If legal departments want to deploy generative AI technology effectively, they will need to carefully steward the reams of data they possess.

This required emphasis on data management will likely prompt in-house legal teams to shift how they staff their departments, according to Stuart Fuller, global head of legal services at KPMG International.

He anticipates that general counsel will prioritize the hiring of more data scientists, including those with expertise in data curation, data prompting and knowledge management.

“I think we'll create essentially a new role in legal departments which is the modern-day law librarian: it’s the data-curation person,” Fuller told Legal Dive.

In-house legal teams will also need to hire more project managers, legal technologists and legal transformation specialists to facilitate the smooth deployment of emerging AI, he says.

These professionals will play a crucial role in ensuring change management efforts focused on generative AI tools are embraced by their departments, including by legal team members who are less technologically savvy.

“There's a significant degree of change and change management going on in the legal industry,” Fuller said. “So having the mindset around this change [that it] is actually a positive change that will generate benefits for clients, the business and the profession — and is not seen as something that's a threat or something to be minimized — is pretty fundamental.”

AI’s impact on lawyers

Fuller also predicts that the changes in the legal industry brought about by generative AI and other technologies will result in lawyers eventually being a minority on legal teams.

A key reason he foresees that shift is because more in-house legal work will be completed by data scientists, prompt engineers and operational experts.

But Fuller emphasizes he does not think AI will drastically reduce the need for lawyers in legal departments. Instead, he thinks in-house attorneys will need to prioritize different work.

The deployment of AI will result in attorneys, particularly those early in careers, shifting from handling primarily administrative-style tasks to taking on more complicated legal projects.

“So the days of ‘You earn your stripes by doing two years of x’ won't apply because, number one, technology will do it faster, more effectively, more accurately and cheaper,” Fuller said. “And secondly, clients will force their legal service providers to use the technology to do that because they won't pay for it themselves.”

Meanwhile, regulatory compliance is one area where he foresees continued strong demand for in-house legal work performed by lawyers. 

Fuller highlights the growing complexity of the regulatory environment as a major contributor to that prediction, and his comments are backed up by recent surveys about risks facing legal chiefs across the globe. 

“The volume and complexity of laws, of regulatory oversight, of government requirements, has only increased,” Fuller said. “Therefore, the pressure on the industry is more to change what it does and how it does it, rather than say, ‘Oh, we can have 45% less lawyers.’”