GA 610 | Lean and AI in the Legal Field with Heather Underwood and Adam Marsland

And none of us can claim to fully understand where it's going or how the advent of AI will disrupt us next. But rather than leading with certainty, I think instead we should lead with conviction and conviction of people, purpose, conviction in the way we stay curious. I think we'll find the opportunities hidden in that certainty.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Adam Marsland and Heather Underwood to the show. Now, as you'll hear, Adam and Heather are calling in from England and they're both in the. The legal world. And while Adam's been on the show before, so longtime listeners probably remember Adam. But today we talk a little bit about how.

Lean and AI are playing a role in leading change in their world, in the legal world. And so we get right into it, just talking about lean and artificial intelligence in the legal industry. Talk about how they're using it to practice continuous improvement and then how they're leveraging AI. Obviously, they got to be really careful, right, with AI in a legal world, we all do. But in particular, gosh, imagine a lawyer using AI and getting a wrong answer from chat TBT and advising their client poorly. That wouldn't be good. So. So they have some unique things that they're working through as well. And so, wow, it was a really fun conversation towards the end. We talked about, you know, sort of like, what do you think the world's going to be like in five years? And, and who knows, you know, as a, as a. I wonder myself, you know, just like, what. What's AI going to look like in. In five years? What's the world going to look like, humanity going to look like? Will we be able to think? That was one of my questions that I brought up. Like, I worry about my own kids. Like, are they going to learn how to think or are they just going to go to ChatGPT and get all the answers? So it was a really fun conversation. I think you're going to enjoy this one. So show notes can be found over at Gemba Podcast. This is episode 610 again, gembapodcast.com and look for episode 610. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to the show.

Adam and Heather, welcome to the show. How are you?

Very well, thanks. How are you?

I'm well, thank you. Adam. Heather, how are you?

Yeah, wonderful. Thanks for having us on.

Okay. Yeah. So where are you both calling in from?

I'm calling in just south of Birmingham, so right in the middle of England. It's probably the easiest way of describing it.

Okay.

And I'm, I'm A little further north. I'm, I'm. I'm in between Birmingham and Manchester, so the nearest city is Stoke on Trent for me.

Okay, I guess the most important question is football teams. Are you guys, you know, similar or arch enemies or what's going on there?

So, Ron, I'm pretty confident in saying, I think out of all the podcasts you've ever done, this probably be the first time you've had a Port Vale fan on. So.

And in terms of arch rivals, I mean, Heather, I don't want to speak for you, but I'm pretty sure that you'd have to go long and far, really, to find somebody that dislikes Port Vale as a club because they are so small and, dare I say it, minuscule and insignificant. But Heather, I don't want to speak for you.

I have no idea, Von, about football. I am the worst English person ever.

Okay? Don't worry.

My team is Aston Villa by proximity, but I have no idea how they are doing. So.

All good. All of my American listeners like football. Wait, talking about the Cowboys or whatever. Like European football, original football. Right. Soccer, as we would call it. So awesome. All right, well, hey, I'm excited to have you both on. I think this is going to be a fun conversation. So as you, I think both know, we like to get things going out of the gate with our guests. In this case, two guests sharing a quote. So do you both have one?

Sure.

Should I jump in and go first then? So I appreciate being on a couple of times before and given quite specific lean quotes or continuous improvement quotes. I tried to give something different this time and it's from Marcus Aurelius and it arrives from Stoic philosophy. And it's. Everything's destiny is to change, to be transformed and to perish so that new things can be born. And I really like that quote because I think transformation in organizations relies on accepting that nothing's permanent and that ongoing, ongoing adaption is essential for growth and innovation. And that ties really nicely, obviously into our world and into lean in terms of pure perfection can never be achieved. And I think we see that as part of our daily practice.

Got it. Got it. Heather.

For me, I would say that questions are places in your mind where answers fit. And if you haven't asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go, which I think is Clayton Christensen. The meaning I take from it is that you need to sort of intentionally clear some room in your mind for answers because otherwise insights just pass us by. They come at us all day long and we'll just miss them if we haven't created that mental space. And the best way of doing that, I think, is by asking the question. I think in Lean as well, you see it work well with those questions that are, how can we do better tomorrow than we did today? Because you've created that spot in your awareness to see those potential small improvements instead of waiting for the really big breakthroughs.

