2024 Innovation Update Recap

Chantal McNaught, Practice Advisory Manager and PhD Candidate in Law

Microsoft recently published its 2024 Work Trend Index Annual Report which states that 75% of global workers use AI. Predictions are that Lawyers are also fast adopting these technologies to help with the work, and that New Zealand is leading the world both with Practice Guidelines and Court Guidance. 

With 75% of global workers using AI, it’s clear that the legal AI arms race is well and truly underway. Our 2024 Innovation Update is all about helping you take the lead.

Here is what we covered:

1. AI-assisted matter-based searching, analysis and drafting with Matter AI.

2. Streamlined and efficient document creation through the Template Generator.

3. Verified legal research queries via LawY (soon to be released).

4. Automated time capture with intelligence through Matter Activity Recording. 

Matter AI

LEAP is a legal practice productivity solution and Matter AI is just one of several innovations we have released to enhance lawyers’ and legal teams’ productivity, efficiency and accuracy. 

Matter AI is your firm’s very own walled garden AI for your LEAP matters. It is a helpful assistant that provides you with information from your matter details and correspondence. It is knowledgeable and powerful enough to produce timelines, draft letters, and trawl through the voluminous correspondence so your team does not have to. 

Scenarios that were covered in the presentation 

To highlight the broad use cases for Matter AI, several scenarios were covered:

1. Partner wanting to review or supervise a matter.

2. Legal Executive wanting to process something on behalf of a lawyer.

3. Lawyer wanting to review documents and refresh their mind.

4. Accounts manager wanting to transform matter account information.

Now imagine what productivity you can unleash knowing you can narrow in on exactly the information you need it, without the hassle of trawling through a voluminous matter correspondence which has been going on for years.

Try it yourself: What other productivity boosts does having a secure, helpful Matter AI integrated inside your LEAP matter give you? 

Find out more about how to use Matter AI and LEAP here: Matter AI (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

Generator

Another productivity tool added to the latest round of innovations included in LEAP Desktop 2.5 is designed to streamline the document creation process. 

What makes LEAP unique is its deep Content offering that is the pre-configured matters, tables, fields, critical dates and automated court and ministry forms as well as signature documents all firms use. 

The LEAP Generator empowers you as LEAP users to safely and responsibly take advantage of Generative AI technology with LEAP’s unique Content offering to create documents faster than ever before. 

By using Generator, your precedent and template selection will be streamlined, as its advanced AI capabilities make precedents and Content more discoverable than ever. 

How Generator does this is through AI-powered similarity search to identify documents from firm-based sources. These include: 

• Your Matter correspondence

• The firm correspondence

• Your created precedents

• Firm created precedents 

• By Lawyers precedents

• LEAP Forms

• LawY generated documents, and

• LawY Verified documents (coming soon).

Seeing it in action

Transform firm correspondence into templates directly via the Guides and Precedents with Generator. Find or even generate a letter to beneficiaries and have the matter fields automatically populate from the matter in about a minute. It is even more helpful to generate new content for those once-off type work, or use the trusted By Lawyers content. 

This is your new default. You can adjust the filters and relevancy to help find the firm correspondence you’re looking for, without having to leave the matter. You can also create generated content in both Word and Email formats. 

Try it yourself: See if you can find documents from previous situations you face every day in law practice and automatically insert fields. See how the Generator can streamline the legal process in identifying firm-based sources more quickly than ever before. 

Find out more about accessing the Generator in the Guides and Precedents here: Generator (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

Matter Activity Recording

Matter Activity Recording is LEAP’s automated time-capture for all matter-related work. This includes PDFs, appointments, emails, Word documents, Excel sheets, and comments. 

Simply ensure your work is saved back to LEAP and Matter Activity Recording will auto-record your time on your Timesheet. 

Wondering how much time you spent last week was so yesterday. 

The full rundown of resources about Matter Activity Recording is here:

• How Matter Activity Recording Works (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

• Matter Activity Recording & Online Invoice - Frequently Asked Questions (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

• Viewing Recorded Activities (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

• Settings for Matter Activity Recording (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

• Fee Earner Performance Module Report (leaplegalsoftware.co.nz)

Coming Soon: LawY

Among the functionality demonstrated and discussed is the product LawY, developed by a sister company of LEAP.

LawY is rapidly gaining recognition by lawyers and legal teams as a reliable legal AI assistant for LEAP firms worldwide. It provides instant AI-generated answers to legal queries, which are then meticulously reviewed and verified by qualified local lawyers.

In this exciting announcement to New Zealand, LawY is assembling a verification panel comprising of lawyers who will assess, refine, and validate AI-generated responses to questions posed by New Zealand LEAP firms. These esteemed individuals are known as “Verify Members.”

Verify Members are the human element to LawY and what makes it an entirely unique AI-based solution for legal teams requiring research in a pinch. 

As a Verify Member, you have the opportunity to be at the forefront of legal AI-assisted technologies here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Your contributions will directly impact the quality and accuracy of LawY’s assistance to LEAP lawyers.

Key details for Verify Members

• Compensation: Verify Members will be compensated at their hourly rate.

• Flexibility: Participation is flexible, and LawY values regular contributions from Verify Members.

• Streamlined Process: LawY uses a standard, short-form retainer and a simplified billing process to make participating as a Verify Member as easy as possible.

More about LawY

LawY was launched in late August 2023, initially focusing on family law in Australia. It is now accessible to LEAP users across various areas of law in Australia, the UK, and select Canadian jurisdictions. Currently, almost 5,000 lawyers rely on LawY, generating approximately 3,000 questions globally each week.

The announcement in the 2024 Innovations is that we intend to make LawY available to LEAP firms in New Zealand very soon.

Verified responses are used to compile a proprietary knowledge-base which is used in a large language model (LLM). The end result is a smarter AI-powered application that is better at answering legal questions with less human intervention.

How to register

If you’re interested in this opportunity, please click here to review the LawY Verify Member eligibility criteria and express your interest. Upon receiving your application, a member of the LawY team will reach out to continue the conversation.

See LawY in action

LawY NZ: How to ask a question in LawY (wistia.com)

Watch the full recording

To view the full recording of the 2024 Innovations update, register and view on the LEAP University. 

Feedback and comments

Tell us your thoughts on the 2024 Innovations update and this Blog. We love to hear from LEAP firms and take action on your valued feedback. Please send your emails to marketing@leaplegalsoftware.co.nz.