what's working well in terms of the legal tech and digitization in general in this field. It took us some times to grow enough in the region to prepare for for this investment. Do >> you see one of them working better than the other AI replacing lawyers? We have done a lot of testing and so there is no main barrier. >> You did invest a lot in in solutions that is AI. At Lexis Nexus when we provide AI features they are grounded into our authoritative content. lawyers here in the Middle East have started to use it as well. >> I think what we're making sure is to not take any shortcuts. Welcome back to The Jurist podcast. Everybody is talking about legal tech, generative AI, AI in legal. So many expressions and honestly we want to get to the bottom of this. So we bring the big boys in the room. We bring Benjamin Filaferro, the CEO of Lexis Nexis Middle East. Good morning. Happy to have you here. >> Thank you very much for welcoming me, Ahmed. I mean, it's it's an honor to be here in your in your podcast. Uh I think I'm also glad to be here because it's really aligning what we are doing in the region. I mean, contributing to sharing knowledge and uh and I think you're doing a tremendous job in that field. Thank you so much. Uh I know that you recently moved to the UAE coming back from coming from Europe to to live in the Middle East in general and you chose the UEE specifically. Why did you come and what what what is the move? I know that you were managing the region from abroad and while traveling and so on and you have a fantastic team here. Why did you choose to move to the UAE? Initially um there are some historical historical reason but because I'm managing the full the full mana menazole it was kind of making sense to be based in Paris to be closer to North Africa but uh recently it has been very obvious that the the the dynamic is much more stronger in the in the in the Middle East region and the potential full potential is still not reach uh there. So so it was making sense for me to be to be here on the ground. Yeah, it's it's it's I think it's different when you are on ground and when you feel the people, you meet everybody understand more about how the market dynamics are working. But I guess you have a quite a huge team here, right? Yes. Yes. We have more than 30 people uh 30 people here growing growing constantly and um yeah, I'm I've not never been I never feel totally disconnected from the from the ground because of my team here. Uh but definitely a big part of the business in the region is about networking and this has to be done face to face. >> Absolutely I agree with you. um in general across the GCC I mean because you take care of the whole region what's working well in terms of the legal tech and digitization in general in this field you have two type of uh two type of solutions I mean there is a legal legal research it is one of kind of the the basics in the masslo pyramid for for for lawyers uh lawyers need and jurist they need information so this is one one pillar the second pillar is workflow solution and tools that are helping uh lawyers to be to be more efficient into their into their processes. Do you see one of them working better than the other like with these solutions? I I would say I would say no. I I think I think on both market there is lot of things to be still lot of things to be done. I mean we are providing strong strong strong solutions but uh we are not covering yet the entire entire scope and and same thing I believe for our competitors. So uh both domain have a very strong potential right. Um does the Arabic language fall into the services that you provide like these platforms or these solutions that you have? Do you have Arabic tools for it to cater for this legal research? So for the moment it's not the it's not the case. Uh the reason is that it took us some times to grow enough in the region to prepare for for this investment. The thing is that we are strongly believe that when we launch a solution it shouldn't be a halfbaked uh product. So uh we are going to go there and we are going to make a major investment into that direction but we for sure don't want to disappoint. Um but no no specific difficulty for us with with Arabic. Um just massive investment to make sure the products are up to the expectations. I I I know very well that you're one of the biggest service providers in this field in the legal tick in in general and so many service providers now are relying on solutions like yours like I I know the people who are doing training and doing ad adoption of of these legal tech tools uh who are using whether your your solution or others are are relying a lot on the technology and the solutions that you provide. What could be the misconception the main misconception that you hear now in especially in this region because I hear a lot that AI for example is replacing lawyers that too much technology are making the lawyers more lazy. What what is the the the main misconception you hear AI? Yeah, exactly this one. I mean AI AI replacing lawyers. uh we can see in all the market and even where AI is the most advanced like in the US for example where we have the the the highest level of of feature in term of AI at the moment still lawyers are are key I mean they're key to to to think on to strategize but also key to um verify what the what the AI engine are are delivering so