Love it. Love it. Very good. All right, well, maybe to get things going, let's hear a little bit about both of your backgrounds. And you know, Adam, you've been on before, but go ahead and just remind everybody just a little bit about your background. And then obviously your sort of the theme today is Lean in sort of a legal world. So that's very interesting to me. And not. Not your typical way of practicing lean, I would say. So I'm curious to hear about that as well.

Yeah, of course. In terms of my background, no. So I'm the Director of Business Transformation at Oric. And just for your listeners, ORIC are a global law firm and they generally focus on four sectors which are technology and innovation, energy and infrastructure, finance and life sciences. And it's a global firm, but predominantly centred in the US really diverse client base. You know, 13 of the top 15 US financial institutions, 15 of the 20 largest public biopharma companies, and 13 of the 25 largest public tech companies we represent. In terms of my background, I've done a similar job previously in a couple of different law firms. And I'm sure if people want to scour your archives, they can probably, they can probably, probably find my previous employers. And before that I was an investment banker for 10 years or so. Nice.

Okay, Heather.

So I work as a business transformation lead at avic, which is essentially helping people solve their problems every day, which I absolutely love to do. Before that, I did a very similar role at a previous law firm and did that for about five years. And then before that I was on the line, transactional person in hr. So I really got to see all those process pain points and it really got me into actually trying to make the processes better rather than working in them.

All right, all right, well, let's jump right in. So maybe, I don't know, to kick things off, we can talk a little bit about how you both see the role of Lean that many of our listeners are very passionate about, and artificial intelligence and sort of how they're both working in the legal industry. I'm especially interested. We've talked a lot about Lean, you know, in the past. I don't know, we can go into that, but AI is very fascinating to me because, well, I mean, I get nervous using chat GBT for my work and I'm not doing legal work, you know what I mean? Because you don't know what to trust and all the rest of it. So I'm really fascinated to hear how, how you guys are leveraging the technology.

Sure, I'll take this one, Ron. So you're right. Lean in Professional Services is, I would say, significantly different than manufacturing and possibly hasn't been subject to the decades of trial and error, rigor and academic research. And it's also just different inefficiency, waste. It appears differently in different guises and I think that's particularly relevant in law. I understand we have covered this previously, but law's only started dipping its toe into the world of Lean across the last 10 or 15 years or so. And as such it's a greenfield site of opportunity. And with that comes a relevance of an identification of basic pockets of waste intertwined with a product. And in this case it's delivery legal services. And it brings some unique complexities and its own challenges to the pursuit of Lean. And also Lean is challenging centuries old assumptions in terms of how to complete the work, which in a previous time lawyers could charge clients for their inefficiencies through time on the clock. But we're on the precipice of change accelerated by AI. And speaking of which, that the role of AI is growing client expectations and overall challenge on costs. Legal specific technology have made the availability of those tools abundant in the legal market. There's also cultural change too. Law firms are genuinely more interested in this type of technology, which is perhaps a step change compared to other technologies and previous assumptions. And I don't think we're there yet, despite the growing capabilities of tools like ChatGPT as you've just mentioned. But I think there's the challenge. Combining the influx of all this exploratory technology and AI with growing influence of Lean and Law. And this will all play out on the backdrop of no established reference point with two relatively new concepts in the legal industry.

Maybe just as a quick follow up, Adam, give us a. Or Heather, give us just a rundown then as I don't know how much we're going to dive into it here today, but just.

Some examples of how you might be using Lean in the legal world. Like we all know about, you know, improving processes in a manufacturing setting or in an office or something like that, to be more productive, make less mistakes and that sort of thing like how does it look in the legal world?

I think the identification of principles, the application from a theoretical point is still the same. I've never worked in manufacturing, so I can't, I can't say for sure. But I'll give you some examples I think for.

