By Thomas Spigolon
What You Need to Know
- Barrett & Farahany is using Eve, an AI platform developed by a San Francisco-based startup company, for its legal work.
- The Atlanta-based, labor and employment boutique has plans to use it to power almost all the operations of the firm.
If AI represents the next wave of technology that allows lawyers to more efficiently run their business operations, an Atlanta-based firm intends to ride it all the way.
Labor and employment boutique Barrett & Farahany is using Eve, an AI platform developed by a San Francisco-based startup company, for its legal work and has plans to use it to power almost all the operations of the firm.
Managing partner Amanda Farahany said Barrett & Farahany is considering using Eve for everything from human resources and finances to client intake.
“I think it’s revolutionary. It’s integral to every part of what we do at the firm,” she said. “We can see there’s possibilities in every one of these [areas].”
The firm already is using Eve for all its legal work and has saved over 20 hours per week managing tasks like discovery, and decreased response times from 10 to 20 hours down to 30 to 45 minutes, according to information from the firm.
Farahany said her firm’s trial lawyers already are using it for work that traditionally has been “monotonous,” such as preparing documents.
“I don’t see AI replacing people in law, but I see it allowing lawyers to spend more of their time doing the work that’s the important part, and letting a computer do what it can do. It’s more about leveraging people.”
The technology also helps the firm better represent more clients, many of whom are seeking judgments against former employers who may be large corporations with more resources, Farahany said. The firm has 26 lawyers across offices in Atlanta, Birmingham and Chicago.
“You have a ‘David vs. Goliath’ situation where you have the little guy going against a large corporation,” she said.
Farahany noted AI allows the firm to be more efficient with the time spent analyzing and researching a client’s case, reducing it from hours to minutes for such tasks as creating transcripts of client phone calls.
“I can spend that hour, instead, on talking to clients … doing some strategy,” she said. “Adopting this technology is imperative for maximizing client outcomes and fulfilling our mission of delivering justice at work, thereby enabling us to assist a greater number of clients effectively.”
Jay Madheswaran, CEO of Eve, said what his company has developed “ensures that AI becomes a seamless and strategic asset” that allows legal professionals to focus on developing client relationships “while the technology handles the complexities behind the scenes.”
However, according to recent studies, some concerns apparently are holding back the wider use of the technology in the legal profession. A 2023 poll by the Association of Corporate Counsel and the law firm Lowenstein Sandler found that only 64% of in-house counsel have used AI for legal tasks, with such concerns as legal risks, ethical considerations and restrictions on use.
Farahany noted the tool is useful in the discovery phase of cases, though the firm’s lawyers still must take the time to double-check the information it retrieves.
“Of course, there’s still the hallucination factor that you have to deal with. It’s really important that you’re checking,” Farahany said.
She said the firm also does disclose to its clients that it’s using AI to prepare documents and none have complained.
AI platforms like Eve also have been credited with allowing smaller firms like Farahany’s to compete with larger firms for business—especially on matters that traditionally have required large numbers of lawyers doing a large amount of research.
It has proven especially helpful to labor and employment firms because of AI’s already widespread use in the labor market, said officials with national labor & employment firm Fisher & Phillips.
Evan Shenkman, chief knowledge and innovation officer for Fisher Phillips, told Law.com earlier this year that, “For many reasons, some valid and some invalid, law firms tend to be risk-averse, especially when it comes to legal technology.”
“So I see two keys to encouraging innovation in the legal industry: firms need to be willing to go out on a limb and be an early supporter of startups, and firms have to be willing to publicly evangelize their innovative technology.
“The first question many law firms ask innovative legal tech providers is, ‘Who else is using it?’, and unless the answer rattles off a list of Am Law luminary customers, they’ll pass. Moreover, if firms are actually willing to take a chance on a startup, most then still refuse to go on record and talk about it publicly. To encourage innovation in the legal industry, that needs to change,” Shenkman said.
