This post was published by Jacob Sanders over at Consultwebs.
We live in the era of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, algorithms: our phones, our homes, our appliances are all ‘smart,” and churning out digital dumpsters of data daily. The power of this data is unrealized by the majority of the world. It just flies right over our head in a hypersonic jet stream of binary code, and fills the coffers of some whiz-kid programmer in Southern California – we guess.
For lawyers, Big Data represents an opportunity to use analytics and data science to enhance and grow their practice, test legal strategies and increase their chances of bringing their cases to a successful completion.
LAWsome, the only podcast for lawyers that eats like a legal seminar, sat down with legal tech scholar and data scientist, , and learned how lawyers are using big data to test trial strategies, discover biases in juries, and run their firms more efficiently. Below, we share a few insights from the interview. To listen to the full episode, CLICK HERE.
Big Data is a big deal
Big data is not fancy or futuristic and it’s definitely not new. Big data is a blanket term for all of the information that passes through our lives every day. All of the emails, all of the calls, the texts, the trial strategies, the files – all of this is ‘data,’ and data science allows us to glean insights from these massive sets of information.
How can Big Data help lawyers?
There are a few areas where data science can be a huge benefit for attorneys.
Discovery – When it comes to the labor of law, discovery can be one of the most strenuous tasks on a law firm’s resources. Data science offers law firms a way to comb through huge databases and find patterns in less time.
Trial Preparation – Imagine testing out cross-examination strategies, selecting jury questions, and running an A/B test on cross-examination tactics in 1,000 separate mock trials before the first day of court? With a little help from data science and some crowdsourcing, lawyers can use Big Data to help engineer winning trial strategies and increase settlements.
Firm Management –With the countless terabytes of data produced everyday in your law firm, big data offers managing partners a way to find weaknesses in their firm processes with less effort. If efficiency is a priority for your law firm, big data can be a big help in finding ways to improve.
How can your firm get started with Big Data?
According to Professor Chao, Big Data isn’t that large of a leap for attorneys. When it comes to pattern recognition and dealing with large sets of data, lawyers are in familiar territory. The path towards data literacy is more of an incremental arch. Start by analyzing and measuring processes within your workflow. Where is there a massive amount of data/steps/processes that can be mined for insights? Once you know where you want to improve, the next step is identifying the analytics to measure, and the experts that can help get you the desired results.
Using big data effectively requires lawyers to adopt a networking mindset. The goal of Big Data in the law firm is to help lawyers practice law at an enhanced level, not to bog them down with extra administrative tasks. Keep this in mind, and you can see big results from big data.
Want to learn more? Listen to the full episode on the LAWsome Podcast site. Sign up for the Consultwebs newsletter, or follow us on social media for more insights on legal strategies and digital marketing for lawyers.
