12 April 2023 | Efforts to transform legal departments from cost centres to value creators is driving AI adoption across the in-house sector, say industry leaders from Koch Industries, Yokogawa Corporation of America and Hitachi Vantara during a talk at Legalweek last month.

Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance, was joined on stage at this year’s Legalweek conference by Laura Pickle, CIO & Discovery Director at Koch, Jennine Moran, Director of Legal and Compliance – Operations and Technology, Hitachi Vantara and George Nino, EVP, GC and Corporate Secretary at Yokogawa Corporation of America.

The expert panel discussed how, in the face of tighter budgets and economic uncertainty AI ensures that legal teams can generate value and facilitate business growth. With AI automating repeatable, routine tasks such as contract drafting, streamlining administrative work and legal teams are ultimately freed up to focus on high-value work. As Laura Pickle from Koch Industries explained: “Historically it [Legal] has been a cost centre but we’ve been trying to show that with this data, and by making data-driven decisions, we can drive cost down or recoup cost.” George Nino elaborated: “Luminance leverages our time so we can think about more strategic matters, rather than negotiating NDAs from scratch. There are now whole new areas where Legal can come in as a strategic, trusted advisor for the company.”

With AI delivering granular insight into contract details such as deal value, termination date and jurisdiction, legal teams are armed with critical, time-sensitive information. This led Jeanine Moran to note that “the business wants more and more out of the tools we are using,” adding that “Luminance is helping bring that other department in as a business partner…we’re not just a cost centre, we’re helping with the bottom line.”

ENDS

About Luminance

Luminance is the world’s most advanced AI technology for the legal processing of contracts and documents. Founded by mathematicians from the University of Cambridge, Luminance’s AI reads and forms a conceptual understanding of documents in any language. Luminance uses this understanding to augment the spectrum of legal matters, from AI-powered contract drafting, negotiation and review to investigations and eDiscovery. Luminance is used by over 500 customers in 60 countries, including all of the Big Four consultancy firms, a quarter of the world’s largest law firms and multinational organisations.