Professionals were attracted to blogging twenty years ago because the platform they were asked to use was so darn intuitive and easy to use.
To get LexBlog, the first legal blogging platform for professionals, off the ground I told lawyers that if they could write an email they could write a blog post. Put in the subject, pen the copy and hit publish – all from your browser.
Lawyers were amazed with the immediate publishing to the net of their “article” and its quick ranking on Google.
Deploying AI in a legal publishing solution such as LexBlog’s managed WordPress platform can be much the same.
One, establish trust in the solution and two, make the solution very easy to use.
I interviewed Kerry O’Brien, Clio’s Senior Manager of Learning and Development, at ClioCon about, among other things, establishing trust in an AI solution in order for lawyers to use the solution. Clio just released Duo which will bring AI to all Clio offerings.
O’Brien talked about “freezing” lawyers where they were. Where’s the baseline where lawyers already feel comfortable? Only when establishing a baseline can you start moving things up and establishing another baseline.
Looking at Duo in Jack Newton’s presentation and in a personal demo of the interface, I could feel a lot of how I use AI in my work.
More than any AI solution I use OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Understand I am not using AI for coding, medicine or rocket science. I use AI as a personal assistant for feedback and ideas and as an assistant in writing emails, blog posts and the like.
GPT is simple to use – for me – and it’s intuitive, especially when you are establishing your own method and style of using the solution.
I am trusting GPT in such use and I would guess 50% of lawyers use and trust GPT when using it in similar ways. We only had 50% of lawyers trusting and using email four or five years before blogging solutions.
GPT, like blogging solutions of twenty years ago is simple and easy to use. Key items into an interface in a conversational way, revising copy along the way. When complete, and assuming you wish to use the copy elsewhere, just copy and paste selected text.
In the early days of blogging, platforms such as Blogger, Movable Type, and WordPress enabled users to publish content online without needing advanced technical skills or training. Compared to traditional websites, which required knowledge of HTML and web hosting, blogging software simplified the publishing process, making it accessible to a broad audience.
These blogging platforms allowed for chronological posting, categorization, and archives, creating a structured way to publish ongoing content for publications such as legal blogs. And with only the skills used in drafting an email.
These features made blogging software attractive as a simple, flexible, and a personally driven way to publish online.
Fast forward to AI in legal publishing. Introduce AI in a trusted, intuitive and simple blogging interface. Empower lawyers to grow into the use of AI in publishing and to use AI in writing in the manner in which they feel most effective and comfortable – beginning with how they use GPT already.
Maybe it’s leveraging OpenAI’s API which LexBlog has been running for legal professionals in its AI solution, Lou.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is used by legal professionals for their own writing and it is used by legal tech companies and legal publishers as part of their offerings for lawyers – including for document production.
Perhaps AI in legal publishing is, for now, as simple as keeping things simple and using things that are trusted by legal professionals.
My gut tells me AI, probably via OpenAI’s API, can be “embedded” into legal publishing solutions in a way that it makes it as easy to use and as trustworthy as original blogging platforms.
What do you think?