You know, certainly the business side of law. So how HR finance it, all of that works, I would imagine it's remarkably similar, you know, in terms of other industries and other areas. So I don't think we need to necessarily go into, into that in too much detail, but in terms of actually working with the lawyers, and Heather and I had this at our previous firm, you know, unless it's very single unique piece of litigation, for example, if it's something like mass claims, which is a repeatable process, Lean applies just in exactly the same way. Trying to make things as efficient as possible, trying to move the piece of work into a skilled person's hands as quickly as you can, and frankly as cost effectively as you can as well. There's other areas as well. As mentioned previously, I think the legal industry is under increasing scrutiny for price. And so with that comes cap fee and fixed fee work. And therefore then it becomes remarkably similar to other industries as well in terms of actually trying to drive that cost down and improve the margin.

And therefore then it opens up different possibilities which Lean can absolutely assist with.

On top of that, because legal technology, I think, is riding the crest of a wave at the minute as well. As, you know, Ron, and I'm sure your listeners know as well.

We were unable to really proceed with that unless it's built on a stable process with solid foundations, you know, and I think that's really led to a lot more in terms of how can we do this differently if that's building pitch material to take to clients or if that is just trying to understand how our IT can better serve our lawyers to make things more predictable and more stable through to billing, for example, making sure we get our bills right and out on time. So Lean plays a role, I think, in the whole end to end cycle.

Got it, got it. Well, let's dive in a little bit, a bit deeper than talk about AI and Lean and in your world, like, how are they playing together? What are you doing? What are you learning? That sort of thing.

I think we're learning so much. It is new for all of us, really. So it's definitely in chartered territory. I think there's three use cases that are really helping us. The first being that one of the biggest challenges in law and Especially because we're in a distributed team, is actually being able to see the value stream. So much of the work that we do, it's hidden in documents, emails, or systems that don't really talk to each other. We recently had a process that I think it was buried in a zip file of over 300 emails. And where AI was really helpful was it could review those documents and then turn them into process data that we could use. So that's things like pulling out the timestamps, mapping the waiting periods, and what would have taken days to analyze now happens quite quickly. And I think that frees up the time for the team to use the best of their skills in understanding why it's happening, what's causing the variation. So that's definitely a big area that is definitely taken away, that administrative burden of trying to trawl through the documents. Another area that's really cool is workflow systems. So more teams are using digital tools to manage their processes. So that could be intake or something like internal approvals. And a nice side effect of that is you start capturing richer data on how your process is actually run in quite a passive way. The difficult bit that we've seen for teams is they're doing the work, but the raw data is not always super helpful. It's messy and overwhelming. And if you put the right guardrails in, AI can take a lot of that data and it can highlight patterns that the teams themselves can then act on without everybody needing to be a Six Sigma expert or general Excel wizard. So one example is if you saw a process that said 40% of delays are caused by a single type of escalation. You can do that in AI without having to go to Minitab and run a Pareto chart. And I think the part that I get really excited about is the teams are more invested if they can understand and own their own process data. They're not waiting for someone else to do that analysis and pass it back to them. And I hope for the future that they can be empowered to make those kind of small incremental changes, test them in real time. That data then feeds straight back into them, and they're super comfortable with it. So that would be the second example, the last1 where AI is really helping us as practitioners is, and this was a totally new use case to me, was helping us make sense of how interconnected problems relate in complex projects. So one of our team, he actually built a prompt in ChatGPT that captured the context of a large diagnostic program that we were running. It had Loads of moving parts, stakeholders, and multiple members of our actual team on it. And what we were able to do was feed in things like discovery notes, conversations, transcripts, feedback, apply the prompt to it, and then see how it lines up with the themes that we'd already identified. Sometimes it confirms what you're seeing and it says, you have great analysis, you've done an awesome job. But other times it will.

Give you stuff that you've missed and it will challenge your perspective if you ask it to. And I think another set of eyes are really helpful. It doesn't replace our judgment and it mustn't replace our judgment, but it does give us some more perspectives that we can test against.

You know, one of my biggest fears with AI, I think about my children, like, they're growing up and, you know, I've got kids in college and, and younger kids as well, and then one married and, and off. But I'm wondering, like, in particular for my younger ones, like, like, are they going to know how to think?

That is a bad question.

I feel like it's my biggest fear.

