In-House Counsel, Legal Operations

The Legal AI Efficacy Interview Series: Jim Michalowicz Of TE Connectivity

Which AI tools work well and what is each tool designed to do?

By  
on

Ed. note: It’s hard to separate the signal from noise amidst all the hype about AI-powered legal technology tools. Potential users want answers to a couple of simple questions: which tools work well and what is each tool designed to do? One approach to answering these questions is to ask top law firms and legal departments how they are using AI-powered tools and how effective they are. Today, we present the first installment of The Legal AI Efficacy Interview Series, in-depth looks at a leading law firm or legal department’s AI journey, focusing on the problems they are facing and how well they are solving them. An abridged version of each interview, starting with this conversation with Jim Michalowicz of TE Connectivity, will appear regularly on ATL. These interviews are designed as a supplementary resource to the Legal AI Efficacy Report, the industry’s most comprehensive resource on AI-powered legal technology tools.

Download the full interview here

Deploying AI to Reduce Cycle Time by 67% at TE Connectivity
“Who would have thought of the law department as a leader in implementing AI?”

By Brad Blickstein, Publisher, Legal AI Efficacy Report and Jim Michalowicz, Legal AI Efficacy Report Advisory Board Member and Senior Manager of Legal Operations at TE Connectivity

Brad: Hi, Jim, and thanks for being on the advisory board for the Legal AI Efficacy Report and for joining us for the interview series. Jim, you’ve been one of the leading innovators in legal for decades. You were instrumental in some of the first of what we would now call law department innovation programs at DuPont back in the ’90s, and you have been working with legal technology literally since you were a teenager. What impact do you see artificial intelligence having on the space?

Jim: I’ll use the three words: faster, better and cheaper—both in-house, where I am, as well as for law firms and other service providers, Brad. So I think those are three possible impacts. Now, that might be aspirational, but I believe that some of the early returns are showing that all three can be accomplished. I would add one more thing, at least in my purview here in the law department: It will change the resourcing model.

Brad: At TE Connectivity you recently implemented AI for contract management. Why don’t you start by describing the problem you were trying to solve?

Jim: One of the things we do at TE is we run what’s called a “business engagement survey.” It’s used to capture the voice of the customer; in this case that means the law department’s internal business customers. We really try to understand what is most important to them, and a recurring theme is speed, speed, speed, speed. They want to reduce turnaround time and work at what we call the “speed of the business.” So we had to quicken the process from the time from when, for instance, a contract is received from a supplier or customer and submitted to the law department to when the review is completed and it goes back to the requester.

Brad: How’s it been working? Can you share any metrics?

Sponsored

Jim: Once we gleaned through who the providers were that we thought could meet our needs, we did pilots with two different tools, and the one we eventually selected was BlackBoiler. Even in the pilot with BlackBoiler we were able to see a reduction in review time by 50%. And as far as the cycle time, we saw a 67% reduction.

Brad: There are some AI-powered tools that are designed to help with outside legal spend productivity metrics. Are you planning to implement some of those to help you on this journey?

Jim: I’m looking for a system that offers a lens into true productivity tracking. It’s not just billing rates data, but a look at the time needed to complete a variety of tasks and activities, and which resource/timekeeper is the most efficient and effective to be assigned to this type of work. Having access to this data allows for more sophisticated conversations instead of the typical, “You need to reduce your rates by X amount.” We’re really looking for something that can measure true productivity

Brad: Many in legal ops or elsewhere in law departments are in a situation like you described and probably have some sense that maybe there are AI tools out there that can help. It may be real commercial pressure from the business units or just the GC wondering if there are better ways to take advantage of all this AI we’re hearing about. What tips would you give them? What would you tell them to do first?

Jim: Start by making sure that you define the problem. In our case, we were looking for speed, productivity and also to increase capacity. So that’s number one. Then determine what type of current processes you have in place and what type of targets you are trying to hit and make it measurable.

Sponsored

There are various claims that are being made out there, so make sure whatever tool you ultimately select is going to be able to offer you with metrics so you can show the before and after because you need to prove out whatever claims you’re going to need to make within the company. So define the problem, but also come up with a way to measure to what extent you are making progress.

And the other thing is that there just really has not been a type of guide out there to get an overview of the players. So I think the Legal AI Efficacy Report will be a huge boost to consumers by providing really good practical knowledge for the selection process.

For additional detail about TE Connectivity’s Legal AI Efficacy experience, including:

• Particulars about the selection process, including specific problems and how the team overcame them
• More about why TE selected BlackBoiler
• The implementation and change management processes
• The reaction of the law department—and the business
• What’s next on TE’s Legal AI journey

Download The Full Interview By Filling Out The Form Below

Topics

, , , , , ,