AI 为什么可能让小型律所成长为十亿美元企业?Eve 的原告法律自动化实践
原题Why AI Could Turn Small Law Firms Into Billion-Dollar Businesses
推荐理由Eve 的法律自动化案例呈现 AI 如何重组专业服务中的时间和成本结构,可借此比较交付效率、业务扩张与专业责任之间的关系。
看前速览
Eve CEO Jay Madheswaran 认为,自动化原告法律工作流能让原本受人工成本限制的案件变得可承接,从而扩大法律服务覆盖与律所收入。
减少劳动投入可能扩大法律服务市场
胜诉后收费并不能自动让小额案件划算,因为接案、研究和案件管理仍消耗昂贵人工。
商业价值既包括效率,也包括新增收入
自动接案和推进案件能帮助律所服务更多客户,访谈举出每位律师从管理 100 人增至 500 人的客户自述。
领域上下文创造超越通用智能的价值
和解行为、本地实践与工作流共同决定下一步行动;公司区分客户保密资料与一般法律经验。
律师可能更专注判断与代理工作
例行交流可能交给智能体,律师则提供对客户、本地环境以及和解或诉讼选择的理解。
端到端自治仍是工程目标
Madheswaran 明确表示尚未实现完全自主办结,并解释了数千次交互与不同案件类型的开发工作。
完整摘要
Jay Madheswaran 与 Alex Rampell 将原告法律视为受劳动力约束的市场:即使采用胜诉后收费,小额案件仍可能无法覆盖接案、研究和管理成本。Eve 希望自动处理接听电话、资格判断、法律研究、调取记录、索赔与和解准备等工作。一家客户据称将每位律师管理的客户数从约 100 人提升至 500 人,体现的首先是收入扩张,而非单纯裁员。Madheswaran 强调,法律 AI 需要本地实践、非公开和解信息与具体案件工作流,不能只靠通用模型;他也表示客户资料保持私密、不用于训练。对话预计更多例行交流将由智能体互相完成,律所可能更加专业化、整合并转向结果定价,但律师的判断和代理作用依然重要。完全自主办结案件尚未实现,单案可能涉及约一万次交互,工程能力仍是限制。客户收益与未来市场规模属于公司主张,不能视为独立核实的法律或财务结果。
章节
文字稿
简要描述Brief Description
为什么人工智能可能让小型律师事务所发展成价值数十亿美元的企业Why AI Could Turn Small Law Firms Into Billion-Dollar Businesses
目录Table of Contents
- 简介Intro
- 原告方律师行业与“大卫对歌利亚”式的宣传话术Plaintiff Law and the David-vs-Goliath Pitch
- 为什么小额案件请不到律师Why You Can't Get a Lawyer for a Small Case
- 扩大收入,而非削减成本Revenue Expansion, Not Cost Cutting
- 每位律师服务的客户数量从100人增至500人From 100 to 500 Clients Per Attorney
- 法律软件背后其实是一个劳动力市场Legal Software Is Secretly a Labor Market
- 为什么伊芙胜过“原始智力”Why Eve Beats "Raw Intelligence"
- 当双方都获得 AI 超能力时When Both Sides Get AI Superpowers
- 人类律师还剩下什么工作♀♀♀♀♀♀What's Left for Human Lawyers
- 用 ChatGPT 起诉富国银行Suing Wells Fargo With ChatGPT
- 小型企业能否实现十亿美元营收?Can a Small Firm Hit a Billion in Revenue?
- 计费工时制的终结The Death of the Billable Hour
- 单个案例中的 10,000 次触达The 10,000 Touches in a Single Case
- 感恩节发现技巧The Thanksgiving Discovery Trick
简介Intro
嘉宾:过去,原告律师事务所其实只需要一部手机和一个电子邮箱地址就够了。基本就这些。没有什么软件真正解决了他们的核心问题,也就是人手不足。大多数人想到 AI,就会说:“哦,你们要裁掉所有人、削减成本。”但其实不是这样。比如,我使用 Eve,就能让我的律所赚更多钱。Guest: Historically, plaintiff law really didn't need more than a cell phone email address. That was kind of it. No software really solved their core problem, which is labor constraint. Most people think of AI is like, "Oh, you're going to fire everybody and cut costs." And it's like, "No, actually, like, if I use Eve, I make a lot more money for my firm.
