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Machine Learning and AI in Claims Management and Legal Billing

Published by Matthew Markham on Feb 04, 2020

Whenever businesses face new technology, there are undoubtedly many questions that will arise regarding how technology will disrupt daily working practices and the careers of those involved. The legal profession and the 1.35 million professionals practicing law in the United States are no exception.

In this article, we’re going to discover how artificial intelligence is set to transform the legal industry with new innovations in billing software, as well as claims management.

Let’s start first by taking a look at the short answer as to the kinds of developments we’ll be seeing within Artificial Intelligence and how one of the significant elements of AI, in particular, that of machine learning, is set to change legal software.

How will machine learning and artificial intelligence affect claims management and legal billing software? Using the power of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, legal firms are able to quicken lengthy administrative processes, save money and ensure more accurate invoicing procedures. Lawyers will also more efficiently be able to log time spent with clients.

Today, artificial intelligence, or AI as it is more commonly known, is totally transforming the legal profession in many ways.

However, rather than damage existing processes and ways of working, it will free up busy Lawyers from the lower level everyday tasks and admin, to allow them to spend more of their precious time with the real hands-on work involved in being a lawyer, such as advising clients, negotiating deals and appearing in court.

Now that we’ve looked at briefly at some of the changes that are already beginning to take shape and how the legal industry will benefit from new technology and innovation, in order to help you better understand breakthroughs in legal industry software and other systems, let’s start by taking a closer look at exactly what artificial intelligence and machine learning is...

What is artificial intelligence?

It’s important to understand that Artificial intelligence is a large factor driving change in the way legal work is done and will be done in the future.

The way Artificial intelligence works is by mimicking certain ways the human mind works. It’s also how we describe the function of machines being able to complete tasks that would usually require human intelligence and involvement.

“It’s important to understand that Artificial intelligence is a large factor in driving change in the way legal work is done and will be done in the future."

Machine-learning is one of the crucial elements responsible for the vast majority of the artificial intelligence advancements and applications you hear about in both daily lives and also in many business applications.

What is machine learning?

Due to ever-increasing volumes of data, law companies are looking to find new ways of accessing and effectively putting to use the data they create from a variety of different sources

Technology advancements in automated data migration and transformation are now empowering the legal profession to leverage as much data as possible.

Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it to learn for themselves. It provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without requiring specific programming.

Put simply the term machine learning is when computers use rules, which are more commonly known as algorithms, analyze data and have the ability to learn by patterns and others gain other important insights from the data produced.

Examples of machine learning in everyday life?

Machine learning is the process that powers many of the services we use today. Good examples are those such as Spotify, Netflix, and YouTube.

We are also likely to come across machine learning every time we search on the internet with Google. A great number of social-media feeds such as Facebook and Twitter harness their power of machine learning, along with many of the voice assistants we now have available such as Alexa and Siri.

So now we’ve discovered how their innovative new technology is transforming the world around us, let’s now take a look at how it is being integrated into many of the states legal organizations.

How Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are used in Claims Management

Although research is being done to progress the concept of ‘True Artificial Intelligence’ where a computer can simply be left to its own devices to learn, we’re currently in the very early stage of development and the point at which computers will be as smart as humans may still be at least 30 years away.

However, many of the tools that are built into billing and wider practice management software are a form of AI.

For example, programs can use time-recording in order to help busy lawyers log the hours they’ve spent with a particular customer and also seamlessly be able to automatically generate an invoice at the end of any relevant time period.

“many of the tools that are built into billing and wider practice Management software is a form of AI”

So how does machine learning help busy professionals with specific processes such as legal billing software? Let’s take a look below.

How machine learning helps with legal billing software

The innovative new technology of machine learning is now able to combine AI and machine learning to:

  • Ability to quickly and simply data-mine their own billing records
  • The money-saving advantage of computer-assisted billing
  • Ensures accuracy of invoices
  • Provide transparency and standardization not only for themselves but also for its client base
  • Substantially reduces or even eliminates tedious but necessary tasks, such as billing review.
  • Checking that time and expenses billed are normal or if they seem to be or excessive. This process historically would eat considerably into partners’ counsel time.
“Substantially reduces or even eliminates tedious but Necessary tasks, such as billing review.”

So now we’ve seen how harnessing the power of machine learning will improve the legal billing process specifically, let’s take a look at how that will directly impact and assist lawyers with other time-consuming processes.

How does AI help lawyers in other ways?

With machine learning and AI, tasks such as legal billing and claims management machine learning will become much quicker and easier.

Law firms will also be able to more easily address billing issues before they become a point of contention with clients.

More importantly, these systems can help law firms to increase the efficiency of time management within everyday working processes.

Let's take a look below at a growing number of ways machine learning can benefit legal companies.

  • Error correction
  • Document Reviews (TAR)
  • Proofreading
  • Assisting with legal research
  • Legal document and contract analysis.
  • Organization of documents

It’s important to understand that as machine learning and AI systems work in real-time, lawyers and other employees tasked with timekeeping, can be notified if they are spending too much time on a task.

This will have a win-win effect. Much quicker and cheaper use of lawyers’ time and also, the client won’t be required to pay for extra work.

In fact, this is where we excel in our software application - at LSG.com, we use machine learning to suggest areas to push back and/or reject invoice line items that are out of Service Level Agreement (SLA) guidelines. We've saved our clients over $500M+ in the last 15 years that way.

“With machine learning and AI, tasks such as legal billing and claims management machine learning will become much quicker and easier.”

And finally…

We hope you have seen some of the benefits of integrating powerful new technologies into your law firm. AI solutions can create a real positive momentum throughout your business.

As more and more attorneys come to trust AI software, the huge benefits of simply letting computers attend to the monotonous details will begin to show real benefits and allow busy lawyers to spend more time on activities that will, in turn, grow businesses.

We hope this has been useful in understanding how AI and technology are changing the face of claims management and legal billing software. If you have any inquiries please get in touch and we’ll be happy to assist.

LSG LLC

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