And I suppose my parents and grandparents probably saw the Internet or, you know, whatever it was for us and was worried about that. And, you know, here we are. And I don't know, but like, what are you. I mean, not even just about the legal world, just in general, life, humanity. Like, what is your take on, on this? You know, like, what do you think? Like, will we be able to think Critically, you know, 20 years from now, or are we just gonna have some bot tapped into our brain telling us what to do?

I think it's. That's a completely fair point and it's not unfounded. It. You can definitely lose your ability to think critically. It's super easy to just put it into the machine and the machine spits it back out at you. And I think especially earlier in my career, if I'd had GPT to rely on, I don't think I'd have the same critical thinking skills that I have now. So that's something that I think is our responsibility. Where we're implementing it. We have to be really mindful of, like, how are we developing the people and how is the AI supporting them so they can do more of that, you know, difficult, complex thinking work? And it's not just outsourced because, you know, businesses are complex. There's lots of nuance. Everything that's going on, you know, it is incredibly unique and it does need the human eye. We can't just outsource it all to AI. So firmly in your camp there, Ron?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's just, I mean you think about, well, the computer came along and what would we do without. We're recording this podcast right now using technology that didn't exist 10, 15 years ago, you know what I mean? So I suppose we got to just roll with it, but I don't know, it's. It still sort of worries me, but I'm old, so what do I know?

Same thing.

So, so talk a little bit about are there any challenges or sort of difficulties or things that you're, that you're worried about as it relates to, to, to lean and AI in your world?

There's definitely a couple. One of the first things to keep in mind is not automating the wrong process or applying AI to the wrong process. I think lean is so effective because it always starts by asking, is this process delivering value to the customer? And if not, why are we doing it? There's a trap that's super easy to slip into with AI or automation, just using it to speed up non value adding tasks, which just makes the inefficiency more efficient. And it can also entrench organizational silos. AI can be really helpful, but it's only going to amplify what's there. It can't fix a for process. So my role would definitely be lean first, any kind of AI assistant second. There's another huge benefit of AI as well, is that it's incredibly accessible. The challenge with that is there's the potential to create inconsistency because everyone's using their own personal AI to operate a process in their own unique way. So one way we're trying to combat this is by having sort of team level prompts and workspaces. So we're trying to almost standardize the use of AI in processes to take a little bit of lead and a little bit of AI. And the final challenge I'll talk about is basically the point you just made. We don't want people to lose their problem solving muscles or stop asking why. That point earlier I made around data. It can take points in your process and it can lead you to the wrong conclusions that an operator could pick up in seconds. Because they live in that context. They know the nuance, they know the exceptions. So it's that balance, as we discussed, of trying to use AI to support people's thinking and not replace it and keep people engaged and curious and capable of spotting issues and fixing them and knowing how to do that.

Yeah. One thing that's interesting that I find with using ChatGPT is I don't know exactly if it just knows because of my account or if it's on a specific thread, but I'll even say, hey, do you remember when I asked you about XYZ.

And it says Yes, I remember. Yeah, you know, so I'm wondering, like, do you. How important is it for, let's say, like an individual in one of, in your firm to sort of like keep everything that they're working on in their account? You know what I mean? Like, just so it has a sort of like a memory or is that bad that it has a memory? You know what I mean? Like, how does that work in the legal world in particular?

So it could be good, it could be bad. It depends on the stance you take. So it can be good in the sense that I could say, adjust this email to my tone and style and over time it learns that and it can create something that's a bit more natural. The bad is that it can start to entrench your own views and you sort of get an echo chamber repeating back at you where all you've fetished your own stuff constantly. So I think, as always, there's a balance to strike with it.

Yeah, yeah. All right, well, next question is talk a little bit about how all of this stuff that we've been talking about, how it's impacting your ability to sort of lead a transformation team.

