This week, we’re excited to share an exclusive Q&A with Ben Roe, Lead Knowledge Lawyer for Global Disputes & Compliance at Baker McKenzie, who will be speaking at Future Lawyer UK 8.0 on Litigation Day.
Ben is responsible for knowledge management and training for over 1,400 litigation, arbitration, and compliance lawyers across 74 offices. His team focuses on enhancing technical standards and efficiency, and he will discuss how AI tools are transforming case assessment, risk management, and settlement strategies.
Before joining Baker McKenzie, Ben spent a decade in private practice. He’s also a CEDR-accredited mediator and serves as an officer of the IBA Litigation Committee.
Ben will participate in the panel discussion “AI-Augmented Legal Strategy: Transforming Litigation Practice through the Legal and End Client Lens.” With deep expertise in high-value commercial litigation, regulatory, and internal investigations, he’ll share insights on how AI is reshaping litigation strategies.
Meet Ben at Future Lawyer UK this April! But before then, we hope you enjoy this exclusive interview.
How do you see the role of law firms evolving in response to the rapid technological changes in the legal industry? What trends do you predict will shape the future of legal services?
As Jack Welch said, if the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near. The law firms that succeed will obviously be those that master these technologies and integrate them into their client service. Certainly within our own firm, we have seen that lawyers and support staff need to invest an increasing amount of time in understanding new technologies and how best to use them. In my own role as a knowledge management lawyer, I’d say it’s currently around 30% of my job.
With clients increasingly demanding more efficiency and cost-effectiveness, how do you balance the use of technology with maintaining high standards of legal counsel and personalised client service?
I can still remember when we would find English cases from the 1990s and earlier which were decided per incuriam because the court and the advocates were unaware of a prior conflicting judgment. Since the advent of electronic case searching that doesn’t really happen any longer. I can also remember the litigation department of my first firm 20 years ago which had an entire building of paralegals conducting disclosure review all day long. That doesn’t happen any longer either, due to technology assisted review. Technology can drive both quality and efficiency.
The risk is using tech to cut corners. I think that is more of a risk for smaller firms running commoditised business models with high volume, low margin work. For larger firms, sophisticated corporate counsel are generally well aware of both the risks and the opportunities from using the latest technology. They are not going to accept external law firms billing the same whilst reducing their standards.
As legal tech advances, so do the concerns around data security and privacy. How is your firm addressing these challenges to ensure client confidentiality and compliance?
We never compromise client confidentiality and every technology tool we use goes through an extensive audit process including for data security.
What role do you see AI playing in dispute resolution, especially in predicting case outcomes or automating elements of the dispute process? How reliable and accepted are these AI-driven solutions among legal practitioners?
Last year I was at a practice group meeting in Munich with a couple of hundred of our EMEA disputes attorneys, and I asked them the same a similar question: how can AI tools be most useful for us as litigators? We identified more than 20 possible use cases and put them to a vote. Top of the list was summarising judgments, followed by drafting chronologies. Predicting outcomes or automating disputes came lower down the list.
I think this reflects reality: we’ll gain traction with the simplest use cases first, like summarising and basic drafting. We’re already using AI for these tasks at Baker McKenzie. We’re also seeing some changes in the document review process. Predictive analytics is fascinating and we’re seeing pockets of use in certain specialisms and jurisdictions. Of course litigation funders were investing heavily in this area well before the recent AI boom. In general, the tools are pretty reliable but everything requires human oversight.
With the increasing use of digital tools in litigation, how are law firms addressing concerns related to data security and privacy? What best practices are emerging to protect sensitive information?
The basics are obvious. Don’t put your client’s data onto public platforms (including public AI tools) and make sure your in house tech is secure. Law firms should be thinking about the usual security issues such as data encryption, multi-factor authentication, audits, response plans, vendor oversight and employee training.
However, the biggest challenge for us at the moment is helping our clients with their own data security and sensitive information. Technology is making it easier than ever to create large volumes of documents and other data. MS Teams can record and transcribe every call. MS Recall takes screenshots of your screen every few seconds. All of this is a huge potential data privacy, disclosure and privilege risk.
What emerging technologies do you believe will have the biggest impact on litigation and dispute resolution in the next 5-10 years? How should legal professionals prepare for these changes?
Most court systems are under-resourced and have heavy caseloads. Governments will see online DR platforms, and AI in particular, as a way to solve these issues. We’ll see increasing digitalisation in the courts, initially for issues like case triage and assisting settlement, then moving into decision making for lower value claims (probably still subject to human review). Indeed some court systems such as Brazil and China and already pretty far down this path.
Law firms and businesses will use AI in their litigation departments to analyse evidence, review documents, assist with research and conduct drafting. Predictive tools will become more common but will ultimately be limited by public availability of past data. We’ll start to see use of emotion AI in the courts (is this argument landing well with the judge?; is this witness telling the truth?), likely accompanied by a wave of ethical debate and regulation on this topic.
Legal professionals should prepare by staying informed and experimenting with new tech in a responsible way. And remember Jack Welch: change before you have to.
Don’t miss the chance to gain valuable insights from Ben Roe and other esteemed speakers this April. It’s also a unique opportunity to network and forge meaningful connections with leading experts and like-minded professionals throughout the four-day event.
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