The
biggest
roadblock
to
legal
tech
adoption
often
rests
between
the
lawyer’s
keyboard
and
the
chair.
It’s
not
that
firms
aren’t
out
there
buying
technology
—
either
with
the
help
of
IT
professionals
or
well-informed
consultants
—
but
after
the
money
gets
spent,
there’s
still
a
battle
ahead
to
get
lawyers
to
actually
use
this
stuff.
In
a
notoriously
tech-skeptic
profession,
the
challenge
is
almost
always
about
adoption.
Which
presents
an
all
new
problem
when
it
comes
to
generative
AI.
Because
unlike
a
new
accounting
tool,
merely
building
a
worthwhile
AI
product
depends
upon
adoption.
The
release
of
Clio
Duo
—
the
company’s
foray
into
generative
AI
—
dominated
the
Clio
Cloud
Conference
this
week.
For
now,
the
offering
is
focused
on
Clio’s
core
product
Clio
Manage,
with
plans
to
spread
its
capabilities
into
the
rest
of
Clio’s
products
going
forward.
But
I
saw
Clio
Duo
a
year
ago
and
found
it
a
solid
product
even
then.
So
what
took
so
long
to
get
to
wide
release?
Obviously,
it’s
mostly
about
beta
testing
and
perfecting
the
product
at
the
margins,
but
one
thing
I
hadn’t
considered
before
this
week
is
that
AI
flips
the
product
development
path
on
its
head,
making
the
profession’s
adoption
problem
an
even
more
pernicious
hurdle.
“The
build
cycle
for
AI
to
be
useful
is
completely
different
than
the
feature
cycle
of
the
past,”
said
Jonathan
Watson,
Clio’s
Chief
Technology
Officer.
“Because
you
actually
need
to
release
things,
and
people
need
to
legitimately
use
it,
not
just
give
you
their
opinions
on
it.
So
you
can
fuel
the
self-referential
learning
that
needs
to
happen
to
improve
the
quality
of
the
overall
product.”
Past
products
need
a
handful
of
dedicated
testers
to
pass
along
their
notes
and
observations
and
engineers
to
methodically
add
improvements
until
everyone
is
ready
to
go
gold.
But
generative
AI
doesn’t
work
like
that.
Even
old
machine
learning
didn’t
work
that
way!
With
the
non-generative
AI
tools
of
the
past,
a
developer
could
jam
it
full
of
a
bunch
of
data,
check
the
outcomes,
and
keep
training
until
the
outcomes
were
consistently
right
and
call
it
a
day.
But
generative
AI
products
improve
by
getting
fed
data,
context,
and
a
hefty
dose
of
real-world
applications.
There’s
a
unique,
symbiotic
relationship
between
lawyers
and
AI.
That’s
where
the
legal
profession’s
historical
resistance
to
new
technology
becomes
a
problem
because
getting
this
stuff
right
can’t
rely
on
a
couple
of
true
believers,
there
needs
to
be
a
critical
mass
of
adoption
at
the
beta
stage.
Watson
said,
“We
need
you
to
use
this
thing
and
it’s
going
to
get
better
every
day
over
the
next
like
month
because
we’re
refining
and
tuning
based
on
information
that
we’re
getting
back.
And
if
you
don’t
do
that,
it’s
going
to
take
us
a
lot
longer
to
work
our
way
through
it.
And
I
believe
every
AI
product
is
suffering
or
struggling
with
that
in
many,
many
different
ways.”
Imagine
that…
a
situation
where
lawyers
getting
involved
actually
makes
the
world
better.
In
the
past,
firms
could
afford
a
little
tech
conservatism.
But
if
AI
is
really
the
future
of
legal
work,
lawyers
can’t
wait
until
it’s
“perfected,”
they
need
to
dirty
their
hands
with
the
technology
to
advance
the
ball.
The
Clio
2024
Legal
Trends
Report showed
that
a
plurality
of
clients
want
lawyers
on
AI
and
roughly
70
percent
either
want
firms
using
AI
or
have
no
preference.
Unless
that
support
collapses,
lawyers
need
to
invest
in
the
tech
and
that
will
mean
crossing
the
adoption
threshold
sooner
than
later.
The
good
news
is
that
lawyers
seem
more
willing
to
engage
with
AI
than
they
have
with
previous
tech
advancements.
We’ve
already
seen
generative
AI
drive
more
lawyer
enthusiasm
than
past
products
and
the
Legal
Trends
Report
reflects
faster
adoption
than
normal.
Which
did
carry
over
to
the
Clio
Duo
development
process.
As
Watson
said,
“we
feel
so
good
where
it
is
now,
because
we’ve
narrowed
down
on
the
problems,
we
know
they’re
meaningful,
we
have
feedback
that
tells
us,
‘yes,
I
use
this,
and
it
saves
me
time,
and
I
miss
it
if
it’s
gone.’
And
all
of
these
really
great
signals
that
tell
you
you’ve
hit
that
level.”
Clio
has
the
luxury
of
serving
a
relatively
tech-savvy
slice
of
the
legal
community.
But
the
testing
adoption
issue
might
prove
more
problematic
for
other
sectors.
In
any
event,
if
lawyers
really
believe
in
the
potential
for
generative
AI
to
improve
their
workflow,
they
can’t
afford
to
wait
until
some
magic
product
drops
from
the
heavens.
Get
in
on
the
development
process
now.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.
Joe
also
serves
as
a
Managing
Director
at
RPN
Executive
Search.
Olga
Kathryn
Chris