I think that the core responsibility of my role is remarkably similar. Simple. Sorry. I need to make sure that all the members of my team can afford to pay their mortgage and it's not obtuse or financially motivated because when it's broken down, there's quite a lot to unpack. So firstly, it's ensuring that the team have the strategic direction to continue to add value, you know, across the firm and therefore secure its longevity. But I think there's more than that. It's establishing the relationships, it's controlling the pipeline to ensure that we have the appropriate momentum and rate of delivery, combining the large programs and pieces of work with the quick wins. And it's also ensuring that the team can individually and collectively grow to add additional skills, enhancing their capabilities and adding their long term chance of employment in the future. If that's either with Heather and myself or away from us and a different team. And I think what changes with Lean and AI is not the responsibility, but the way we go about fulfilling it. So as we know, Lean teaches us to strip away the noise, gets the essence of value and Keeps us honest. AI meanwhile, introduces that kind of radical possibility. And it's not about replacing people, it's about amplifying what they can do, freeing them to solve higher order problems that technology alone can't touch, especially in its current guise. So leadership I think terms to adaptability and conviction adaptable to consider the new ways of working even when the path isn't fully visible. Reflective of this conversation and conviction to keep the team anchored in the why not? Just in terms of the quarterly deliverables. And a phrase that Heather and I often say is it's often like building a house, it's attritional every day you just have to keep adding those incremental improvements, rain or shine. Brick by brick.

Yeah, brick by brick. Exactly, exactly.

Let's fast like in our minds, let's fast forward five years. I'm wondering if you have any ideas of what a high performing transformation, continuous improvement. However you want to talk about a team in your world, in the legal world, what's that going to look like in particular because of all the things that we've been talking about with AI and lean evolving.

I think it's a really tough question and frankly a question whether anyone can accurately predict the future of the legal industry, especially in this unpredictable climate. I think what we can say though is that some trends that are emerging feel too strong to ignore. And I think the days of polarity between disciplines where law firm have distinct lean teams, separate project managers, data specialists, legal technologists, et cetera, I think they're probably numbered. And that siloed approach simply doesn't match the complex change that now happens. And I think coupled with that, clients, regulators, markets, I think they demand the integrated solutions and not just parallel ones. And I think at the same time we need to be honest about the reality, especially in law. Lean doesn't have the same brand recognition that it does in manufacturing and it falls into a more pragmatic stance rather than chasing labels. And I think the future is going to be about combining methodologies, tools and human expertise into these multidisciplinary teams. And these people who don't just, they're not just going to be specialists in one narrow area, but individuals that bring varied skill sets to the table capable of working across disciplines to deliver that really meaningful change. And I think that's the exciting part really. Some firms aren't waiting for five years for this to arrive. I think we're lucky at ORIC in that we're already moving down that path and we're working with these cross functional Subject matter experts right now. And I think we're building exactly that rounded view of change and ensuring that the right skills were available when and where they needed.

Well, I am curious, what's your estimate on the adoption of lean in your industry? I mean obviously you were all bought in but like, I don't know, competitors or anything like that. Like is everyone using it or is it just a few or what do you think?

It's a good question.

I think the honest answer is we're not really sure because law firms are notorious for keeping their cards close to chest. But you know, again, the industry, especially lean in law, it is relatively small and a lot of us do know each other.

There are lean programs at other law firms.

I think actually the vast majority of large to mid scale law firms have some sort of lean presence. Quite how central they are though to the firm's strategy and direction, I think is a different question.

And the certain law firms, you know, where it is a core part of it. I think if you, you know, not to betray secrets but if you, I think if you just do a simple Google search you'll probably find several examples of where that's really prevalent. I think other law firms perhaps don't and they don't necessarily know how to use it in that particular way. And so therefore it then gets constrained to sort of a series of tools that don't really make a difference or they, you know, working on back office processes that won't necessarily move the needle in direction a huge amount. But I definitely think it is there and especially depending on what sectors that law firms operate in. Because obviously as we all know, you know, a lot of law firm clients have their own lean programs. And especially when it comes to more manufacturing base or, or clients that take this very seriously can be a real point of difference, I think when communicating with the client. And Heather and I have definitely found that as well in our career.

Yeah, I mean there's nothing more maddening than working with any sort of provider of some service that is inefficient and you're all about like, oh my gosh, just give me 30 minutes of your time, man. You know, so yeah, it can, it can be frustrating. So maybe to, maybe to wrap things up. I'm wondering if there's any sort of, I don't know any. Is there like a single most important mind shift like within your, your within the mind, like what do we need to be doing differently and thinking differently if we want to guide our, our teams and our work in this sort of Lean thinking manner.

Yeah.

