Foley Equipped Featured in Video and Article Exploring AI In the Legal Industry

Foley & Lardner LLP Partners Chanley Howell and Christopher McKenna are featured in the TechTarget article, “Foley legal AI lowers cost of reviewing tech contracts,” discussing the firm’s AI contract review tool, Foley Equipped.

Howell also joined TechTarget’s Tech News This Week video series to discuss how Foley Equipped and AI are transforming the legal industry.

“If we don’t do it, other firms will,” Howell explained, referencing the employment of the technology. “We’ve got to do things like this to remain competitive.”

Foley Equipped was designed to create more efficiency in the contract review process. The system incorporates Foley’s playbook and advice notes commentary into an AI platform that is powered by the ThoughtRiver platform, greatly streamlining the document review process.

Howell, who helped oversee the customization of the AI contract review tool, said the technology is a good “jump-start on an agreement,” although it “doesn’t give you all the answers” and human intellect still needs to be involved, particularly for big deals where corporate executives will still want to seek advice and discuss strategy with experienced lawyers.

“A computer being able to do that effectively is a long way off — a very long way off,” Howell said.

McKenna emphasized the need for clients to know the risks associated with clauses covering areas like data protection, security, and intellectual property, knowledge that allows businesses to change operations or introduce new technology to lower such risks.

“A lot of companies do not think about that [risk] gap,” McKenna added.