our goal here as Lexis Nexus is to provide the most reliable information in term of in term of AI and also to allow the lawyers to double check what the what the machine is uh is telling them by always showing references etc. There are still uh until now uh some some lawyers that are being catched uh using just direct random AI generated uh cases uh without their own their own knowledge and it's um it's it's not I mean not reflecting well on well on well on them. So there will be always the need for a lawyer to to really assess and uh and then it is a lawyer responsibility when they are presenting something to the judge. So it's not AI that is going to take the responsibility for that. >> Yeah. I mean you did invest a lot in in solutions that is AI uh integrated in it and I know that it's called Lexus uh plus AI. Correct. And I understand that lawyers here in the Middle East have started to use it as well. that's that's something I know what do you think are the most used features or what are the best features for example for this uh product with uh with this product first sorry I want to make a comment about how this product are buil so because we are talking about mis misconceptions u there is a technology aspect of it but there is a very strong aspect related to content so these tools all AI tools worldwise are as good as the content that has been fed to them. And so at Lexis Nexus when we provide AI features they are grounded into our authoritative content. So content that is uh written by experts uh that is that is unique uh because you need authoritative content to bring to bring legal certainty and legal legal legal security. So always when we think about AI we think about what's behind it and behind it is is is content. So this content is a closed source. It's not just AI seeking information from the random uh web. Exactly. This is propriarator information from from Lexis Nexus. In term of documents, we have the equivalent of 150 time the number of document of Wikipedia. And worldwide we are adding 2 million documents per day to our database. >> Wow. So we are talking large scale uh u amounts of authoritative authoritative documents and that is what is feeding feeding the AI and uh that's why we are able to to provide better results than than the the regular charg for for example in the term of legal feed and on top of that we are bringing um privacy because also when a when a lawyer is using a generic AI engine is the privacy of what is loading there is not guaranteed and so it's feeding the AI and it's also taking a legal risk as well because it might disclose confidential information to an AI that somebody might be able to find to find out. Yes. Yes. Even Chad Triet have confirmed on the 25th of August uh this year that they don't just screen the the conversations. They have AI to screen the conversations and sometimes they pass on the conversations to um to moderators, people who are actually checking them and if they find anything that is a bit concerning, they have the right to refer it to the the the authorities so that for sure the confidentiality of this information going to Chad TBT and it was confirmed by by the the um the CEO of of CHBT. So to be clear on this uh um Lexus Nexus doesn't have um an an in-house very specific AI AI engine. We are relying on external AI engine GPT but also Mistral cloud etc. and there will be maybe more in more in the in the in the future. The thing is that we have strategic agreement with them that that are allowing us to protect the privacy of our own IP and also the privacy of the the our clients uh documents and uh and conversation with uh with AI. What's the feedback of the market? I know that lawyers have started using it already and you must have already clients and so that this provide them the the the solution with did they tell you that this saves a lot of time or what was the major >> the latest study in the in the US we are talking about up to 10 hours per week uh of legal research uh saved um but yeah I mean we have a recent forester forester study we're talking about um reaching an arrow right in less than 6 months uh when when acquiring this type of this type of tool. So we are talking efficiency a decrease of nonbillable hours and uh ultimately potentially more more work uh I mean provided by the by the by the lawyers. So it's also very interesting in term of if we see in the long term uh in the long term we are talking also about enhancing the access to justice because uh by freeing lawyers time of low value added task task then they will be able to focus on more clients or or working on more advanced projects. >> Yeah more strategic thinking more clarity because we have more time to spend with uh our families or uh on on rest in general. Uh, of course saving time is a very crucial thing because that's how we charge. Anyways, so it can be better for our clients as well. >> Yeah. Coming back to your question about what's what's happening in in the region. So right now the the tools that we are providing are in English. Uh this is I would say I would say first a first step. So the but the usage uh goes from drafting an email like you you upload a decision and you ask the the engine write an email to summarize this decision to my client and then it's writing it's writing the email you say oh I want the tone the tone to be more friendly and then it will