Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis Legal & Professional, and part of RELX, takes a deep dive into the subject of generative AI and the law. What are the opportunities and risks for lawyers? What are the use cases? What will legal work look like in years to come?
LexisNexis Legal & Professional recently launched a generative AI platform designed to transform legal work. Unlike ChatGPT which creates hallucinations, Lexis+AI is built and trained on the largest repository of accurate and exclusive legal content.
This podcast is brought to you by RELX.
Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis Legal & Professional, and part of RELX, takes a deep dive into the subject of generative AI and the law. What are the opportunities and risks for lawyers? What are the use cases? What will legal work look like in years to come?
LexisNexis Legal & Professional recently launched a generative AI platform designed to transform legal work. Unlike ChatGPT which creates hallucinations, Lexis+AI is built and trained on the largest repository of accurate and exclusive legal content.
This podcast is brought to you by RELX.
The unique contributions podcast is brought to you by RELX. Find out more about us by visiting relx.com.
Mike Walsh:We're on the cusp of something that's really quite profound in its impact. I think one thing is that lawyers who embrace this change and adopt it and use it to their advantage will have a significant advantage overall in the marketplace.
YS Chi:Hello, and welcome to a special episode on AI and generative AI, a topic that has been at the top of people's minds since the launch of Open AI's ChatGPT. A few months ago,RELX was named by Bank of America as one of the 10 global companies most likely to benefit from generative AI. The company is a big user of AI technologies, where we invest more than $1.6 billion a year in technology and employ about10,000 technologists. Just recently, RELX's legal business LexisNexis Legal & Professional launched Lexis+ AI, which is a generative AI platform designed to transform legal work.Unlike ChatGPT, which can generate hallucinations. Lexis+AI is built and trained on the largest repository of accurate and exclusive legal content, and is the world's most comprehensive global, legal,generative AI platform.This will have major consequences for the legal profession. Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis, Legal & Professional and his team are on the frontier of the transformations that generative AI are bringing to the legal field. Mike, welcome.
Mike Walsh:Thank you. YS, it is great to be here.
YS Chi:And it is great to have you. Thank you. Before we start talking about generative AI, can you please set the stage for us?Most lawyers will know who LexisNexis is of course. But for those who aren't familiar, can you just give us a little snapshot of the company and how you've emerged as the leader at the centre of this generative AI moment?
Mike Walsh:Well, LexisNexis Legal & Professional is actually made up of three distinct but interrelated businesses. Legal Information is our largest business, which provides information, analytics and decision tools, primarily to lawyers. But we also serve professionals beyond the legal industry. Our IP analytics business is the largest technology provider to the US Patent and Trademark Office for more than 50 years. Nexis provides the largest collection of aggregated news and business information in the world.Altogether, LexisNexis has one of the largest content repositories in the world. And if you add it all up, we're about 150 times the size of Wikipedia. Our 11,000 plus employees serve customers in more than 150 countries. And we serve them via our ultra modern technology infrastructure. About2000 of the technologists that you mentioned, are part of our team. And many have advanced tech skills. So it's that combination of accurate,comprehensive, citable content,technology, leadership and 50plus years of experience,safeguarding and protecting our customer privacy and IP that has led us here today.
YS Chi:Sounds very sophisticated, Mike, and very expensive to run?
Mike Walsh:It's quite sophisticated. And it's been built over years. And we've spent years building a leading technology platform that enables us to deliver with all the content, and we're able to deliver it quite rapidly and efficiently to our customers.
YS Chi:And then I think we want to talk about that in the context of generative AI. This has taken the world by storm,and its consequences are likely to be felt in all aspects of our personal and professional lives.So I feel that this is a seminal moment in our history and some possibly calling it as being as important as the invention of the internet itself. But how would you define generative AI?And how does the legal professional perceive this moment in relation to generative AI?
Mike Walsh:Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, we're on the cusp of something that's really quite profound in its impact. And I think its impact is going to be felt significantly in the legal profession in terms of transformative impact over many years increasing efficiency.Enabling lawyers to be able to do things that they never were able to do before much more effectively, and significantly changing the speed of how the practice is conducted. And I think one thing is that lawyers who embrace this change and adopt it and use it to their advantage will have a significant advantage overall in the marketplace.
YS Chi:And would you say that large or small or specialised law firms or lawyers may get special advantage? Or do you think this is a pretty democratic platform?
