Combiner Wars: AI Usage Is Yet Another Reason for Lawyers to Stop Siloing Data

Law firms traditionally have an issue with data seepage, in the sense that most do not have a single repository for all firm documents – so, those files end up congregating in other spaces, like: a random Dropbox account, or a thumbdrive, or on somebody’s desktop. 

 

Now, that’s a problem, in general – you should have all your law firm data in one place, rather than being siloed, because it makes it far easier to find things, collaborate on documents, manage data security and integrate systems. 

 

And, if that wasn’t enough of a reason to organize your law firm documents into a single holding tank (honestly, that should be: Google Drive, if you use Google Workspace & Microsoft Sharepoint, if you use Microsoft 365), there is another pressing compulsion, now: your increasing use of artificial intelligence. 

 

There’s a lot of concern right now about frontier AI models breaking containment (which has already happened, numerous times), because that may not have a happy ending for humanity.  Of course, the stakes are much less dire, in terms of managing your law firm; however, the same principle applies – you’ll also want to avoid containment breaches, and ensure that your AI usage doesn’t go beyond prescribed bounds. 

 

So, if, as most attorneys do, you also wish to engage AI on a limited basis, rather than letting it run roughshod over all your business softwares, it makes sense, then, to secure and maintain your information inside singular systems, rather than using multiple, point systems, for the same types of data. 

 

In the above example, that means that you can allow an AI tool to access all your law firm files in one place – but, only if they are in one place. 

 

AI works very well to aggregate data; but, it works better and faster when that data is already structured. 

 

That’s where you come in 😊. 

 

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Let’s talk about how your current business processes can be better refined to optimize your use of AI.

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