ClioCon 2024: Legal Trends Report plus all the latest news and interviews

This story will be updated from ClioCon 2024 in Austin, Texas with the latest news and interviews from the conference

Clio Duo – A demo and some reflections

CEO Jack Newton demos new Gen AI assistant Clio Duo and talks to Legal IT Insider about the need for a different understanding of what technology can do and the way that it works.

 

Clio has announced the arrival of its Gen AI assistant Clio Duo, which is built into its practice management system Clio Manage, facilitating tasks such as information retrieval, text summarisation, bill creation, meeting preparation, and assistance with a multitude of administrative tasks. 

Speaking during ClioCon’s day one keynote, CEO and founder Jack Newton said: “Clio Duo is your AI-powered legal partner. It helps to summarise matters and notes, send emails, instantly analyse large complex documents, or have your entire week planned in a couple of quick clicks. It’s not just an upgrade but a complete transformation of how you work.” 

 

Demonstrating Clio Duo on stage, Newton said: “Clio Duo is able to do is look at my entire week and tell me right off the bat what is most important. It’s able to analyse my calendar; able to analyse deadlines that exist in matters; and able to surface which matters I should be paying attention to and putting my energy into.

“When I open up my laptop first thing on a Monday morning, I can ask Clio Duo ‘What is my week like?’ Another thing I’ll highlight is that Clio Duo, some of you might remember when we were showing the prototypes for Clio Duo last year, we had it as a sidebar. What we realised is that we can actually integrate the Clio Duo experience seamlessly into your search bar in Clio and have Duo at your fingertips.” 

Newton demonstrated asking Duo what the week ahead looks like, commenting: “I’ll give it a few seconds and it gives me a quick overview of where I’m spending my time, which calendar entries are happening, and where I should be spending my attention.”  

Moving next to a divorce matter that the demo user is working on with their client Maria, Newton said: “We now have a new Clio Duo tile on our dashboard that tells us what has recently changed in the matter. I’ve been able to see that there are some unbilled activities and Clio Duo can help me generate that bill for that for that client. Next, I’m getting ready for my meeting with Maria. So I’m going to be meeting with Maria later this afternoon and I want Clio Duo to catch me up on what’s happened on this matter since last Thursday, which is the last time that I chatted with Maria. And again, in a few seconds, Clio Duo was able to come back to me and tell me the task, the calendar entries, and the communications that have happened with this client. This is an assistant that is embedded into my day-to-day workflows and able to help me in a really dramatic and meaningful way.” 

Clio Duo can also retrieve information from and summarise documents, and Newton observed: “It understands documents at a semantic level.”

Speaking to Legal IT Insider after the presentation, Newton said: “The powerful thing about this is that the quality of the data in Manage is pristine. As a system of record, Manage has this data asset that we can leverage to provide insights and automate workflow in a seamless way.” 

Asked if there are risks of Clio Duo giving incorrect answers, Newton says all consumers of AI need to have heightened awareness around accuracy, commenting: “Every AI including Clio’s is subject to making mistakes and anyone claiming to the contrary probably doesn’t understand the technology deeply enough to be making those assertions.  

“The current generation of LLMs are all at risk of hallucination and there are ways of mitigating against that but no way to completely eliminate it. The next generation of LLM models, as I alluded to in the keynote with regard to OpenAI o1, will be able to reason and articulate why they have come to an answer. The pace of change is exponential and we will in the very near future see an even more reliable set of AI.  

“We’re in what Gartner refers to as the trough of disillusionment and consumers of some AI technology have been bitten, where there haven’t been appropriate disclosures or understanding of where these models might fall short. That’s where there is risk. We have been trained for 20 years to type a query into Google and trust the answer, or look up Wikipedia, and although we’ve been told it may not be reliable, the truth is that 99% of the time it’s true or just a bit off and even that’s a matter of debate. With LLMs, as Steven Schwartz found out, you can ask a LLM a query and get a completely fabricated answer. These are statistical machines with no sense of whether something is correct or incorrect and people need training to understand how to use the technology. It’s a powerful assistant but you need to check its work. We have a small disclaimer in Clio Duo reminding people that this is emerging technology and you need to check the answers you’re given.” 

Training is a topic that at Legal IT Insider we repeatedly come back to and Newton says that it’s now essential in order for people’s understanding of how technology works to change. “I agree emphatically that people need training,” he said. “We have been trained for 20 years on how to think about computing – you type a query in this box and it will be right most of the time; the way we think about technology is pretty binary. But now technology can lead you astray if you don’t understand how to harness it.” 