Mike Walsh:I think all size firms and in-house legal institutions will, will benefit from it. And they'll all get advantage, I don't think size necessarily will be the big determinant of who captures the most advantage, I think it will be more around willingness to adopt, get ahead of the technology curve, embrace these technologies, bring them into their work in a way that's effective and responsible. And I think the ones who do that effectively the ones who use the right tools to do that, I think they'll get the advantage.
YS Chi:Speaking of this adoption, as LexisNexis Legal &Professional has revealed our platform, has this created new opportunities for the lawyers or some may look at it as more risk?
Mike Walsh:Well, it certainly creates new opportunity for lawyers. And it also creates risk. You know, I think, first of all, it's important to put this in context around us and what we've done. We've been working on AI for a decade, and we've been importing extractive AI tools into our products for many years now. And you know,it's it's now this shift to generative AI, that has fueled the, the launch of Lexis+ AI.And that's really what brings transformative technology to our customers. There are risks, the risks are basically, you know,it's been well documented that ChatGPT creates hallucinations.If you're not using authoritative content, if you don't know where the sources are coming from out there, you run risks of having wrong and bad information. That's where our offering really can provide differentiation. We have the largest repository of accurate and reliable content, our tools interact with that content, we have human review in the process. And all these elements and steps are designed to create a reliable and trustworthy experience. There have been news articles now about lawyers who have used ChatGPT. And they've found that it's created fictitious cases.
YS Chi:That's right.
Mike Walsh:And now they're even being cited in courts for it,facing potential disciplinary actions. So that's why it's really important to rely on tools that are authoritative,have high quality content, and have human assisted review in the process.
YS Chi:I think that's a really important point, that there's got to be a quality base for any quality tools to work.
Mike Walsh:Absolutely. That's the that's the foundation of it.You have to have accurate, high quality content that's reliable.Otherwise, you don't know what you don't know what you're getting.
YS Chi:Right, which is the base of LexisNexis Legal &Professional over a century,right?
Mike Walsh:Absolutely. You know, our business stretches all the way back to actually 1818,which is the oldest part of our business - Butterworths in the UK - that's when Butterworths was built. And that's when we started publishing legal content. And we've just built upon that expertise over decades and decades and decades in different countries, all with the point of view of being reliable and accurate, and something the legal profession knows that they can they can depend upon.
YS Chi:Wow. So this is obviously something we have a lot of experience in. Could RELX come up with its own version of generative AI like a ChatGPT? Or do we just rely on other companies for this? Since you're sitting on such quality content.
Mike Walsh:Well, I think we leverage many technologies when we put together our products, I think ChatGPT is an early leader in the generative AI space. I think there are many companies that are extremely well positioned to capture leadership in the large language model space, and then I think we're going to see evolution of different forms of AI technology. And it's hard to predict at any time, which one is going to be the best and who's going to lead. So we have an approach where we leverage multiple technologies. We also develop our own proprietary technology. Sometimes they're combinations of technologies that we're using. And sometimes they're homegrown proprietary technologies. And what we do is we, we tend to do that when they're sort of built for a specific purpose. And it's always with our customer in mind, and we work back from our customer. And we develop technologies that are going to be most helpful, in helping our customers achieve what they want to do in their, in their work environment. So the short answer is, it's a variety of technologies. I think, over time, we'll see more and more open source technologies in this space as well.
YS Chi:Yeah, I agree with you on that. But the good thing that you just pointed out is that you are really addressing customers very specific vertical needs,right. And because you have both the content, and the access to technology, as well as domain expertise, this really becomes a very powerful player.
Mike Walsh:The lawyer customer base has an extremely complex and detailed set of use cases.And you really have to have deep domain expertise to be able to serve those use cases effectively. Whether you're a litigator working on complex litigation, or you're a transactional lawyer handling very detailed, complex transactions. The use cases are very specific. They require deep domain expertise. And it's a combination of deep domain expertise, authoritative content, and constantly using best in class technologies, that allows us to be able to deliver to our customers and help them do things that they just simply could never do before.
YS Chi:So which of these examples you cited just now, do you think are some of the most useful ones? And do the customers know how to quantify such usefulness in that context?
Mike Walsh:So the early use cases that we're building out that we believe are most useful to our customers in the near term are around summarization,drafting, and conversational search. Summarization allows you to get quick summaries of important impactful documents,you can determine do you want a detailed summary or a pithy summary - can quickly digest information that comes at you.Drafting is an area where many lawyers spend at least half of their time, drafting. And drafting with the capability of building in citable sources with reliable information is a major game changer for lawyers. And then a conversational guided search, a search beyond searching for keywords, where you're really interacting with a bot that's helping you deliver the most precise, specific results that are relevant for you. These are kind of the macro macro use cases. And then over time, we'll just continue to add value to the use cases, make them more specific, and add capabilities that help lawyers do things that help to understand the economics of a case, for example, and I just believe we're gonna see lawyers get better and better and more and more effective at the way that they practice and how they handle their business that's enabled by these tools.
