Case Study 3 | Talent Academy

Using AI to learn public speaking: How we helped a team of lawyers master client conversations using our AI Roleplay software

We helped 3x young starters at a law firm become confident at:

The first client meeting
Managing Invoice expectations, disputes, and value justification
Delivering client advice & bad news over the phone

Our Director (Tom Hendrick) was a practising tax lawyer for 10 years and created a program to help lawyers communicate more effectively with clients during difficult conversations.

The program simulates different scenarios and client personas in order of difficulty (easy, medium, to harder than anticipated).

The program measures success by having the AI detect whether the participants used communication required by the firm and the Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules. We also trained the AI and the participants in Talent Academy unique communication techniques

especially for lawyers

About the client

We received a referral from a previous client. The referral was a law firm that has approximately 50 staff, with 3 new graduate lawyers starting in commercial law roles.

The partners of the law firm mentioned that their firm (and the industry) had experienced dissatisfaction with an apparent decline in the communication confidence and competence of new lawyers:

Preference not to pick up the phone from clients, but to communicate exclusively by email
Not taking charge in client meetings, or providing clear advice to help clients make better decisions
Discounting invoices or apologizing for the price of valuable legal services - especially to placate an aggressive client.

The Problem

The 3x new lawyers had never been tested or given an opportunity to practice verbal client interview skills - especially on matters relating to invoices or bad news. Some simulated client conversations were included in their uni work, Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, and legal work experience, but not related to their current roles.

The firm and new starters asked if we could help them solve 3 problems:

Lawyers needed a clear idea of what successful communication looked like
The communication training needed to cover obligations under the Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules
Lawyers wanted to feel “ready” (or more than ready) for their first client interaction

The Strategy

Getting clear on what successful legal communication looks like

Lawyers need to consider 3x audiences during client meetings:

the client = usually wants to find certainty during a complex situation
the firm = usually wants to avoid unnecessary risks, get good outcomes for clients, and charge for valuable services to carry on a reputable and profitable business
Scrutineers = courts, the law society, legal insurance, etc. These are some examples of “people” interested in the way client communications are delivered in a clear, honest and timely manner - because courts, law societies & legal insurance providers distribute consequences to lawyers that communicate poorly.

Compliant with Lawyer Obligations under the Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules

In addition to the way client communications are delivered, we had to consider what must be included or excluded from that advice under the LPCR.

For example, Rule 7.2 of the Rules states “A legal practitioner must inform the client or the instructing practitioner about the alternatives to fully contested adjudication of the case…”.

This must be included in client communications.

However, Rule 11.1 states “A legal practitioner and a law practice must avoid conflicts between the duties owed to two or more current clients.”

Therefore, certain disclosures cannot be made to new clients if they conflict with duties owed to current or former clients.

Lawyers wanted to feel “ready” (or more than ready) for their first client interaction

Having lawyers be competent and confident at client communications is a skill - and as mentioned in our other post Mastering Q&A: How we helped a team of engineers pitch to the Board - we subscribe to the Fitts & Postner skill acquisition framework.

Our Solution

Getting clear on what successful legal communication looks like:

We facilitated an initial planning meeting with the law firm partners that went for 90 minutes. In that meeting, we agreed to the following success criteria - which I will describe as either a “Best Practice” (something Talent Academy advises to do based on data collected from industry), Firm Policy (something the firm wants to do that’s part of their values), Code of Conduct (something lawyers are required to do):

1. Best Practice: Acknowledge the Human First

- Firm agreed that lawyers should be “pass / failed” on whether their response first acknowledges the client, their problem, their emotions, etc. - before delving into the advice

- “I can see how the uncertainty is causing you a lot of stress - we can make this more legally certain for you to relieve some of that stress”.

2. Best Practice: Repeat Count

- To help lawyers be consistently clear when delivering complex conversations - Talent Academy suggested that lawyers first repeat the operative part of the question, then break the question into a small number of manageable parts.

- “What is going to happen to my house in the divorce?”

- “Your house. There are 2 things that tend to happen to houses in a divorce - either X or Y. In more detail…”

3. Firm Policy: No work before an engagement letter & money in trust

- The firm wanted lawyers to be able to confidently state (and not compromise) the above policy.

4. Code of Conduct: no breaches to Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules

- Some of the Rules we integrated into our AI software include:

- Rule 4.1.2: must be honest & courteous

- Rule 6.1: must not say “undertaking” or otherwise bind the firm to a promise

- Rule 7.2: must advise alternatives to litigation

Compliant with Lawyer Obligations under the Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules

In our initial planning meeting with the Law Firm, we agreed that it was more important for the young lawyers to get certain Rules absolutely correct, then to try and have them master every aspect or every Rule.

We found a solution that struck middle ground - where we could “pass fail” lawyers on the important rules by teaching those rules to the AI in a binary way (either something was said or it wasn’t).

However, in the “other feedback” section of our AI software, we could make the AI able to recognise all the Conduct Rules and leave comments on whether any other rules were possibly breached in the lawyers’ conversations.

Lawyers wanted to feel “ready” (or more than ready) for their first client interaction

In the Program, we ran 6x 1 hour sessions for all 3 lawyers. Each lawyer had at least 3 attempts to practice different scenarios and AI persona’s, and each scenario & persona increased in difficulty.

The lawyers got to see each other perform and give feedback for the easy and medium scenarios. This created an environment of active learning - where the non-speaking lawyers were actively watching the speaking lawyer as they could use that performance to improve their next performance.

The hard scenario was done with 1 lawyer in the room and the other lawyers not in attendance (so each lawyer would be taken by surprise when it was their turn). All the performance recordings were shown afterwards for feedback.

Each lawyer benefitted from a vast array of feedback: personal, peer, professional and AI.

By the end of this program, each lawyer had experienced 6 x 3 x 3 = 54 client conversations. This might otherwise have taken over a year to experience working on the job.

The Results

The feedback received from the 3x lawyers and the Law Firm was unanimous - all 3x problems were solved by the Program. We are providing ongoing Programs to their new and ongoing lawyers. We are currently working with other professional firms, universities and national professional development organizations to roll out more AI Client Role Play training.