Lawyers
are
still
using
real,
live
people
to
take
a
first
crack
at
document
review,
but
much
like
the
“I’m
not
dead
yet”
guy
from
Monty
Python
and
the
Holy
Grail,
it’s
a
job
that
will
be
stone
dead
soon.
Because
there
are
a
lot
of
deeply
human
tasks
that
AI
will
struggle
to
replace,
but
getting
through
a
first
run
of
documents
doesn’t
look
like
one
of
them.
At
last
week’s
Relativity
Fest,
the
star
of
the
show
was
obviously
Relativity
aiR
for
Review,
which
the
company
moved
to
general
availability.
In
conjunction
with
the
release,
Relativity
pointed
to
impressive
results
the
product
racked
up
during
the
limited
availability
period
including
Cimplifi
reporting
that
the
product
cut
review
time
in
half
and
JND
finding
a
60
percent
cut
in
costs.
“We’ve
used
Relativity
aiR
for
Review
on
multiple
live
projects
with
tremendous
success,”
said Mike
Cichy,
Regional
Manager
of
Litigation
Support
at
Foley
&
Lardner
LLP.
“In
one
case, we
had
an
extremely
tight
production
deadline;
aiR
for
Review
completed
the
review,
which
would
have
taken
over
15
people
and
three
weeks
of
time,
in
less
than
one
week,
all
while
delivering
results
that
far
outperformed
what
we’ve
seen
in
traditional
human
review.”
A
recurring
tale
among
early
users
was
a
belt-and-suspenders
approach
to
first
pass
review,
maintaining
a
team
of
human
reviewers
as
a
quality
assurance
measure.
It’s
a
natural
response
for
a
terminally
overcautious
profession,
but
it’s
also
one
that
multiple
early
adopters
said
they
ultimately
would
abandon
as
unnecessary.
In
fact,
more
than
one
said
the
humans
were
just…
more
wrong.
Not
released
to
the
general
public
yet
—
but
coming
soon
—
Relativity
also
previewed
its
aiR
for
Privilege
product
capable
of
identifying
privileged
documents
and
drafting
a
consistent,
single
voice
privilege
log.
Troutman
Pepper,
already
using
the
limited
availability
product,
anticipates
it
will
cut
privilege
review
time
by
more
than
50
percent.
One
testimonial
provided
at
the
keynote
shared
that
the
product
correctly
found
a
clutch
of
hundreds
of
privileged
documents
that
the
human
reviewers
had
missed.
Turning
over
first
pass
to
the
computers
isn’t
entirely
new.
We’ve
had
TAR
procedures
that
could
tackle
this
for
some
time,
but
lawyers
spent
the
last
decade
performatively
bad
mouthing
tech
review
in
the
courts.
Now,
armed
with
generative
AI,
attorneys
seem
to
have
discovered
a
new
level
of
trust.
Especially
senior
lawyers
who
are
actually
engaging
with
discovery
platforms
for
the
first
time.
How
long
will
attorneys
keep
humans
in
the
loop
for
their
own
peace
of
mind?
As
Relativity’s
CAO/CLO
Adam
Weiss
told
me,
“the
more
ubiquitous
this
technology
becomes,
the
runway
gets
shortened
considerably.”
In
other
words,
lawyers
won’t
let
AI
take
the
wheel
out
of
the
gate,
but
the
more
customers
are
willing
to
say
“trust
us,
we
did
the
same
thing
and
you’ll
soon
realize
it’s
costly
and
useless,”
it’s
going
to
get
harder
to
justify
keeping
the
human
first
pass
reviewers
around.
Which
is
good
news
for
clients
and
attorneys
trying
to
do
more
and
higher
level
work.
It’s
not
particularly
great
news
for
folks
working
as
contract
attorneys
to
pick
up
work
on
brute
force
review
projects.
There’s
still
a
market
for
alternative
legal
service
providers
—
collecting
and
loading
up
documents
remains
a
skill
that
outside
consultants
can
perform
better
and
cheaper
than
a
law
firm.
But
anyone
out
there
with
a
business
model
reliant
on
throwing
hundreds
of
bodies
at
a
problem
should
start
rethinking.
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.