YS Chi:And as their customers demand that from the lawyers,right?
Mike Walsh:Absolutely. You know, it's interesting, we've done research, and most lawyers believe that Gen AI will be transformative to the practice.And the interesting thing is when we talk to in house counsel, there's an expectation that the lawyers that are serving them will be using these tools and helping them to become more efficient and better practitioners.
YS Chi:So you actually, once again pointed out something really important for the listeners. And that is the difference between keyword search and generative AI, which is these kinds of so called literally generating an output in summarization, drafting,conversational search, that actually goes beyond words, it goes into a collection of words or collection of thoughts. I think that's what Gen AI will do for all of our customers. This is really exciting. So what are the customers telling you? Are they excited about it too?
Mike Walsh:The customers are super excited about this. They see the transformative impact.They understand how this can be helpful in what they do. And when we launched Lexis+ AI, they said to us, we're so glad that a reputable reliable company that's been in business for a long time is bringing this offering to market. Because we know we can trust you, we know we can rely on you, and we need help. And getting guidance as this technology takes hold, and begins the transformation of the of the practice of law. We opened up on what we call an AI Insider Programme, where customers can sign up and get early access to our products and services and information as we develop things, and we literally have just been flooded with customers, I mean that the demand has been overwhelming.
YS Chi:I'm not surprised, and particularly for a player that's been in the space for so long working with them over these decades. And even you said two centuries, right?
Mike Walsh:Yeah.
YS Chi:In this mode, what kind of concerns are you also hearing other than just fear of being left behind? And they must be glad to have LexisNexis Legal &Professional as a partner for this?
Mike Walsh:There certainly is a fear of being left behind. I think everybody has a fear of what am I missing? What am I leaving behind? There's there's a lot of fear out there around different providers in the marketplace that don't have a long history, don't have accurate content, and that are bringing things to market. And there's concern about how effectively you can trust a player like that. So there's there's concerns around that.There's concerns around what are others going to be doing in this market? So you know, there's concerns around among lawyers among what their competitors are doing and who's getting out in front and who's getting ahead.So there's a lot of anxiousness and nervousness, as well as a lot of feelings of tremendous opportunity here. I think it's,it's we're at a period in time where we're gonna see more change around this than we've seen in quite some time. You know, I think you stated earlier, but it's such a profound development, it's similar in my mind to when the internet first came along,right. And all of a sudden, a whole range of activities were enabled by the internet that weren't possible before. And I believe now we've got a whole range of activities that are going to be enabled with generative AI, and different people are going to be running out and experimenting with them adopting and learning how to use them at different paces. And everybody's going to feel like there's opportunity there. And probably many will feel like they're missing out on opportunity as they go.
YS Chi:So can I ask you to just go one more step and look several years out? Are there any things that you can see coming in terms of what lawyers lives would look like as they serve their clients, and how this aspect of Gen AI will influence that?
Mike Walsh:Well, I mean,certainly, lawyers are going to be faster, more efficient, more effective. I think that will free up considerable time for lawyers to add more higher level strategic value to the legal advice that they provide, which I think is going to be highly valued by their clients. One area, for example, that we've been helping our customers get better and better on over the years, but I think we'll we'll make a step change now with this technology, is being able to better quantify and predict economic outcomes in cases,which of course, all clients want to know, right? Whenever you're taking on a case or have a legal exposure, or doing a transaction, you want to know,you know, what is my potential exposure? How long is this going to take me? How much is it going to cost? And what are the economic decisions that I can make, either as a business leader or as a legal consumer,that's going to help achieve the best outcome in the case? Well,those economic decisions are,are helped by this technology,because there's better faster access to information, it can be analysed more effectively, all of which translates into a better economic view of your case.
YS Chi:And LexisNexis Legal &Professional has already been in that space, where you have tools already, that helps a lawyer or the client estimate, what might be the path for, you know,settling it or going to court and fighting it and so on,right, you've already got those tools.
