AI Represents an Apocalypse to Traditional Law Firms: Traverse AI Founder Enrico Schaefer

As law practice across the world slowly embraces a slew of digital technologies, the need to eventually bridge the gap between law and technology becomes more pronounced.

Although transitioning to automation is a complex process, it's achievable in the long run. Moreover, studies have shown that lawyers and law firms that gravitate toward technology solutions offered by AI tools have a competitive advantage in this era.

At the intersection of law and technology is seasoned American tech and IP attorney Enrico Schaefer, the founder of Traverse Legal PLC.

Schaefer built Traverse AI, the world's first AI-enabled web application built upon OpenAI's state-of-the-art Large Language Model(LLM). By design, Traverse AI provides 24/7 client-assisted information on a range of legal issues–free of charge.

I recently sat down with Mr. Schaefer to discuss the impact of technology on the legal industry. Read on!

Mr. Schaefer, you are practising at the intersection of law and technology. How did you get there?

In 1992, I left my law firm to become the General Counsel of a technology startup in Boulder, Colorado. The company was working on new and emerging technology projects for a new and emerging technology called ‘the Internet.’ I have been ‘all in’ on technology and technology law ever since.

Most people agree that there is a huge gap between law and technology. Why do they still overlap despite the advances we've seen in automation?

The disconnect between technology, innovation, and law firms has to do with the general hesitancy of lawyers to change. Unlike many other industries, there has been less competition in law because of the advertising restrictions and disparity in expertise between lawyers and clients. The internet dramatically changed that dynamic by making information available to clients, previously only to lawyers.

Law firms were eventually forced to change as more innovative, smaller firms integrated technology. Let's face it, lawyers get up in the morning to bill hours. Why would law firms want to be able to perform more work in less time in an hourly billing environment?

We developed Traverse AI as a client intelligence tool. It provides free legal information to clients, information that they would have had to pay an hourly fee to access. Sure, we have reduced the reliance of clients on lawyers and the number of hours which might be billed. But we will have more intelligent clients better equipped for success. And we will be there to help them grow. That is far more valuable. That is innovation.

What makes one a 21st-century lawyer?

A 21st-century lawyer is open to changing the way law firms operate and innovate in the business of law. There is no real threat caused by being able to provide better quality work and less time to clients. If it takes me 10 minutes to do something that used to take me an hour, that leaves me 50 minutes to do more strategic and valuable work for my client. Lawyers spend a lot of time putting out fires.

In the age of AI, lawyers will spend more time helping their clients grow, innovate, and become successful.

According to a recent survey, there is a growing number of lawyers across the world who believe that AI will take their jobs. Is this fear unfounded?

There is still a lot of unknown. I think that lawyers who are less talented and innovative will see their jobs threatened by AI. However, the best lawyers will have their talents amplified and enhanced by AI. The best lawyers will lean into the technology. The best lawyers will become better and more sought after.

The old-guard law firms will talk a big game about AI but will not be able to integrate AI at a significant level.

The larger your organization, the more people there are to convince, train, and change. Our law firms will have the greatest potential benefit from AI. They will be able to implement the AI tools that are coming more quickly, more efficiently, and more comprehensively.

Do you agree that ChatGPT can and should be harnessed by lawyers? Why?

ChatGPT and many other artificial intelligence tools being developed and deployed will assist lawyers and clients in identifying, analyzing, and resolving legal issues. Much of the use will be dedicated to assisting lawyers so they can do better work in less time. A percentage of work done by lawyers will no longer be necessary since clients can access answers using AI.

AI represents an apocalypse to traditional law firms and traditional legal business models.

IP issues have found their way into the crypto sphere. Is this an interesting development?

Finally, two years ago, I beat a drum that few projects were listening to. Because these crypto and NFT projects had [FOMO](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283615/#:~:text=Fear%20of%20missing%20out%20(FoMO,to%20maintain%20these%20social%20connections.), they did not stop to consider the legal issues that were mission-critical to their success. They did not consider the importance of identifying, protecting, and growing their IP. NFT projects licensed digital assets without owning the copyright or in assets to which there could be no copyright.

A few projects performed a trademark clearance search to make sure they could establish rights in their project name. As a result of the market downturn, these projects can now take a breath and consider IP as the threshold to their business success.

With the growing adoption of blockchain technology, how do you think crypto should be regulated?

As a lawyer, I spend less time thinking about a wishlist and more time considering the reality of the situation. The SEC is putting many crypto projects, crypto exchanges, and NFT projects into the securities basket. That's the reality. Congress is taking forever to develop a regulatory scheme that will work for consumers and the blockchain industry. While many projects have downplayed the investment aspect of their business model, there are going to be projects which will fall within any and all definitions of security.

What's the toughest part of being a tech lawyer?

It would be the amount of time you spend learning about new technology; Time spent digging in on complex software and hardware issues. Fortunately, I love technology and learning about new technology. Technology is the catalyst that changes the world. Technology is always good in that it forces people to think about important issues without change we often drift through the world without questioning how and why we do what we do.

How did the Covid-19 pandemic affect legal practice in the US?

COVID inflicted massive amounts of change across the entire industry. It caused courts, lawyers, law firms, law schools, law students, and judges to completely rethink notions of legal practice and court operations. Zoom hearings and remote work are now forever part of the delivery of legal services.

That's for the best, and I love that we were forced to think about why we were doing certain things as lawyers, as courts, as judges, and as law schools. As mentioned above, the more dramatic the impetus to change, the more innovation potential. And I love innovation

Any parting words?

AI and blockchain will complement each other in ways we cannot imagine. These are two of the most powerful technologies in the history of mankind. We are about to see a decade of innovation, change, and challenge unlike we have ever seen in human history. There will be some good, and there will be some bad, but at the end of the day, we will have to think about what is best for mankind.

Ultimately, we will be pushed to consider what it means to be human, what is true and whether our current economic system is as idyllic as we think.

The lead image for this article was generated by HackerNoon's AI Image Generator via the prompt "a law firm on fire".