“人们不可能在案件要持续多久还说不准的情况下,按每小时500或600美元的价格无限付费。”Eve真正想做的是从头到尾处理好整件事。洛杉矶有一家律所,每位律师管理的客户数量从约100人增加到了500人。People can't pay $500, $600 an hour on a blank check for however long the case might take." What Eve has aimed to do is really handle that whole thing end to end. One firm in LA went from managing about 100 clients per attorney to 500.
主持人:哇。Host: Wow.
嘉宾:这是一种有可能实现的事情。Guest: That is a type of thing that is possible.
主持人:为什么 Eve 比单纯的原始智能要好?Host: Why is Eve better than just kind of like raw intelligence?
嘉宾:如果你今天把阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦放进一家律师事务所,他在相当长一段时间内都无法发挥生产力。这正是 Eve 正在解决的一个普遍问题。那为什么这个人无法发挥生产力呢?原因有很多。Guest: If you drop Albert Einstein into a law firm today, he will not be productive for quite some time. That is a general problem that Eve is solving. And why won't that person be productive? Well, it's due to a number of things.
一个是One is
原告方法律实践与“大卫对歌利亚”式推介Plaintiff Law and the David-vs-Goliath Pitch
主持人:大家好。我是 Alex Rampel,Andreen Horwitz 的合伙人。很高兴今天能和 Eve 的 Jay 一起参加节目。呃,Jay 是联合创始人兼 CEO。嗯,大家都认识律师,对吧?大家都知道法律是什么。但我觉得大多数人,尤其是在硅谷,听到法律和法律事务时,想到的往往是公司法,比如那些规模很大的、所谓的“白鞋”律所——我想这就是这个说法——在那里,你去哈佛法学院,然后每小时收 2000 美元。Host: Hi everyone. I'm Alex Rampel, partner at Andreen Horwitz, and I'm very happy to be here with Jay from Eve, uh, co-founder and CEO. Um, and everybody knows a lawyer, right? Everybody knows law. But most people, I think, especially in Silicon Valley, when they hear law and legal, they kind of think about corporate law, like really big, you know, supposedly white shoe, I guess, is the term law firms where you go to Harvard Law School and you build $2,000 an hour.
不过,法律领域还有另一面,它的规模其实更大,也更加分散,我想我们会把它称为原告律师业务。嗯,比如每次你开车经过 101 号公路,都会看到那些广告牌。嗯,也许可以聊聊,比如先从“Eve 是什么”开始?你们专注于哪类法律业务和法律 AI?也可以稍微介绍一下整个行业,因为我觉得大多数美国人都对它有所了解,但未必意识到这一点。尤其是我觉得这里硅谷的人听说过 Wilson Cinci,却没听说过 Morgan and Morgan,对吧?而 Morgan and Morgan 可能比 Wilson Cinci 盈利多得多。那么,原告律师业务到底是什么?也请用你自己的话介绍一下 Eve。But there's like another side of law which actually is bigger, more distributed, and I guess we would call that plaintiff law. Um, so like every time you drive on 101, you see all these billboards. Um, and maybe kind of talk about like what is maybe start off like what is Eve? Um, what form of law and legal AI do you focus on? and maybe a little bit about the industry in general because I feel like most Americans are familiar with it but they don't necessarily realize especially for people I think here in Silicon Valley they've heard of Wilson Cinci but they haven't heard of Morgan and Morgan right and Morgan and Morgan is probably a lot more profitable than Wilson Cinci but like what is plaintiff law and also kind of maybe explain Eve in your own words
嘉宾:当然。首先,感谢你邀请我来这里,Alex。聊聊 Eve 总是很有意思。Eve 是面向普通人的法律 AI,对吧?也就是像你我这样的人,而不是机构、企业内部法务,或那些本来就拥有充足资源的人。那么,我们究竟该如何为那些负担不起法律服务的人提供帮助呢?原告律师行业正是因此而兴起的。因为最终发生的情况是,正如你提到的,Wilson Cini 可能会收取每小时 2,000 美元——这确实就是他们的商业模式。律师的时间很贵,而你还在试图让律师把精力投入到越来越昂贵的工作中。Guest: absolutely one thank you for having me here Alex always fun to talk about Eve um what Eve is legal AI for real people, right? Like people like you, me, not institutions, not in-house legal, not the people that already have all the resources, but how do we actually provide legal services to people um that otherwise can't afford it? And this is how the plaintiff law industry really came about because what ended up happening was you talked about how Wilson Cini might charge $2,000 an hour and that's that's really the business model. Lawyers times are expensive and you're trying to point lawyers towards more and more expensive time.