it will draft an email that is uh that is more friendly um um checking checking uh references >> making sure that that we are citing the right uh you are citing the right references looking for looking for documents uh obviously I mean the finding the right uh case law etc lot of tasks that are adding adding I mean uh supporting higher productivity >> did you see really because I mean of course referencing a legal research is amazing as a tool and a lot of people are are are relying on AI and technology for a long time I guess it's it's inevitable um what about drafting in general the enhancing of the drafting of skills. I I see from uh here that you you've did acquire henchmen for example and I know that constantly you're acquiring other businesses and companies that working in this field. Talk to us a little bit about these capabilities and the acquisitions that you're doing. So the the henchman henchman integration is uh has been has been uh is very exciting and so what's happening now is that it is allowing us when uh a lawyer is doing um a research he can do the research either in in our documents or in their own film documents. And this is the same thing for drafting. So when he wants to to draft uh something he can he can he can ask for a clause like a Lexis Nexis clause or I mean from the different as I said authoritative authors or or the the engine can look at the close that has been used into in in his own law to to propose the best the best clothes and this we are integrating it also directly into world Microsoft Microsoft world and uh this is the same thing that also we are doing with with Harvey where we We have users that are using Harvey's and that have asked us to be there into the IV Harvey interface. So now people that are using Harvey are able also to use the ask uh feature of Lexis Nexis of Lexis plus AI. So directly from the RV environment they can dig into the Lexist Nexis data. >> So it's like an API integrated into the system of Harvey. So they can benefit from both. >> Yeah. because we want to be present where the our lawyer I mean where the user is and so so and really embedded into their workflow and and in the same way we have now launched a prog which is a suite of different integrations of our AI into the different step of the workflow of the of the lawyers. >> So with a protoge I can um embed it already in the systems I'm using or it is a separate product. >> No it's a sep it's a separate it's a separate product. So either you have the proteé suite or you have or you you are accessing the data through through Harvey or through Microsoft Microsoft world and recently also Microsoft Outlook integration even. >> Uhhuh. I mean with all these acquisitions what's in the pipeline then >> of what you can disclose >> of acquisition. Unfortunately I cannot disclose I cannot disclose any anything super super confidential. Um but I mean what's next on the features? What's next on the acquisitions that you're planning to to grow uh um with the services that you provide in in especially here in this region? >> We see we see more and more integration into the the the the daily workflow of of lawyers and also more and more customization for each lawyer. So so like the the engine etc. The tools know the know what is the style the writing style of of the lawyer know what kind of legal field is working he's working on in order to tailor all the steps of the of the and to provide the best value added service into all step of the of the workflow um and yes it's quite quite exciting future in my opinion most of the law firms or of or or the the legal teams and and companies and so on they only use the English language so I don't think you have a barrier here in terms of the uh service offering if you're you're not integrated with the Arabic but I guess looking at the wider markets like uh bigger markets like we're talking um because you cover the Mina region we have Saudi we have Egypt who are already huge number of law firms and so on do you think the Arabic language is a barrier for you to expand in these countries yes and no I mean dep depend on how how you you you you um how I understand the from a technological point of view and as I said also earlier from a content point of view we the Arabic language is not is not is not a difficulty >> so so finding expert and scholars etc to write authoritative content for us is is not too is not complicated I mean this we have done that for >> hundreds of years now and then in term of technology uh we have done a lot of testing and so there is no main barrier what's I believe is a challenge right now on the Arabic speaking market is the level of the required level of investment. So maybe also another misconception about AI is that it's not a quick win having a legal tech that is integrating a bit of JGP into their into their solution. It's not providing a lot of extra extra value plus potentially it's adding some privacy some privacy risk and that's not what we call AI at Lexis Nexis. So when we launch AI on the market or in a language, we are talking about um millions and millions of dollar investment to uh to um to train the AI and um and this is uh this is massive investment. So unfortunately >> we do not see on any of our markets small I mean I say unfortunately because I like entrepreneurs uh but I do not see like small entrepreneurs doing uh right >> incredible