5 questions to ask of your legal AI technology

Della AI
The Della Blog
Published in
4 min readMar 5, 2021

Reading through the small print with a fine-tooth comb is the mantra of anyone working in the legal profession. However, as the activity suggests it takes huge amounts of concentration, hours of searching through paperwork trying to find the answers to very specific questions. As many legal teams strive to work smarter, they are turning to AI tools to get the answers they need quickly.

Time remains a lawyer’s prime currency, so by turning to AI for quick solutions their time can be spent more wisely closing deals and delivering more value to clients. So the question is will your legal tech provider actually save you time from the get go or will it take time to get started?

There are five key areas that you should think about when choosing your legal AI technology.

  1. Onboarding
  2. Getting the AI ready
  3. Versatility
  4. Ease of reporting
  5. Compatibility and integration

Let’s address these areas by asking the five most important questions that you need to ask of your legal AI technology.

1. Is there a steep learning curve for a new user?

If you’ve decided to invest in technology which is supposed to make your life easier, the last thing you need is hours of training on the new platform which is likely to deter your team from using it. When assessing AI tools it’s important to ask yourself, will I read contracts faster with this application or is it only designed to teach a machine to extract data?

It takes approximately 10 minutes to get set up on the Della Platform. The dashboard is intuitive and user friendly. We have created hundreds of checklist templates which you can use immediately or customise them to suit your needs.

2. Does the AI require a lot of training?

You shouldn’t have to second guess how your AI works, it should be intuitive enough to interpret what you are asking of it.

It’s worth noting that most AI providers today either suggest that you use their pre-trained models or require you to train your own by feeding it with sufficient information. The problem with these approaches are: can you trust the models and how much time will it take to train your own?

This is why it’s crucial that you guide your AI legal technology with your own words, using your own expertise and know-how without necessarily having to retrain it.

The Della Platform’s neural network is trained to understand grammar and semantics by asking a lot of questions such as: ‘Is there a cap on xxx’ or ‘Is there an exclusion to xxx?’. The more exposure Della has to contracts, the more it is learning to adapt to legal questions and correct itself based on user feedback. This benefits the entire Della community as a whole who have access to a tool which continuously betters itself.

3. Can the system be used on different kinds of projects?

The majority of legal technologies available today have trained their AI in English by leveraging the publicly available contracts. This method allows users to ask basic questions and generate some decent results, albeit in the language of Shakespeare. Despite saving users a significant amount of time to get started, the pre trained model may not be as relevant to your needs as it should be.

Unfortunately, the main shortcoming of these pre-trained models is that they cannot deliver the same quality of results in multiple languages. So European, Asian or any other non-English speaking law firms are faced with the daunting prospect of training an AI in their mother tongue from scratch. This is not only time consuming but also too expensive to even get started.

This is where Della comes in. Our technology is unique in that it allows you to transfer knowledge across different questions and contract types but also between languages. It’s not unusual for Della to achieve a higher level of accuracy than anticipated in completely new languages. This means that our technology is more affordable for non-English speaking law firms to achieve the best results, fast.

4. Analysing documents is only the first step, what else can it do?

It’s one thing for your AI technology to speed up your contractual review process, but it’s another story if you then have to spend time extracting the data out of the system and formatting it to get in shape to present to your clients.

Della does not stop at simply extracting the information for you, it helps you by checking the results of the AI analysis, formatting the comments and answers into a client-ready format. Our AI technology can help you find answers and visualise the data in previously unimaginable ways that significantly impacts the everyday decisions you make.

5. How does the technology fit within your current processes and systems?

A commonly overlooked area of AI legal technology is to see how easily it integrates with your own internal processes. It’s important to check whether the technology enables you to invoice your clients and allows for a smooth billing process.

Della was designed to make life easier to legal technologists and lawyers, not to waste their time in billing and invoicing. This is why we have included simple features like the ability to assign matter and client numbers to your various projects so you can jump straight back into your work without bottlenecks.

Are you looking for a legal AI technology provider that is so simple to set up that it truly allows your team to work smarter? Give Della a try.

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Della AI
The Della Blog

Simple to set up and easy to use, Della is supplanting established contract analysis and review tools, by offering lawyers an intuitive way to review contracts.