大多数律师也是如此。他们他们有很多账单要付,而且需要今天的法律工作。你投入的工作越多,就越能更好地陈述事实。The same is true for most lawyers. They they have a lot of bills to pay and they need today legal work. The more work you put behind it, you can represent your facts better.
你可以获得更好的结果。这就是我们如今所处的世界。考虑到这一点,律师明白,人们不可能在没有费用上限的情况下,按每小时500或600美元支付律师费,还不知道案件会持续多久。因此,原告方律师行业应运而生,采用风险代理收费模式。You can get a better outcome. That is the state of world we live in today. To account for this, lawyers understand people can't pay $500, $600 an hour on a blank check for however long the case might take. So, the plaintiff industry came about on working on contingency law.
所以,这意味着只有在他们为客户赢得案件时,才能获得报酬。这也正是他们能够让个人与机构之间的较量变得相对公平的原因。Eve 的目标是真正从头到尾处理整个流程:如何代表客户,从最初的电话沟通一直到为他们争取到和解?如何完全依靠 AI 端到端地完成这件事,再交给律师,从而放大他们实际能够带来的成果?So, what this means is they only get paid when they win the case for the client. And this is what's allowed them to even have any sort of leveling playing field with people versus institutions. And what Eve is aiming to do is really handle that whole thing end to end and of how do you represent a client all the way from the very first call to getting them a settlement. How do you do that end to end thing purely with AI and give that to the lawyers to then amplify the outcomes they can actually provide.
这就是 Eve 正在做的事。And that's what Eve is doing.
为什么小额案件请不到律师Why You Can't Get a Lawyer for a Small Case
而且我们真的在给他们配备武器。你想想,给大卫一把弹弓去打倒歌利亚。这就是我们在做的事。所以我觉得这件事特别有意思。嗯,你知道,我会想到经济学入门课上那条向右上方倾斜的供给曲线。这意味着什么呢?嗯,因为别忘了,图上有价格和数量。这里是数量,这里是价格。所以,价格上涨时,供给量也会上升。And we're really arming, you know, think about giving David a slingshot to take down Goliath. That's what we're doing. So what I find fascinating about this is uh you really I kind of think about econ 101 where you have a supply curve that goes up into the right and what does that mean? Um because remember there's price and quantity. So here's here's quantity and here's price. So as the price goes up right then the quantity supplied goes up
没错。所以,如果做某件事能让我赚到10万美元,哇,我肯定愿意。不过,需求曲线的走向正好相反。right. So if I can make $100,000 by doing something wow I'm totally in. But the demand curve is the opposite direction.
没错。所以你知道,价格和数量是朝这个方向变化的。所以需求就是我想要的单位数量。嗯,实际上我应该说,这里是数量,这里是价格。That's right. So you know price and quantity go this direction. So the demand the number of units that I want. Um actually I should say this is quantity this is price here.
所以你知道,价格下降,需求量就会大幅上升。要是我想想把这套逻辑应用到法律领域,比如我有 1,000 美元的损失,对吧?嗯,我甚至可以找一位律师按风险代理的方式接案,对吧?嗯,他们可能不愿意接我的案子,因为如果他们要拿走赔偿金的三分之一,他们就会想接更大的案子,而且这类案子需要投入一定的工作量。AI 确实在某种程度上能缓解这些市场失灵,因为,嗯,你提到过给大卫一把更大的弹弓。很多时候,大卫就是……好吧,第一,如果我的损失只有 1,000 美元,我肯定付不起每小时 1,200 美元请律师,所以这种情况下我就只能放弃了。So you know price goes down quantity demanded goes up considerably. And if I think about applying this to law like what if I have $1,000 of damages right? Um I can call a lawyer even for contingency right? um they might not want to take my case because if they take a third of the outcome, it's like they want a bigger case and it's going to require a certain amount of work and AI really it kind of liberates these market failures to a certain extent because um you mentioned kind of giving David a bigger slingshot like a lot of times like David just well number one if I have $1,000 of damages I certainly can't pay $1,200 an hour for a lawyer so like I'm out for that.