stuff on on on AI. So this is valid for all the market not spec not specifically for the Arabic speaking market. >> Yeah. So but the but the good thing is that uh at Lexis Nexus our agenda is to deploy all these solutions worldwide and we won't stop until we have covered all the all the all the markets. So so it will uh it will come and and Lexus Nexus will make the investment to uh to provide this kind of solution. Different markets have different rates for um legal services in general. Like my my friends who are in Germany, for example, the hourly rate is much lower than what we charge here in the UAE or in Abu Dhabi or Qatar. Sometimes the same is in Egypt, but probably have the same years of experience, but they charge way less. It's just because of the currency difference and the purchase power. Does this affect you expanding all across the the the region? Because I think your your your rates are are quite flat like in all the um the the the regions because yeah I I think lawyers would need your service across borders whether in Egypt and Saudi or in UAE but the fee would be uh completely heavy for them or non-heavy for others. It is it is definitely impacting impacting our our our decisions but I think not only for business but in many business. So the the the strength of a currency uh might be uh might be an issue to uh to invest in one specific uh one specific country. So the way we are trying to address that is to work at the regional level >> and so to provide solutions that are useful for all lawyers in the region and then to see how much we can tailor the the the pricing. >> Yeah. How how strong is your deal with for example the generative AI providers or this chart or or open AI or anybody? We have a lot of concerns in when it comes to data secrecy and uh confidentiality and storage especially that I I believe that you also have u government as clients or uh or big corporations as clients. How do you ensure that the data uh is is secure? >> This is a first first element of answer is um this is not something this a topic that is specific to the region to us. Yeah, I mean uh if I take the the US because this is where we have started first to launch this kind of product. Our clients are the top top US law firms and so they handle the most confidential documents uh as as well and so they they are challenging us on all of this um and we're answering them uh answering their their request and show showing them how we protect how we protect their their information. Interestingly, the the the focus on uh we see in the US that the focus on data security is somehow a bit slowing down the adoption of AI in large law firms. >> Yeah. >> Where we see the fastest growth in smaller law firms because they just see the value and they just they just subscribe to the to the service. I think also smaller law firms if they invest a little bit in training to it's easier because it's 10 people 20 people it's easy to provide the training for them with the bigger law firms if they have hundreds of staff it's it can be heavy but I guess if they learn how to use AI without jeopardizing clients data or information that that is easier to do so I just maybe a complimentary uh information I mean I think it's very interesting thing to talk about privacy. We have invested one into having a very strong uh infra very strong infra in infrastructure and also we even have a dedicated team to answer the question regarding regarding privacy because uh now with our previous solution we were less challenged by the by the the the CTO and the and the CIOS and now now it is okay. So we have a team just dedicated to explain to them and to answer all their their queries regarding data privacy and the security. I I I believe with the hype of the AI and the legal tech because that's also really new to us. Um there were some products that you might have decided not to pursue or not to invest in or not to bring it to to this market. Was there any thing that you said no this will not work? >> Not not so far. >> Okay. Uh I think what we're making sure is to not take any shortcuts because it's true it could be tempting to say because we are all our customers asking for more and more AIS you so we could do like oh let's do a quick quick something you know and let's put some AIs there you know and and and say oh we are providing providing AI into that niche product let's say but this we are not we are not doing that when we when we do it we want it to be at the right level of uh the right level of quality and so yeah that's that the thing where we are being careful about >> who who are you partnering with the most? Are you partnering with government or law firms or universities or who are your closest allies here? Uh I I would like to believe all of them. Uh so the way we are approaching the market is really to think about it as an ecosystem that will and and we want everybody to move all to all together and we need all all of these people into the ecosystem to to collaborate. So we rely on um law films for authoritative authoritative content. We are also feeding and working with universities because we believe that students need to be equipped in term of of knowing how to use this kind of solution as soon as soon as as soon as possible. And we work with government as well because the the more we support the advancements of the sophistication of the