Some of the latest trends in the legal industry that we heard at CLOC 2023
The CLOC Global Institute is quickly becoming a leading event for those in the legal industry to learn of emerging legal technology. Trustpoint.One was able to attend this year’s event and had discussions with many leaders in the legal industry at a poolside cabana at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. During our attendance, we heard of some tremendous and interesting trends throughout the legal industry.
The first being that organizations are starting to shift to the left of the data lifecycle. What does this mean exactly? Organizations are learning that if they are proactive in how they treat their data that it leads to much less headaches down the road. This could be mean using data discovery to its scan through data sources and identify certain information, such as items that later could be used in litigation. Organizations can use this information in a number of ways. They can apply a defensible retention policy to the data, disposing of information that is no longer necessary to keep. Applying the defensible retention policy can help mitigate the risks of holding the information, whether it be for litigation or regulatory compliance. Shifting to the left of the data cycle does require the use of resources, but its benefits certainly outweigh the costs associated, as it helps organizations avoid those major headaches down the road.
The second most common theme of the conference was about compliance, particularly with data privacy. Each year, states are adopting new data privacy regulations and organizations are increasingly getting ahead of these regulations as they don’t want to be held liable for the information personal identifiable information that they collect and process. This growing concern leads to a very common question. Where do we even start? By using data discovery, data privacy experts, and some buy in from the organizations, this can be achieved. The first thing to understand is what data your organization has and where is it located? From there, the organization then needs to ask the question of the how and why we are processing certain personal and sensitive information. Once these points are understood, it’s much easier for an organization to apply a privacy policy, robust retention schedule, and best practices to ensure they are properly safeguarding and processing personal and sensitive information.
The last most common theme we heard at CLOC was emerging artificial intelligence in the legal industry. Law firms are beginning to use AI to their advantage, using AI to make their lives easier and to also better serve their clients. The use of generative AI can streamline some of the mundane work that lawyers face every day. It can also help in redactions, by training tools to identify information and reduce the steps that need to be taken to properly redact information before it gets filed or goes to the other side. We must keep an eye on these emerging technologies, because we need to be responsible with its use. Not all AI is 100% accurate, so although it cut out some work for us, we must verify the information that it generates.
These trends in the legal industry are not necessarily new to the legal industry, but the attention to them has tremendously increased. The use of data discovery, the re-emergence of information governance, and AI is not something that is going to go away. Some things may change in the next year, but we certainly want to keep an eye on these issues as they continually change in our industry. It’ll be very interesting to see where we are a year from now.
Trustpoint.One was happy to attend this event and discuss a lot of these emerging issues with others in the legal industry at our poolside cabana at the Bellagio. We hope to see you next year!
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