In this episode of The Verdict is Marketing, we’ll discuss how law firms can use AI to improve their marketing and client relations. Lawyers and legal professionals can benefit from learning how to use AI to streamline processes, create content, and improve client communication.
Podcast Resources:
Amazon book link – The AI Advantage
Show transcript:
Kim Sailer: Hello and welcome to The Verdict is Marketing, the podcast of all things law firm marketing. I’m your host, Kim Sailer, founder of LawBARD. My very special guest today is business advisor, coach, investor, and now ebook author, John Sailer. John is a frequent contributor to LawBARD and I asked him to be on this podcast to discuss his new ebook, The AI Advantage: Revolutionizing Law Firm Marketing and Client Relations, which is available on Amazon.
Kim Sailer: Before we dive in, I want to share a little bit about you. You have a pretty diverse background, working in startups, as well as a global technology companies with a focus on sales, marketing and driving revenue. You have a long history and working with law firms.
Kim Sailer: Anything else to add, John?
John Sailer: First, thanks for having me. I guess I’ve been blessed to have a pretty diverse career. One thing that I hadn’t checked off my bucket list yet was writing a book, so I figured I would do that and, fundamentally, what I wanted to do. And you mentioned the fact that I do have some background with law firms and the reason I wrote this book. And I guess to start with is at the most basic level to me, law firms are similar to every other small business, right? They have employees, they have costs. Typically, there’s a lot of competition and ultimately no matter how good their attorneys are, they need to execute strategies to drive revenue and grow their business. And I thought this was a good time to talk about AI and how AI could help influence their businesses and make them more successful.
Kim Sailer: Definitely interesting perspectives. Sometimes I think that many firms just don’t realize this. Okay, so let’s get started then. First of all, I read your book, and I found it very interesting. What made you write it?
John Sailer: Yeah, so again, I think that there’s just a lot of value in, law firms, being able to use AI to help them with a lot of their intake processes, help them with their marketing, and I think when we talk about AI, it can be a confusing subject, right? On the one hand, you’ve got 10- and 12-year-old kids who are using AI to generate code to create new video games. But when most people think about AI or artificial intelligence, they think about a room full of computers or they think about the movie Terminator and the truth is that AI can be very approachable and clearly, can help businesses, including law firms, improve their operations.
Kim Sailer: Yeah, AI can be a bit daunting for someone who hasn’t used it. So you’ve used the terms AI, LLM, and generative AI a lot in the book. Can you start by just giving us a quick overview of these terms and the key players?
John Sailer: Sure. So, the first term will be LLMs or Large Language Models. These are a type of AI models, a model that is, that are trained on vast amounts of information to understand and be able to generate human language. And really what, the reason that LLMs became popular recently is because they’ve been training using the Internet, right?
John Sailer: So, the largest data source in the world. And so you have, when you think about LLMs, you think about two years ago, the first one that came out or the first one that would, that publicly generate a lot of headlines was ChatGPT. But aside from ChatGPT, there’s a couple other ones that you probably know. One is Gemini from Google, and the other one is an LLM called Claude. So that’s LLM’s large language models. The next thing is machine learning. Machine learning is really a subset of AI that really involves training algorithms. to help learn from and create predictions based on data. And so instead of being explicitly programmed to perform a task, the system learns patterns and the system learns relationships within the data. And again, that’s machine learning. And then the third is generative AI. And really, these are AI systems that can create new content, including text, images, music and even software, as I mentioned, software code, by learning patterns from existing data. very much. Most AI systems that people are aware of perform generative AI, and again, I mentioned the key players from an LLM perspective, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, but if we think about our cell phones and we think, if we’re Apple people and we have Siri. Siri uses AI for things like natural language generation also Alexa uses AI.
