At
one
point,
early
in
the
generative
AI
era,
I
wondered
if
developing
this
technology
to
essentially
take
over
first-pass
review
and
hand
senior
lawyers
who
view
computers
much
like
the
Supreme
Court
views
voting
rights
access
to
interrogate
discovery
materials
might
deal
a
devastating
blow
to
the
alternative
legal
service
provider
sector.
ALSPs
long
thrived
on
managing
brute
force
tasks
and
nuanced
eDiscovery
issues
that
generative
AI
was
poised
—
or
at
least
being
promised
—
to
replace.
With
enough
AI
power,
the
technology
could
go
beyond
ALSPs
and
even
supplant
outside
counsel
in
whole
areas
of
practice,
providing
in-house
legal
departments
the
juice
to
handle
more
matters
in-house.
Everyone’s
answer
was
always
no,
but
I
couldn’t
figure
out
at
the
time
what
room
vendors
expected
to
leave
for
ALSPs
if
all
their
AI
projections
came
to
pass.
As
it
turns
out,
a
lot.
Part
of
it
is
that
AI
didn’t
end
up
delivering
everything
the
tech
world
promised.
But
it
did
successfully
replace
a
lot.
And
the
ALSPs
now
seem
more
important
than
ever.
They’ve
got
the
revenue
to
prove
it.
These
providers
are
thriving
precisely
because
AI
isn’t
magic
as
much
as
a
mess.
A
powerful,
wonderful,
efficiency-driving
mess
of
constantly
evolving
technology
that
requires
full-time
professionals
just
to
keep
up
with
the
best
tools
for
the
jobs
at
hand.
AI
can
save
time—so
long
as
someone
knows
how
to
implement
and
supervise
it.
That
someone
is
usually
not
a
law
firm
partner
who’s
also
handling
litigation
strategy,
client
management,
and
wondering
if
their
2020
home
office
deduction
is
finally
coming
back
to
haunt
them.
“A
typical
call
with
a
chief
legal
officer
is…
‘I’ve
got
more
and
more
to
do,
more
regulatory
pressures,
more
litigation
pressures,
and
while
that’s
going
on
the
CFO
is
saying
please
spend
less
next
year,’”
Roger
Pilc,
president
and
general
manager
of
the
global
legal
solutions
business
at
Epiq
told
me.
“Then
the
CLO
has
got
this
plethora
of
tech
vendors.”
While
firms
marveled
at
the
shiny
new
buttons,
ALSPs
were
out
there
pressure-testing
LLMs,
running
side-by-side
model
evaluations,
and
actually
understanding
what
happens
to
your
data
when
it
gets
fed
into
a
vendor’s
“proprietary”
tool.
They’ve
become
the
guides
through
the
AI
wilderness
—
equal
parts
translator,
pilot,
and
compliance
officer.
That
generalized
expertise
in
technology
transcends
eDiscovery.
Renee
Meisel,
CEO
of
UnitedLex,
told
me
that
the
company
has
worked
to
figure
out
“how
to
use
its
muscles
across
the
entire
department.”
From
contract
review
to
incident
response
ALSPs
deliver
“tech
experience
for
clients,”
a
task
they’re
suited
to
provide
because
they’re
“more
nimble.”
Why
bring
in
outside
support
when
the
senior
associate
can
now
talk
to
their
documents
like
it’s
“Her”?
But
the
truth
is,
having
the
tools
isn’t
the
same
as
knowing
how
to
use
them.
ALSPs
have
become
the
go-to
resource
for
making
sense
of
AI’s
capabilities,
risks,
and
implementations
in
a
world
where
the
stakes
(and
the
fines)
keep
going
up.
“We
see
many
folks,
both
enterprise
and
law
firms,
say
‘you’ve
got
to
find
a
way
to
use
this
correctly,’
rather
than
‘oh
there’s
a
risk,
there’s
exposure…
it
might
hallucinate,”
Subroto
Mukerji,
CEO
of
Integron,
told
me.
“We’re
hearing
much
less
of
that
and
much
more
of
‘how
do
we
use
this?’”
As
the
adage
goes,
put
all
your
eggs
in
one
basket
and
then
watch
that
basket.
Especially
these
days.
Outside
consultants
are
uniquely
capable
of
watching
that
tech
basket.
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
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Joe
also
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Managing
Director
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Search.