AI in Legal Blogging Demands the Same Visionary Leadership that Pioneered Legal Blogging’s Inception
Thad McIlroy, an electronic publishing analyst at The Future of Publishing, author, and founding partner of Publishing Technology Partners writes in Publisher’s Weekly that integration of AI in publishing is a challenging yet essential step for the industry.
Much of what McIlroy says applies to law firms and legal blogging with AI.
AI’s unfamiliarity breeds anxiety, but avoiding technological advancements is not a viable option. Leadership plays a crucial role in this transition. It’s vital for leadership to not only embrace AI but also to inspire their teams to experiment and share their findings.
McIlroy references an organizational tactic for new technology adoption called the “lighthouse approach,” recently referenced by the Economist.
A technology such as AI, per McIlroy.
You create a beacon by selecting one high-profile proof of concept that can be implemented quickly, that everyone can relate to.
This is exactly the approach law firms took to legal blogging, at blogging’s inception.
Law firms started with one legal blog, the vast majority written by one lawyer.
Seeing that the lawyer’s blogging built a reputation and in seven figures or more in annual revenue, the law firm added more blogs. In some cases, another thirty or forty more legal blogs.
All without the ethical problems law firms first feared from legal blogging.
McIlroy discusses the “human in the loop” in the process of AI in writing. AI does not publish on its own.
Same with legal blogging. Ideas, summation and more. “…[T]he machine is merely a tool.”
Law firm leaders – Managing Partners, CMO’s and leading lawyers should take the same approach with AI in legal blogging as they did with legal blogging, fifteen or twenty years ago.
Doing so is in the interest of the firm and the firm’s clients.