John Sailer: There’s some other cool apps out there that really use AI and one that we use a lot is called Synthesia and it creates video presentations very quickly off of just a word document or text document and that video presentation, has an avatar spokesperson. Another interesting AI tool out there is called Midjourney. Midjourney really creates elaborate images with just a prompt. You can go to a Midjourney prompt and say, draw me a green left handed cat with an earring playing poker, and it will draw you a green left handed cat with an earring playing poker. This morning, I was on Chrome going through email and even like with Chrome, you can integrate with Gemini. So, you can say things like summarize this AI threat or summarize this email thread for me or identify key emails that I’ve missed. What we’re seeing is a couple of things. First, we’re seeing, this kind of Foundation layer of things like LLMs that continue to get continued to get better and better. And then we’re seeing, Tools that we already know and work with that are starting to leverage AI. Then the third is we’re starting to see kind of new tools and applications that are doing fundamentally brand new things using AI.
Kim Sailer: That’s really cool. So, who is the audience and what are the key points that you want to emphasize?
John Sailer: In the book, I think the audience is obviously lawyers very much. Because attorneys is in the very long title of the book. But I think anybody involved in the marketing or operations of a law firm. So not just the attorneys themselves, but it could be internal marketing people. It could be the operational staff or it could be external marketing agencies. Because one thing that I know is I do talk to a lot of agencies, not everybody has the same baseline. of knowledge on AI. I think that this could be a usable reference for marketing agencies. I also think that there are a lot of other industries like the legal industry, like the medical practitioners, accountants and other service professionals, that really have to create a brand, really have to create differentiation and this this book could be, used by them as well in terms of key points, I think there’s two premises, right?
John Sailer: The first one, and this is why I started the book is that, when ChatGPT and when you know other kind of applications came out like Midjourney, as I mentioned earlier, everybody thought, great, I can go just push a button and create all of this digital content. And really that’s not the way it works. Because again, I think when you think about law firms, you think about why do you choose a law firm? We choose a law firm because of their experience. You choose a law firm because of their context, and. Yeah. AI today can’t really give you context, and it really doesn’t give a point of view, and it really doesn’t have experience. And so while you can’t use LLMs to just create content on their own you can, use some of these very cool tools that I mentioned to help improve your many law firm practices.
Kim Sailer: Okay. So, let’s talk a little bit more about the use of LLMs in creating digital content. So you mentioned that law firms and other businesses should refrain from using LLMs to create original content. Why would you say that?
John Sailer: So again, the reason I would say that is because fundamentally, and I mentioned this earlier, right, a lot of the LLMs are trained on, information off the internet. And we all know that everything we read on the internet is not correct. So that’s fundamentally one issue. The second issue again, though, is, it’s not, choosing a lawyer is not choosing a pizza, right? Choosing a pizza. You’re who’s close, who delivers fast and, who’s cheapest without being a frozen to Tino’s pizza for a law firm. A lot of times you’re going to go pick a law firm and it could be a life or death issue, right? And so, you’re picking a law firm based on their knowledge, choosing Based on their perspective, based on all of these other factors and those types of factors, as I mentioned earlier, context, knowledge, point of view, those are not things that AI does, and for those reasons I wouldn’t go use AI, just to go create content by themselves.
Kim Sailer: Okay. So digital content creation is a problem for many law firms. They don’t have the time. And now there are tools out there that can help. And are you saying don’t use them or what do you suggest?
John Sailer: I’m not saying don’t use them. I am saying, and I’m not saying don’t use them in isolation. I am saying though that ultimately these tools are good at creating an outline. They’re good at fleshing out pieces of content. They’re good at doing final edits. But they’re not good at doing all three of those things together. Because again, some of the information may be, come from the web and may be suspect, some of the information again probably doesn’t have context in it. And so, when you think about an LLM, all an LLM is doing is it’s parsing the information that it’s getting. And then it’s basically using what’s called a token to go create, how they should respond. And so, you’re creating a token and then based on the tokens you created, you’re creating another token. And so, it’s, all LLMs are really doing is saying, what’s the next word that, or what’s the next token, what’s the next word that should come here? Not saying, you’ve got these five issues here’s the best way to go solve them.