我们将进入风险代理法律业务领域。问题是,和解金额可能不够高。所以律师可能愿意为我提供服务,但他们还得支付律师助理等人的工资,诸如此类。不过,如果软件现在就能完成这项工作,市场机会就大得多了,对吧?We'll enter contingency law. The problem is that like the settlement might not be big enough. So like the lawyer might want to serve me but like he or she has parallegals that they have to pay and so on and so forth. But if the software can do the work now the market opportunity is so much bigger, right?
实际上,你可以为很多人伸张正义,而他们本来可能会因为费用而被拒之门外——不过,风险代理收费怎么会让人付不起呢?但这对律师来说其实不太划算。他们想服务自己接触到的上千名客户,但做不到。他们不得不把精力放在最大的客户身上,结果小客户就吃了亏,因为这又有点偏离了那个均衡点。嗯,不知道你是否认同,或者你怎么看这件事。You can actually deliver justice for a lot of people that otherwise they weren't priced out of it because how do you how are you priced out of contingency? But like it's not really in the interest of a lawyer. they want to serve, you know, a thousand customers that they get, but they can't. They have to focus on the biggest ones to the detriment of the smaller ones because again, it's kind of to the right of that equilibrium point. Um, I don't know if you agree with that or how you think about that.
嘉宾:完全没错。我认为这正是我们如今市场面临的实际问题。你知道,回到最基本的原则,如果你是一个人,就理应有一位优秀的律师为你的案件辩护。而通常只有在你走投无路时,才会需要律师,对吧?这时候,我们身上最好的一面和最糟的一面都会显露出来,而我们又没有足够的能力为自己辩护。Guest: That is exactly right. I think that is the actual market problem we have today, which is, you know, if you go back to first principles, if you're a person, you deserve a great lawyer to represent your case. And usually only need a lawyer when your back is against the wall, right? The best of us, the worst of us comes out this time and we don't have the skill sets to represent ourselves.
这就是整个法律行业存在的原因。这也是为什么法律体系大约占我们政府的三分之一。正是因为这个。是啊。That's why this whole profession exists. That's why the legal system is about third of our government. It's for this reason. Yeah.
嗯,如今的情况是,律师仍然需要获得报酬。瓶颈仍然在法律工作上。现在,如果一个案子不能至少给律师带来5,000的律师费,他们就不会接。Um and today what's happening is because lawyers still need to get paid. It's still bottlenecked on legal work. Today, if a lawyer doesn't make at least 5,000 fees of a case, they do not take it on.
主持人:是啊,Host: Yeah,
嘉宾:这就是如今的市场动态。即使价格达到5000,他们在很多案例上仍然亏钱。他们真正指望的是少数案例能带来巨额赔付。Guest: that is the market dynamics today. And even at 5,000, they're losing money on a lot of cases. They're really banking on few cases paying out very large.
主持人:他们甚至根本不能保证会赢。所以,他们已经接受了这一点——这就是其中的应变因素。这正是……Host: They're not even guaranteed to win period. So, they already take that's the contingency aspect. That's exactly
但这有点像是,即使我赢了,也还是输了,因为打这场官司的成本会高于胜诉后实际可能获得的赔偿。But it's kind of like even if I win, I lose because my costs of carrying the case are going to be higher than the actual potential outcome even if I win.
嘉宾:完全没错。你想想,这里大多数人都遇到过车祸,或者某种小刮蹭。如果损失低于免赔额,在美国没有律师会接这种案子,对吧?从经济上来说根本不划算。Guest: That's exactly right. I mean, think about like most people here have been in an car accident, fender bender of some sort. If it's below the deductible, no lawyer in America will touch that case, right? It's just not economically worth it.
