“Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs”…Henry Ford
Is there a pitfall if you use AI? Computer Forensic Experts Lee Neubecker interviews Chief Innovation Office with DISCO, Cat Casey both agree the largest pitfall in AI is NOT embracing AI! Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the fastest-growing eDiscovery solution in the Legal Industry. Just like in Henry Ford’s day, it’s the keen cutting edge shaving away costs by reducing time spent from evidence to production.
Cat explains DISCO was born out of the firm’s frustration with conventional eDiscovery tools that were slow and difficult for lawyers to use. Instead of being forced to adapt our work methods to technology, we wanted to invent technology that works the way lawyers work. DISCO was the result, and today we are the fastest-growing eDiscovery solution in North America. Both experts agree implementing AI will help companies gain a competitive edge. Watch this video to hear examples of how AI helps sharpen that edge!
Final Part of our 3-Part Series in Artificial Intelligence: Pitfalls in AI
The Video Transcript Pitfalls in AI Follows.
Lee Neubecker (LN): Hi and welcome back again Cat. Thanks for being on the show again.
Cat Casey (CC): My pleasure.
LN: Cat Casey from CS Disco. She’s a Chief Product Innovation Officer. Did I say that right?
CC: Chief Innovation Officer.
LN: Okay.
CC: Products too, though. It’s fine.
LN: They call her chief.
CC: They should.
LN: So we’re going to talk now, in this last part of our series on artificial intelligence, about some of the challenges of organizations that don’t adapt and don’t get on board. So, what do you see the potential risks and pitfalls for law firms that don’t begin to embrace so sort the form of a technology-assisted review or artificial intelligence to help speed up the review process?
CC: Well, at a very basic level, clients are getting smarter. We’ve got CLOC https://cloc.org/, we’ve got clients talking to each other more, and they’ve raised their expectations of how their firms are going to be competitive. And it used to be if you were big law firm A you would always have this corporate client for every anti-trust case they would always go to you. But now I was getting dozens of RFPs where they’re asking me what technology are you using? How are you driving innovation? How are you driving efficiency? Because there is a higher expectation of competition between outside counsel. That, maybe, wasn’t there a few years ago. And so, the client expectation is driving this appetite to investigate eDiscovery and Artificial Innovation (AI) based innovation in a way that wasn’t here a few years ago.
LN: Has there been any industry research that has attempted to benchmark the cost of a case using an AI platform to speed up review versus not, to your knowledge?
CC: You know. I can speak from Disco, and we see about a 60% reduction in time to evidence to production. And that translated to dollars. And so, I mean, 60% savings on the 80% of a case that is reviewed is substantial. The thing that I think is most important is cost-savings big, but getting evidence quicker.
LN: Yeah. Time is of the essence.
CC: That is the thing that is paramount because of a lot of these companies… I worked at a company that had very big budgets, but no amount of money, no amount of people, was going to be enough to get these insights I needed before the meet and confer. Or before I had a critical filing with a government investigator. And so, getting evidence quicker so I can start building my case, was the differentiator.
LN: Yeah, certainly if you’re working for a company facing a DOJ inquiry.
CC: Yep.
LN: Knowing the good, the bad, the ugly.
CC: Yep.
LN: As soon as possible can help you make better decisions for your clients. Which might involve, you know, settlement. settling. Yeah, yeah. There have been many recent settlements, recently, from big companies that didn’t want to get tied down at least.
CC: Well I’ve had cases where… One of my favorite ones I used tons of different AI and analytic tools. I had a big bank that had been fined billions of dollars and another big bank was, they had hired on people in that same group, and they were wondering if they would be subject to the same investigation. So, I did some social network analysis. Who was talking to who, with what frequency? I parsed Bloomberg’s chat. I parsed audio logs. And I used everything to keep triangulating down until I was able to identify the bad actors, saying the bad things, and the map of the structured data to show they didn’t do the bad things. And my company wasn’t on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. My company wasn’t fined. So it ends up being very compelling, even early in investigations.
LN: Yeah. Certainly responding quickly is important now. Have you seen any success stories as it relates to companies embroiled with data breach incidences, that have used your platform to help get ahead of what was going on?
CC: 100%. I mean PII, so personally identifiable information, is something that you’re going to have to notify if there is a breach. So if someone, say your Equifax, not that I’m naming them, but say you’re a big company with a lot of personally identifiable or health information. You need to identify it quickly, notify these people in their specific timelines. Tools, like Disco’s, help you use algorithms to find that quickly and act upon it. Otherwise, if you’re looking at 100 million records, there’s no amount of humans that could go through that, in a timely manner, where you’re going to comply with time obligations. And so, it’s majorly impactful.
LN: That certainly is. Well, are there any other things you want to say on the show before we wrap up?
CC: You know, adapt. The reality is no one wants to be the buggy whip maker in a Tesla world. The time to start investigating and vetting and ensuring that the tech you’re looking at isn’t hype is now. Because in a year, or three years, or four years, you might be behind the curve. So, find your resident dork, ask questions, dig into the tech. Now is the time.
LN: And it’s probably worthwhile, you know, without being biased towards Lit Funder, why not take a case try out Disco, try out another offering to see what really works. I mean you had the benefit of…
CC: Yeah.
LN: You were on the other side working for the law firm, shopping for vendors.
CC: I did a 55 vendor RFP. I’ve seen everyone. I’ve looked under every hood. I mean there’s a reason I went to Disco. But there are other tools good out there. I think you want a toolbox with lots of different tools. If you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Let’s be honest, litigation is always bespoke, so you want lots of tools that can help you address it.
LN: Great. Well, thanks again for being on the show.
CC: Yeah, my pleasure.
LN: This was great.
Watch the Entire Series on Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Part 1 of our 3-Part Series on AI
Part 2 of our 3-Part Series on AI
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