Kim Sailer: Oh, very interesting. Thanks for that. So, we talked about LLMs and AI tools. and how they can be used to assist in the digital content creation process. So, aside from content creation, what are some of the other processes that AI tools can help?
John Sailer: Yeah, so when you think about a law firm again, you think about a business that has a lot of the processes that every other business has, right? First off, they have to deal with intake of their customers or, intake of clients and prospects. Secondly, they have to have, good communication with those prospects, with those clients, with referring attorneys. Third, they have to create mailing lists, fourth, they do have to have a digital marketing strategy these days and AI tools can help with all those things. So for instance, when you think about someone that is looking for a lawyer, looking for an attorney, you know what, that person could have got into a car accident at 9pm. They’re not probably waiting till the next morning to go and research law firms. They’re probably researching law firms as soon as they get home. Because it’s a stressful situation. Most law firms don’t have people manning the phones at 9am or 9pm. However, you can use chatbots and a chatbot is available 24/7. A chatbot can do that initial touch point with that prospective client and its chatbot can also get in touch with, an attorney or paralegal and have that attorney or paralegal contact that person right away. So that’s one example.
John Sailer: The second example again is, when you think about a marketing law firms do have to market themselves. And one of the ways they do market themselves is, they send out a lot of direct marketing materials, whether they’re, emails, whether they’re email newsletters, physical newsletters anything else, the problem with creating mailing lists is, you maybe talk to 10 people and of those 10 people, maybe five of them, you didn’t get an email address, maybe three of them, you didn’t get a full, a physical address, if you use, um, some of the AI powered form builders and intake tools, you can guarantee that you gather all that information that’s needed for outbound marketing.
John Sailer: The third thing, third example is, digital content again, while I don’t think that you should just push a button and let an, a LLM create all your content, as mentioned earlier, these LLMs and the AI tools can create an outline, can create can do a first draft of something, can edit and do final editing, and that very much helps, get that digital content created. A lot of times the hardest thing when you’re writing content is, getting the, that, those first thoughts down and, these types of tools are great at doing that.
Kim Sailer: Excellent. And I agree, I think that in many cases, unfortunately, the decision whether a prospective client chooses a law firm boils down to who’s in that day and answers the phone or whether someone is having a good day or bad day. And it really doesn’t have to be like this.
John Sailer: No, it doesn’t. And again, that’s, as I mentioned, the notion of having a chatbot, as the first point of contact getting that information, the ability to use form builders, which with AI become really easy to go build. Those types of things enforce that you’re getting that information, those types of things enforce that the first contact is a positive contact, and I think these are the types of things we ought to be thinking about, when we’re thinking about how do we use AI tools to go and help us with our business. And again, there’s a lot of businesses that have that same type of need.
John Sailer: So, it’s not just law firms, but it could be medical practitioners. It could be a whole multitude of businesses using these AI tools that are out there today. Can really go and streamline your operations really help you grow your business without kind of growing your staffing levels really can help make sure that, you’re consistent in the activities that you do really make sure that first contact is strong.
John Sailer: Very much believe that these are, these tools are very beneficial and that, as we all watch the stock market. It’s interesting because, every week or so someone’s talking about NVIDIA and NVIDIA is the leading chip supplier for AI. And the question is always how much is NVIDIA going to grow? How much is this industry going to grow? And this isn’t a one or two year thing, right? This is a multi-year. Growth, because I think there’ll be more and more use cases, even think about the latest phones that are coming out, they’re now coming out, and again, I’m an Apple guy, the new Apple phones, I guess they’re the 16th, the notion is they were built to use Apple intelligence. Apple intelligence, I believe is coming out in the next generation of their, of the cell, the phone software in October, and so you can start to do things like find me the best flight on my preferred airlines, going to my parents’ house, and that phone will be able to string together the fact that, you’re a Delta frequent flyer and you’re also you’re at an American hub, your parents live at this address that you fly to these airports, but I think that you’re going to find more and more use cases to use AI.