Clio Duo is an add-on licence at a price of $39 per user per month and you can find out more details here: https://www.clio.com/features/legal-ai-software/

Here are some testimonies from early Clio Duo adopters provided by Clio during the conference:  

“With Clio Duo, I can get so much more done in less time and save up to 5 hours a week. It really helps me tackle writing demands creatively and efficiently, and makes prioritizing my daily tasks much easier. I can stay focused on what truly matters.” – Taylor Sellitto, Paralegal, Legler, Murphy & Battaglia, LLP. 

“Clio Duo makes it much easier to find key information, such as billing and month-to-month comparisons, helping me gain a better understanding of my practice’s growth.” – Kate Santon, Attorney, Santon General Counsel, P.C.   

“Clio Duo has really improved how we communicate with our clients. Its ability to suggest and draft responses right from Clio Manage has made our job less stressful and much more efficient.” – Sarah Harris, Managing Partner, Harris & Schroeder, PLLC.   

“With Clio Duo, I can get the data I need instantly just by asking a question. I don’t have to run reports or filter through custom fields anymore, which saves me time and helps me be more productive!” – Melissa Oosterhof, Attorney, Oosterhof Law Office, PLLC 

Takeaways from ClioCon’s day one keynote from CEO and founder Jack Newton 

 

Attending Clio’s US conference really brings home the scale of the Vancouver-headquartered practice management vendor, which this July year raised $900m, valuing it at $3bn. 

At ClioCon’s day one keynote, CEO Jack Newton told the audience that Clio, which now has a customer base spanning 130 countries, is seeing “incredible growth in new markets including the UK, Ireland, Australia and EMEA and APAC more broadly” crediting the cloud adoption wave passing through the world. There are now 1200 ‘Clions’ (Clio employees) and 280+ integration partners, almost 100 of which are here in Austin, Texas at the conference.  

Milestones in 2024 include being selected in the Forbes Cloud 100 list and given a platinum ranking by Deloitte among Canada’s best managed companies. One of the biggest whoops from the crowd came because Clio has become a Jersey partner with the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. 

The theme of the conference this year is Momentum and the common thread is a flywheel, which takes effort to get spinning but as it gains momentum is easier to maintain, with Newton commenting: “Perpetual motion is something that every law firm should strive to build. Consider how and where you are reducing friction and adding energy.” 

One way that Clio is reducing friction is through its unified platform: Grow; Manage; Accounting; Courts; Personal Injury; and Payments.  

Newest of those is Clio Accounting, launched in the summer of this year. Newton revealed that this has been one of the Clio’s most successful product launches ever – it has already been adopted by 1,000 firms.  

A big theme of this conference is, inevitably, AI. AI won’t replace lawyers but lawyers that use AI will replace those that don’t, Newton said. He pointed to a few statistics from Clio’s Legal Trends Report, a summary of which you can read below, including that the use of AI has skyrocketed over the past year.

As an industry, the legal sector has gone through Gartner’s trough of disillusionment on AI, Newton said. “I have heard people say to treat AI like a junior associate but it’s more pernicious than that – it’s a junior lawyer that will lie pathologically. AI has no morality and it doesn’t care if the answer it gives you is true or false, it just gives you the thing that is statistically most likely,” he observed. 

All is not lost and we are emerging into Gartner’s slope of enlightenment, with technology accelerating at lightning speed. “By 2027, AI will have the capability of a smart graduate. After 2027? AI will be smarter than the smartest human being on the planet and that’s when everything will change,” Newton said. 

OpenAI’s new o1 release is a completely different lineage to GPT and is moving into reasoning and thinking through it’s reasoning. “As we see exponential progress we’ll enter Gartner’s plateau of productivity,” Newton said.  

Interestingly, while the legal world has historically been slow to adopt new technology, we are seeing it lead on Gen AI.  

An estimated 44% of legal tasks can be automated by AI and 40% of legal industry jobs according to Goldman Sachs research. Joshua Lenon, lawyer-in-residence at Clio, has unpacked this in Clio’s Legal Trends Report and we’ll bring you more on that shortly.  

One of the highlights of Newton’s keynote was a demonstration of Clio Duo, which Clio officially launches today. It can summarise matters, send emails, analyse large and complex documents or help you plan your week. “It’s not just an upgrade but a complete transformation or how you work,” Newton said. 

We’ll bring you more from Newton on Duo shortly too.

Legal Trends Report

Clio has released the ninth edition of the Legal Trends Report, which this year provides in-depth analyses of AI adoption in the legal industry; the growing use of flat fees; and law firm spending priorities.

AI adoption is transforming legal practice

The latest report suggests that AI usage in law firms has skyrocketed, with 79% of legal professionals saying that they are now incorporating AI tools into their daily work—a significant jump from just 19% in 2023. Not only are law firms
embracing AI, but clients are increasingly supportive, with 70% either preferring or being neutral toward firms that utilize AI. This acceptance signals a shift in client expectations as AI becomes more mainstream in legal processes.

