How to use chatbots in your law firm

There are exciting developments happening in LawTech, particularly in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In this article I’d like to describe how you can use chatbots and why they will help you and your clients.

Since 2007 when the first iPhone was launched, we all now carried mobile devices. You have this magic piece of glass that can transform experiences and bring people far away closer to you. It’s breath taking how this has evolved in such a short space in time of our history.

As designers we like to use conventions and metaphors as visual cues to show how something works – but ultimately for technology to be successful it needs to be a natural extension of what we as people already do. Chatbots are just that and have been around for a while, you find them in messaging apps on smartphones or on company websites. Chatbots are becoming more and more viable for an increasing number of applications internally and external for any law firm.

The following research by Flurry display the growth of messaging apps.

The diagrame below displays the number of monthly active Facebook Messenger users from April 2014 to September 2017(in millions)

Why should you consider chatbots in your law firm

Lawyers need to complete many routine unbilled tasks from administrative to financial but still need consultation time and to create legal documents. Legal chatbots help you to focus on client facing work and when they are trained can deliver what your clients need 24 hours a day. Generally speaking they can complete mundane tasks and deliver automated services that removes layers of costs to your law firm.

Remember chatbots are after all a representative your law firm so when having conversations with your clients they reveal your law firms values and can talk with your brand voice. 

What benefits can you expect from a chatbot?

Chatbots can automate routine work even when that work involves interacting with your existing and potential clients. Chatbots can have multiple conversations with multiple prospects at the same time so you don’t need to bring in teams of people to scale up.

Client facing chatbot applications are endless;

• Giving answers to basic legal questions.
• Conducting screening consultations.
• On boarding of clients.
• Take enquires and adding them to your marketing database.
• Instead of filling out endless forms chatbots do this as part of a conversation, particularly helpful in estate agency work.

They are trained partly by you, conversations are logged which means you can match correct answers to the questions your potential clients are asking, that’s if your chatbot doesn’t already know the right answer.

If you are interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning chatbots we’d love to discuss how they can help your law firm.