Mike Walsh:We already have tools that do a good job of helping lawyers do that today.We have the best tools in the market that do that we have a fantastic tool called Lex Machina that will tell you how long cases typically take how long it takes to settle. We have tools that will predict settlement outcomes in cases, we have tools that will predict the likelihood of legislation that's going to pass, but all these tools will become more effective and more efficient over time, as this technology pervades, and threads through our offerings.
YS Chi:It's so exciting to hear that.
Mike Walsh:Yeah, it's really it's really quite an exciting moment in time, I'd say there's never been a better time to be in the legal industry than right now, with the changes coming down the pike here,
YS Chi:Just how difficult is all this technology? I mean, I am not a computer science grad.I mean, at one time, I was an engineer, but I, I escaped that and went to social science. But I mean, how hard is it to get involved?
Mike Walsh:Well, it depends on on how and where you're getting involved. I mean, our job at LexisNexis Legal & Professional is to make it as easy for our customers to leverage this technology as we can. And we we've got huge, huge user design groups that are focused on making the experience as intuitive as possible, and make the design as attractive as possible. So you can basically get the answers that you want in a little amount of time. Now, of course, underneath that it's very complicated. Underneath that, the work that our engineers do, the work that our technologists with advanced skills and training do is incredibly complex. And we work hard to attract and retain the best data scientists, the best engineers, the best computational linguists that work on this, but with a goal of making it as simple and transparent and easy for the customer to use as we can.That's our complete focus. We're obsessed with the customer. And we work from the customer back.
YS Chi:That's great, so Mike,we cannot talk about LexisNexis Legal & Professional without talking about the mission. This is what really drives your11,000 people. And the rule of law that you have advocated for all these years is so important to you and to your customers.How will Gen AI impact the rule of law? I'd like to hear from you.
Mike Walsh:Well, first of all,the rule of law is what we think of as the underlying purpose in our business. And if you talk to just about anybody in LexisNexis, they will tell you that and they will say that it threads through the DNA of our organisation, and most people are committed to working on projects in cases that advance the rule of law around the world. We think about the rule of law, by the way, as having
four components:improving transparency of law, improving equality for all under the law,helping and develop strong and independent judiciaries and creating accessible legal remedy. And in general, the stronger each of those components in any particular jurisdiction or state or country, the stronger the levels of the rule of law. And our work has shown clearly that societal indicators improve when you have higher levels of rule of law.You see better economic development, you see lower levels of corruption, you see lower child mortality. And you even see better life expectancy.The UN has estimated that about4 billion people live outside of the umbrella protection of the rule of law. And our mission is to bring that number down to zero. And generative AI will help us do that. Generative AI will help us improve each one of those components, transparency,being able to bring complete and easy transparency to all the world's citizens, to the laws under which they operate is something that generative AI will help us to do. It helps us do that by being able to summarise laws more effectively,communicate them more easily.And we're not going to stop until all the world's citizens have clear and transparent access to the laws and the ability to understand them. So we see this as a transformative moment for extending the umbrella protection of the rule of law, lowering the cost of legal services, and making them more accessible to places in the world that do not have good high quality, access to legal services or where there are barriers to get cost effective access to legal services. So this is quite a material development in our underlying mission.
YS Chi:Wow. First 20 minutes, I thought you had energy in your voice. But the last couple of minutes when you talk about the rule of law impact of Gen AI. I mean, I see the bounce. Thank you so much. I mean, it is really important to remind us why we do what we do. And you have such a unique contribution through the years of of having served this community with technology content and whatnot.Do you have any final words for our audience before I wrap up?
Mike Walsh:Well, thank you so much YS for the kind words and what I would just say is this is a super exciting time right now,and with any exciting time,there can be opportunities and there can be perceived threats.There's more opportunity here, I believe, than threat. We are working extremely hard at bringing those opportunities to the market as fast as we can. We think it's going to have a transformative impact on the legal profession. And we think it's gonna have a transformative impact on our ability to advance the rule of law around the world, which has a very positive impact on society. So we've never felt it's better than right now. And so pleased to be with you YS, thank you for doing this.
YS Chi:No, thank you so much for joining us, Mike, and enlightening us. You know, what I learned over these past 20years here at RELX is that every time there is an advancement in technology, there is the aspect of the light that it shines on our humanity. And then there is the shadow side. This is what Mike said about opportunity and threat. There is a lot more light than there is shadow in this generative AI world that we are entering. What looked very complicated, is being transformed by LexisNexis into simplicity, to trust and effectiveness. It's been really exciting to have Mike as our guest, and I really look forward to learning much more about what LexisNexis will be doing going forward. Thank you for listening.