laws the the the more efficient will be the will be the market and the stronger I mean stronger market and the stronger stronger laws are also going to to help us. >> Can you tell me let's let's get out of the UAE. We spoke too much about the UAE now. Do we have any um like insight what's happening in in our neighboring countries like our friends from Saudi or Qatar or Bahrain or even Egypt? How do you see the the the legal tech and AI adopting there for lawyers especially? >> The most dynamic market is probably is probably is probably Saudi. Uh but the the reason is >> more than the UAE or after >> after UAE. Okay. Yeah. Saudi market is a is a is is is huge because it's a it's it's a larger larger economy with larger number of of lawyers local etc. And so with the boom that they are that they are driving in their in their economy it's it's also generating lot of lot of ideas and uh and there are a lot of entrepreneurs that want to uh to be a part of it. Yeah. >> And who's the coming star? who's after UAE and Saudi who's the the the third one who would probably be uh uh adopting a lot of the legal tech and AI. >> This is difficult for me. Yeah. For me to to to say I mean we see um I think interest is is everywhere. >> Everywhere. Yeah. >> I believe there is I mean it is the technology from Lexis Nexis point of view. I mean in our experience uh this is a technology that has the fastest rate of adoption. So, so when we have launched even when we went from paper to to to online I mean dozens of years ago uh the adoption was much slower than AI where in few few months and now few couple of years uh we see very high adopt adoption rate so this is what we see in the region uh everybody understand that there is value there and want to to benefit from it >> right I see you're very active in in organizing conferences seminars events in in the UAE. Um, and I've attended personally a few of them and and I found great knowledge honestly shared during these these conferences. Do you have any plans to do more? Because I I think you're doing a great job at the at the beginning, but what's the agenda? Do you have like a pipeline of events all year long for knowledge sharing with your clients? Yeah, >> I would say our targets with this kind of event is knowledge sharing and also networking. Uh the this is very unique this kind of conferences and event to the to the to the Mina region for Lexist Nexis I would say. So Lexist Nexis is not doing that in other region. Why we are doing that here is because we believe that there is room to to strengthen the the the the ecosystem the legal ecosystem by by having people talking to much much more to each other I would say and so uh until u until we have reached that that goal of of having a very uh a more integrated u legal ecosystem we will continue pushing uh pushing onto Nice. You moved here after having control on this region for a while and I'm pretty sure you have your own milestones or your own uh personal targets. What do you want to do in the next 5 years? Like what are the milestones you want to take Lexus Nexus from here to there? >> The goal is to address 100% of the market. Wow. Uh so so when I say 100% >> you you have to be scared when this guy says that. Okay. this 100% of the market is taking a lot of people out. >> Yeah. >> I mean covering a lot. >> Yeah. The the the I'm not satisfied when I see the other countries where where where Lexis Nexus is has been there for for a long time and that I see that they are addressing even the smallest uh loium. Um this is what we want to do here. I mean to address 100% of the of the law firm because there is no reason that we provide this kind of services elsewhere and not not in the not in the region. Nice. With the legal tech um and AI in general growing so much in terms of the the offering and becoming smarter and becoming easier and makes our life faster. What do you think um will remain as the human skills for lawyers that needs to be um enhanced or developed because AI I think you are developing it. Thank you very much. What do we have to keep for us? I I uh being being a originally a mechanical engineer when I started to work with lawyers, I always I thought also at as so lawyers also as a different kind of engineers cuz I I believe that when lawyers are building a case, it's really Yeah. I feel it's like a machinery, you know, like like a clock. >> Yes. >> And and um it will be the same with with AI. I think they will have to maybe to to to work a bit differently somehow. I mean the long-term future maybe but still uh we will the work will rely on their on their logic and how they how they adjust the different the different pieces. Do you think the gap will get smaller between international huge big law firms or big local firms and small ones? