Anyone who’s survived a legal battle of any kind will recall the legal fees involved. They may also recall not knowing what they’d ultimately pay until at last someone handed them an astronomical bill. That is because fees were not precisely assessed out of the gate. Today’s clients are expecting more info on cost upfront. Can big data and artificial intelligence deliver?

A few years ago, Catherine Krow (pictured), chief executive officer of Digitory Legal Corp., practiced law at a major firm. After a consultation, clients would invariably ask, “How much?”

“The answer, which was perfectly acceptable, was, ‘It depends,'” Krow said. “And that is no longer acceptable.”

Why is that? Because the data and the analytics tools exist to give clients a much clearer answer.

Krow realized this and began researching the market of technologies for data-driven cost management and prediction. She found it wanting and decided she should bring a product to market herself.

Krow spoke with Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the CloudNOW “Top Women in Cloud” Innovation Awards event in Menlo Park, California. They discussed the shifting landscape of the legal domain and how data and AI can improve cost-associated legal processes.

A data problem; a data solution

Krow dug in deep on the pain points and what had held back progress in the area for so long.

“It took several months to realize that the problem really is a data problem, and it’s been an industry-wide problem for a long time,” she said. “We have to, as an industry, dig into our data and do better.”

With the data part figured out, Krow began networking for Silicon Valley talent to bring tech skills to the project.

“The core of what we do is artificial intelligence [and] natural language processing,” she said. (Resumes from anyone with skills in those areas are welcome, she added). 

This is a long-neglected problem, and Krow believes these technologies are the godsend it’s been waiting for. “I walked away from a big law firm partnership to solve this problem; it was so pressing.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the CloudNOW “Top Women in Cloud” Innovation Awards event.

Photo: SiliconANGLE