI attempts to automate paper billing, provide awareness of how much an organization spends on legal services, and detect certain errors, it does not have the ability to conduct tough conversations with outside counsel about potential errors and discrepancies on their legal invoices.
3. AI Doesn’t Think Like an Attorney
While AI can be used to track an organization’s legal spend by automating the invoicing and approval process, a robot does not have a licensed attorney’s capacity to know what to watch out for on a legal bill, decipher time entries in the context of each invoice and the legal representation as a whole, and communicate important conclusions to outside counsel tactfully and persuasively. Human expertise is required to accomplish those tasks. Instead of relying on AI, in-house legal departments can outsource the review of law firm invoices to third-party bill review services to review them for errors and miscalculations. Some such services use U.S.-based attorneys to analyze every charge on every legal bill received from outside counsel – not only to ensure that each line item adds reasonable value but also because they have the ability to negotiate bill adjustments when necessary.
4. AI Cannot Make Ethical Determinations
While AI might be able to detect some glaring errors on legal bills from outside counsel, it is not capable of catching the questionable ethical practices some firms employ when billing corporate counsel, such as:
Vague descriptions that don’t explain the value of a case and justify why the task was completed in the first place.
Bill padding, e.g., billing for rudimentary legal research, administrative tasks that should have been performed by staff members, and tasks performed simultaneously by more than one attorney, paralegal, or support staff member.
Block billing, which involves lumping time spent on multiple tasks into large blocks on a legal bill.
Human review is necessary to review and analyze legal bills for unethical billing practices and ensure that each line item adds reasonable value.
5. AI Complements Human Ability, but Cannot Compete With It
The jobs AI might be able to take over frequently involve repetitive tasks that require less intensive reasoning, and as the world moves towards a more integrated tech landscape, evolving workplace demands will create new roles for human workers. Research conducted by the World Economic Forum found that while machines with AI will replace an estimated 85 million jobs by 2025, some 97 million jobs will be made available that same year – thanks to AI. So, how can lawyers work effectively with AI? AI can easily handle repetitive tasks, freeing up human reviewers to take care of what’s really important, like helping to develop strong relationships with outside law firms - a win-win situation.
Legal Bill Review Best Practices
Because legal spend review management software can miss many crucial things, in-house legal departments are increasingly contracting with third-party bill review services to assess invoices from outside counsel. Some of these services utilize experienced attorneys to analyze charges on bills received from outside counsel personally, not only to ensure that each time entry adds fair value but also to be prepared to discuss bill adjustments with law firms when questions arise.
More and more in-house teams use third-party bill analysis by human reviewers to:
Ease the burden of invoice review
Consistently apply outside counsel guidelines
Gain a greater appreciation of the value provided by outside firms
Provide in-house lawyers more time for more critical responsibilities
Streamline the bill review process
Judiciously reduce outside counsel spend
Although AI will never replace bill reviews by attorneys, it can help attorney reviewers become more effective while spending less time on the task, yielding valuable cost savings. However, automating the process is almost never enough to efficiently review legal bills and reduce legal spend. But when in-house departments maximize human expertise by utilizing a “people and process” bill review service, they can understand, manage, and control their legal spend more efficiently than ever.