I think the single most important mindset shift for me is, is moving from control to curiosity. And I think for a long time leadership transformation was about designing a plan, sticking to milestones, keeping everyone in line. And I think that probably worked when the world moves slower. I don't think that's what we as a transformation team ORIC have ever really been about. I think predictability is gone and what matters now is adaptability and delivery. And none of us can claim to fully understand where it's going or how the advent of AI will disrupt us next. But rather than leading with certainty, I think instead we should lead with conviction and conviction of people, purpose, conviction in the way you stay curious. I think we'll find the opportunities hidden in that uncertainty. And that's not easy. I think it takes courage to let go of being the person with the answers and instead becoming the person who asked the better questions. And that obviously ties really nicely into the more traditional lean mindset of helping to problem solve. But when leaders make that shift, something powerful happens and teams start waiting for permission and they start creating. And obviously in the lean world and the transformation world, that shift from compliance to creativity is the difference between incremental change and real lasting impact. And as a final point, I'd probably encourage leaders to embrace failure and that's particularly relevant in law. That obviously by their very nature has to be right first time. But that isn't superficial. I think it's a positive attitude to transformational change and it's needed to explore these new frontiers. And it's obviously really difficult to get that right first time. And it isn't excusing poor types of failures such as not getting the basics right. But I think it's understanding that psychological safety provided by this approach and it will allow teams to really work at pushing the boundaries forward and breaking new ground.

I love that. Transitioning from control to curiosity, that's a very powerful framework. And it's scary thinking about because, you know, a lot of times, even in classic sort of six sigma domainic, the C is control. Right, like control your process. Whereas now we need to also really evolve and be curious on what's next. Right. And how do we keep learning and keep improving our way forward.

Yeah, and I think just on that as well, Ron, I think there's really pertinent example, I think for us and I think we're lucky enough to see that across our C suite. And one of our managing partners acted as the project sponsor on this huge piece of work, changing the way that one of our big global departments operated so partners, and therefore clients can receive greater value. And the managing partner in question is one of the finest lawyers in the world and with almost no exposure or very limited exposure to lean AI and other change enablers, but they naturally gravitated towards embedding this framework of promoting creativity and curiosity. And I think that encouraged everyone, including ourselves, to basically bring their best selves and bring that unique skill set to help shape the direction and delivery. And I'm obviously not going to reveal too many details about what happened, but certainly under her leadership, this department has pivoted dramatically. And I genuinely think that ARICA actually the industry leader now or certainly will be over the next year or two. And it's remarkable and I think it shows the power of influence and strong communication, irrespective of skill set and background. So you don't need to be a lean Six Sigma master black belt. I don't need to espouse these things. You know, I think just, just being and having that curiosity can, can, can, can really bring out the best in others.

Yeah, there's a, there's a sticker that I used to have. I got it at some Lean conference that said don't be so sure. Right.

Yeah, it's very relevant. Right. Don't be so sure. So fantastic. Wow, this has been a really fun conversation. Heather and Adam, I really appreciate you both carving out time to come on. So maybe we could finish up with. I don't know if there's any sort of final words of wisdom or anything that you'd like to leave with the listeners.

I think, Heather, I'm not going to speak for you, but I think for me it certainly watched the space. I think things are going to change pretty rapidly, really, over the next year or two, and it's going to be fascinating being part of it.

So, Heather, any final words from you?

I think for me, I would say just keep experimenting somebody who's working in Lean and AI at the same time. Keep testing its bounds, see what it can and what it can't do, and don't forget the humanity and all of it.

Nice. Thank you. Wonderful. All right, Adam and Heather, if folks wanted to connect with both of you, what's the best way?

For me? Ron, it's LinkedIn. I'm sure if you search for Adam Marsland, then, yeah, relatively towards the top.

Okay.

I'm the same.

Okay. And I'll have Both of your LinkedIn profiles posted up here in the show notes. Everybody can scroll down and connect with Adam and Heather. So thanks again for coming on. It's. Well, gosh, it's nearly end of the workday for you there in lovely uk, so enjoy the rest of your day and evening. And us Americans, we got a whole day of work ahead of us, so.

Thanks all for having us.

Thank you so much. It's wonderful. Thanks.

Thank you. All right, cheers.

Bye.

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