即便个人的免赔额是 3,000 美元或 4,000 美元,这也意味着一份工资可能就没了,也可能不会,对吧?而且他们也无法因此获得代理,Even if the deductible's $3,000, $4,000 to an individual, that is a difference between a paycheck being gone versus not, right? And there's no representation they can get for that,
对吧?同样的道理,原因其实也在他们那一边,所以我们也得从他们的角度去理解,对吧?比如说,你在工作中一直受到骚扰,而你的雇主本来可以制止这种情况。就拿酒店餐饮业来说吧,你可以告诉顾客:“嘿,别骚扰我的员工。”然后调整流程来确保这一点。可如今这种事不会发生,因为那个人打电话时,对方律师得接起电话、听完这通电话,这大概要花30到45分钟。之后,他们还得去做法律研究,因为在美国,雇佣关系基本上都是任意雇佣制,你必须把问题和某种受保护条款联系起来,这叫作诉因。所以你必须把问题和某个诉因联系起来,而这项工作需要他们花10个小时去做……right? And the same thing and the reason is actually from their side we have to understand from their side too right so let's say you've been getting harassed at work and your employer could stop it like in hospitality industry let's say you could you know tell your customers hey don't harass my employees and change processes to make that happen today that doesn't happen because when that person gets calls the lawyer on the other side has to pick up a call feel that call that's about 30 to 45 minutes of And then after that, go do legal research because in employment in America, pretty much everything's at will and you have to tie a problem to uh you know like a protected clause of some kind and it's called causes of action. So you have to tie it to a cause of action and that work requires them to go spend 10 hours
主持人:嗯。Host: Yeah.
来访者:去研究你的判例法,调查事实,反复沟通,再追问他们一些问题,看看他们是否符合条件。而在花了这么多时间之后,他们可能还是会意识到,嘿,这件事根本赚不到 5,000 美元,Guest: to go research your case law, research the facts, go back and forth and ask them more followup questions, see if they qualify. And while they spent all that time, they might still realize, hey, this doesn't even make me $5,000,
主持人:对吗?Host: right?
嘉宾:所以这就是为什么在劳动力失业方面,比如说,96%的案件会被驳回。Guest: So that is why 96% of cases on the labor unemployment side, for example, gets rejected,
主持人:对吗?Host: right?
嘉宾:所以,除非你自己掏钱,否则根本找不到人来代表你。很多情况下,人们没钱自掏腰包。所以……Guest: So you can never find anybody of represent unless you come out of pocket. In many cases, people don't have money to come out of pocket. So
扩大收入,而非削减成本Revenue Expansion, Not Cost Cutting
主持人:完全正确。完全正确。所以你基本上就是先接受这种情况,除非发生特别严重的事情。嗯,这就是目前的状况,所有事情都受法律人力所限。Eve要做的就是让原本需要10小时的事情,现在通过Eve立刻完成。Host: that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So you just kind of take it unless something really egregious happens. Um, and that is the current state and it's all bottlenecked on legal labor. And this is what Eve is meant to do is to how do you now take that 10 hours is now immediate with Eve.
有电话打进来时,Eve 会亲自接听,并自动运用他对律所的了解,判断律师是否需要接手这个案子,然后迅速着手处理,发出索赔要求,或完成最初的前期工作。对吧?这会彻底改变这类案件的经济效益。而我们现在还处在非常早期的阶段。你知道,眼下的情况是,Eve 越来越有能力在很长的时间跨度内端到端地处理各种结果。A call comes in, Eve actually answers the call and automatically uses his insights on the law firm to know whether or not this is a case the lawyer has to take on or not and then hit the ground running with a demand or the initial preliminary work done. Right? And that completely changes the economics of that type of case. And we're still at the very beginning stages, you know, like what's what's happening is Eve is getting more and more capable of handling outcomes end to end over a very long horizon.
这些项目从启动到落地需要六个月到一年,其间可能会有上千次来回沟通和操作。These cases take 6 months a year to take to launch and through them probably a thousand actions back and forths that are happening.
而随着 Eve 的准确率越来越高,And as accuracy of Eve is getting higher and higher,
这样,长远视野就成为可能。随着这种可能性不断增大,越来越复杂的工作也能被归结为一个固定案例。于是,所有这些原本没有代表权的人,如今都获得了代表权。this long horizon becomes possible. So the more this becomes possible, even more complicated work gets more ties down to a constant case. So now all these people without representation get representation.
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:嗯,如果你认真问问自己,如果寻求法律帮助不是件麻烦事,你这一生会求助多少次?这个数字比我们想象的要高得多。是啊。Guest: Um and if you really ask yourself like how many times in your life if asking for legal help wasn't a friction point? Would you have asked it? That number is way higher than we think. Yeah.