The steep adoption of AI has the potential to disrupt how lawyers operate the business-side of their firms. Clio’s analysis shows that up to 74% of hourly billable tasks—such as information gathering and data analysis—could be automated with AI. The report says that law firms should consider moving away from hourly billing in favour of more flexible options like flat fees to preserve profitability while benefiting from the increased efficiencies AI brings to legal workflows. As AI reduces the time spent on billable work, law firms may see a decline in revenue if they continue to rely on hourly billing.

Flat fee billing is on the rise

Flat fee billing has become an increasingly popular option, with law firms charging 34% more of their cases on a flat-fee basis compared to 2016, according to the report. The report finds that the flat fee model is proving to be a more sustainable option as AI adoption accelerates. As AI reduces the time required for many administrative tasks, billing by the hour becomes less practical. Flat fees, on the other hand, enable law firms to capture the value of their services without being limited by time-based billing constraints.

While hourly billing remains predominant in law firms, clients are driving the shift towards flat fees with 71% now preferring to pay a flat fee for their entire case, and 51% favoring flat fees for individual activities. In addition, law firms using flat fees benefit from quicker billing cycles and faster payment collection, as they are five times more likely to send bills—and nearly twice as likely to receive payments—as soon as they complete their work for clients.

In his opening keynote at ClioCon 2024, Clio’s CEO and founder Jack Newton said: “This is something that clients very clearly prefer – 71% of client tell us it’s their preferred modality and when you think about AI it enables you to automate tasks and streamline your operations; to think about where you’re spending your time; and connect at a human level with your clients, their problems and how you can better solve them.”

Law firms increase investment in marketing and technology

Law firms have been steadily increasing their marketing and technology investments, with software spending growing by an average of 20% annually since 2013. This increase has outpaced revenue growth, which has increased steadily at 9% each year.

The data shows that these investments could be paying off. Firms with above-average productivity—those billing more than the industry average of 33% of their workday, or roughly three hours of billable time per day—are making even larger investments in technology and marketing. These firms spend 12% more on software and 41% more on marketing, leading to a 21% increase in profitability.

The data demonstrates a clear link between tech adoption, higher marketing efforts, and overall financial success. Solo lawyers, while spending the least on software as a percentage of their overall expenses (0.58%), are rapidly accelerating their technology investments. In fact, solo practitioners’ technology spending is growing at a remarkable rate of 56% annually, more than twice the industry average. By comparison, small firms with 2 to 4 lawyers spend 1.77% of their expenses on software, while firms with 5 to 19 employees spend 1.37%, and firms with 20 or more employees spend 1.6%. This rapid adoption by solo practitioners reflects their recognition of technology’s critical role in remaining competitive in an increasingly digital legal landscape.

Secret shopper study 

Despite advancements in technology, potential clients still face major hurdles when trying to connect with law firms. A 2024 secret shopper study conducted by Clio, building on the findings of the 2019 Legal Trends Report, highlights these persistent challenges. Of the 500 law firms emailed, only 33% responded, a drop from 40% in 2019. Phone inquiries also showed a decline, with only 40% of firms answering calls, compared to 56% in 2019. In total, 48% of law firms were essentially unreachable by phone.

Newton said: “This is pretty damning data and irresponsible as a profession. We are driving disengagement in potential consumers of legal services. We are literally not answering calls.”

While firms that responded to emails did so promptly—84% within eight hours—just 18% provided clear next steps or cost information, and only 2% referenced similar legal cases as requested by shoppers. Phone interactions fared no better, as only 41% of firms offered rate information, 12% provided cost estimates, and 36% explained the legal process or outlined next steps. These gaps in communication left secret shoppers frustrated, with 73% unlikely to recommend the firms they contacted. However, personal interactions on the phone were more positively received, as 39% of shoppers said they would recommend firms they spoke with directly.

Law firm websites also offer a chance for improvement, as just 30% provide clear guidance on the hiring process, and 14% display pricing information. Firms that focus on improving their client onboarding experience, like adding online client intake tools, are found to have 50% more incoming potential clients and earn 50% more revenue on average.“Clients today expect timely responses and clear communication from their law firms, and those firms that prioritize this are seeing outsized gains in both new clients and revenue,” said Lenon. “By incorporating an online intake process and using technology thoughtfully, law firms can address these challenges head on, creating a more seamless experience from the very first client interaction.”

Additionally, using technology like chatbots to enhance client engagement offers promising potential. While 51% of clients find chatbots useful for exploring legal options, 67% still prefer having the ability to speak with a human when needed. This balance of technological efficiency with personal connection presents a valuable opportunity for law firms to refine their client intake processes and better meet their expectations.

To download the report visit clio.com/ltr