John Sailer: I was at the doctors the other day and we were talking about the notion of how you have all of this, all of these, all this test data out there. And really, it’s all very, a siloed and the ability to use AI to help find patterns in this siloed and fragmented data, I think, AI is going to go and help, the medical profession immensely.
John Sailer: I think, also when you think about the legal and while we’re not talking about, legal research, it’s going to become a lot easier to go find precedent cases. It’s going to find it’d be a lot easier to look at, the trends of how Specific jury profiles make decisions how specific judges have rulings. And so I think there’s going to be more and more use cases that come out for AI over the next, not just one year, two year, but the next, five, 10, 15 years.
Kim Sailer: Excellent. So, in your book, you discuss several of these processes as well as current tools and implementation costs. What’s the thing you would tell a law firm that’s looking to start using AI?
John Sailer: Again, if you think about the book, it very much is on using AI to improve marketing and client interaction processes, and it’s one of these things where the, if you Google AI, tools, you’re going to find hundreds of them. So, for me, my approach would be go find one of your problems that, that you want to go and improve. And again, I’m very much on improving making sure that your referral list is strong, making sure that your first interaction is good, making sure that you are, keeping in contact with the past clients and referral partners. But find that one process, go reach some, go research some of these tools.
John Sailer: I would basically tell everybody whether you’re an attorney or not to go and start playing with some of these LLMs, whether it’s ChatGPT, whether it’s Gemini or Claude, and just start to use them because if you start to use them, you start to understand how you can use them more. And I think what’s interesting about a lot of these tools, they is they do have freemium models, which means, you can use some capabilities for free or very low cost. And so, it’s not a big investment. But start to use these. And then the more you use them, the more you’ll get them into your day to day life. Day-to-day processes. And the more you do that, then start to think about which processes, which capabilities do you need to improve in your law firm, and then incrementally go and just, strike one by one find a process to go and improve, go do it, then find another process to go improve, then go do it. And it won’t take you that long to start seeing some of the benefits.
Kim Sailer: Very good point. So, I guess the main overriding point is do something.
John Sailer: Do something,
Kim Sailer: Do something. Great. So, as we’re wrapping up here, John, are there any last words or thoughts you wanted to leave the audience with?
John Sailer: First off, right, buy my ebook, you can find it on Amazon. But again, don’t be afraid, and it is funny, right? Because I, as I started the conversation or as we started the conversation earlier, I made mention to the 10- and 12-year-old kids that are using AI tools and LLMs to create computer code to go and build video games. And that’s happening, so your kids are using AI tools. You don’t be afraid to go use them. Go, and even if it’s spending 10 or 15 minutes, and even if you’re just picking one tool go, go Google Claude.ai, go Google Gemini, go to ChatGPT, just start playing with them. And then, grow from there, there’s, a lot of a lot of educational sources on these tools, so just learn about them and just start, embracing them because, it’s one of these things that you’re going to have to use eventually, it’s one of these things where there’s going to be a lot of benefits. So, you might as well do it now.
Kim Sailer: Oh, absolutely. We had a great conversation today about how law firms can use AI to improve their marketing and client processes or support processes. Hey, John, thank you for stopping by.
John Sailer: Hey, it’s my pleasure.
Kim Sailer: To all our listeners, you can find the full transcript of this podcast and a link to John’s book, The AI Advantage, Revolutionizing Law Firm Marketing and Client Relations on lawBARD.com. And if you’re a Kindle Select customer, you can download and read the book for free. For everyone out there, thanks for listening. Feel free to drop me a line at Kim@LawBARD.com or visit us at LawBard.com. Until next time, the Verdict is Marketing. Is adjourned.