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Also, what's surprising, I mean, we talk a lot about Arabic um language the the language barrier is going to totally disappear at some point and so and so there then is just going to be about skills and u the region has definitely a very strong uh legal history. I mean uh starting maybe with with alpha or even even earlier and so there is no I would say no no no region no reason uh in the long term for both local law firm and international law firm to be at par. Yeah, I I really totally agree with you because I know for a fact some brilliant brilliant brilliant lawyers uh who only speak Arabic and they have very little um tech skills but they are gurus in their field. They in the criminal law or in uh I don't know in tax and and and so on. They are great. they've been litigating for 10 20 years and then they do amazing results but because the language skills are not so good they're also behind with the technology because most of technologies adopted adopted in English um they are a little bit behind but I guess even the technology is getting closer to them than they are getting closer to technology so soon enough they will have Arabic products or softwares or they will have Arabic software that acts as an intermediary between them and the existing English language software and really the gap is getting smaller and also we are in a civil law country. >> Yeah. >> And so so uh at some point in history it was uh and today it's making a lot of sense to to have a common law common law free zones but um we see around the world that civil law is uh is also working well at scale. I mean uh looking at Europe at Asia etc. So the local lawyers with their skill in ci in civil law have nothing preventing them to be extremely successful as well. If if today I want to be as as um as well informed as you uh in in legal tech, of course I'm not, but I'm I'm saying if I want to follow um the the trends um what do you track of the news of the legal tech every day for example or every week to be up to date on whatever is offered in this uh industry. Yeah, it's difficult to give to give the perfect answer here. Uh because as as I said, our vision is uh that right now it's all about big investments. So then I'm I'm looking at uh what are the big moves. Um and uh yeah. Yeah. In the news and the in the whatever is offered in in this it's it's unbelievable how fast and how advanced it's getting day by day. And um and I think maybe generation from now it will be the norm. This is how the lawyers are going to be serving their their clients. They will rely a lot on technology and they will have enough time for the critical thinking and for the experience and for I don't know learning how to debate or personal skills or psychology that will um I think pair with their legal skills. I think also creativity is going to be to be a key asset in the future in my in my in my view. Um all these AI features they rely on existing content. So something that already people have been thinking about. So then being able to make connections and to to to come up with something new is going to become much more critical. Very nice. What would you say to anyone who is um a little bit behind with the legal tech or with the AI especially lawyers? I mean what do what would you advise them to do? I would advise them to do uh a bit what we are doing at at Lexis at Lexis Nexus is that we are using AI also a lot internally and so as I said lawyers in their day-to-day work life they shouldn't I we don't believe that they should be using uh proper uh I mean this AI that is not proper legal AI but what about their daily life so I think they should start by using AI you know in their daily life you know like uh uh drafting a travel plan uh uh finding some uh some benchmarking some the latest TV or something to to start really seeing the power of the of the tool. Uh I think it would be uh a mistake not to use at all any any uh any any AI. I think that's really fair to say because um take a step you know it's not just that you have to jump on the most sophisticated or the best solution uh immediately just take the baby steps learn what does it mean legal tech what does the AI uh provide use it use chat GPT or or Gemini or any of these um free or simple uh products uh first learn how to how does it benefit you or save your time and then you will understand the rest uh of it. >> But be careful of client privacy >> of course and be careful of confidentiality and the secrecy of your information. Tell me one thing that Lexus Nexus is really uh putting it as a main target. So what are you trying to do for justice? Our main target is to advance the rule of law around the world. And so what we are doing is providing tools that are supporting lawyers but also in-house council and also uh judges. Uh the judges they need exactly the same level of information that lawyers they have and with the same ease of ease of access and this is allowing them to work uh to work faster and uh in the future we want to do as much as we can to to support a more efficient uh justice system around the world. I I I completely agree with this point because slow justice is really not justice because it's not fair to stay years and years waiting for a verdict or for justice to to come along while I spend time and money for four, five, six years until justice is uh prevails. So I think fast justice is justice. Um, in the end, we really enjoyed conversation and I think we're going to bring you back here with the next acquisition or the next investment to talk about the new product or the new capability that you're making it uh available in the in the market and hope you enjoy it as well. >> Thank you very much for having me on the the juris podcast and it was very uh very exciting. Thank you very much and thank you everybody. And this was uh Benjamin the CEO of Nexus Nexus Middle East and myself Ahmed and Nagar the Jurus podcast. See you next week.