主持人:说来挺有意思的。这是真事。大概九个月前,我在洛斯阿尔托斯的一家小咖啡馆 Blue Bottle,向别人介绍 Eve。我之所以跟他讲 Eve,是因为大多数人一提到 AI,就会觉得,哦,你要把所有人都裁掉、削减成本,一切都是为了省钱。但其实不是,如果我用 Eve,我的公司能赚更多钱。而这并不是因为我在削减成本。Host: So it's a funny story. This is a true story. I was in Blue Bottle, a little coffee shop in Los Altos, and I was explaining Eve to somebody probably nine months ago, and I was explaining it because most people think of AI as like, oh, you're going to fire everybody and cut costs, and it's all about cost savings, and it's like, no, actually, like, if I use Eve, I make a lot more money for my firm. And it's not because I'm cutting costs.
这就像是我能承接更多案件。实际上,这就是收入扩张。所以,我是在以外部投资者的身份来解释这个问题,可能没有你讲得那么好。最后,我们聊了很多话题,但提到了 Eve,接着这家伙走到我面前,看起来有点生气。It's like I can take on more cases. It's actually revenue expansion. So, I'm explaining this um as an outsider investor can, so not as well as you probably would. And at the end of this, I mean, we were talking about many topics, but Eve came up and this guy comes up to me, he looks a little angry.
他有一只大狗,而我有点怕大狗。然后他问:“你刚才说的那家公司叫什么来着?”我心想:“糟了,他会不会生气?”他说:“我是出庭律师,我想试试。”哦,太好了。He has a big dog, and I'm kind of afraid of big dogs. And he was like, "What was that company you were talking about?" I was like, "Uhoh, is he going to get mad?" He's like, "I'm a trial attorney. I want to try it." Oh, great.
所以,我给你带来了一个新客户。So, I got you a new customer there.
客人:谢谢。Guest: Thank you.
主持人:但重点在于,你们扩大了营收机会。不过也许可以聊聊这里面的运作机制,因为大家都开过101号公路或I-95州际公路。I-95是那条从佛罗里达一路通到缅因州之类的公路,你知道,纵贯东海岸。我几乎开过全程。感觉路上差不多一半的广告都是诉讼律师的,呃,原告方律师事务所的广告。Host: But the whole point is that you expand the revenue opportunity, but maybe kind of walk through like what do the dynamics because everybody has driven on 101 or I 95. I95 is the corridor that goes from Florida all the way up to Maine or something, you know, up and down the eastern seabboard. And it's like I've driven almost all of that. And it's like I feel like half of the ads are for trial attorneys, uh, plaintiff law.
嗯,所以他们显然是在那里打广告,因为你想——他们想接到电话。就像是:“嘿,我出了这起事故,或者我遇到了这个问题。”嗯,那这笔账怎么算?比如说,我花了这么多钱……这也是为什么我觉得 Eve 如此有意思,因为我不得不拒绝收到的 90% 的客户线索。Um, so they're obviously advertising there because you want they want to get called. It's like, hey, I have this accident or I have this issue. Um, but what do the economics look like? So like I spend all this is why again I think Eve is so fascinating because I have to turn down 90% of the leads that I'm getting.
我猜是这样,对吧?或者说,数据看起来怎么样?I assume, right? Or like what do the numbers look like?
我花钱投放了一块广告牌,收到了很多主动咨询。其中有多少能转化成案件?这些案件中又有多少能转化为收入?I spend money on a billboard. I get lots of inbound. How many of those turn into cases? How many of those cases turn into revenue?
可能有点像前后对比,因为你们并不是帮律师节省成本,而是帮助他们扩大收入。这是从法律服务这一端来看。但律所的经济账怎么算?Maybe kind of like a before and after because you are you're not a cost savings play for lawyers. You're a revenue expansion play for them. That's that's from the legal side. But what do the economics look like for a law firm?
嘉宾:没错,完全是这样。大多数人开车经过时,只看到了表面,却忘了背后的人,以及每一次出勤实际需要付出的工作量。如今就是这样,而这正是 Eve 能帮上忙的地方。Guest: That that's exactly right. When most people drive by, they see the face and they forget about the people behind them and the amount of work every single call actually takes. That's that's what happens today. That's what Eve is there to help with.
而律所这边的账算起来非常简单:通常来说,你代理的人越多,赚的钱就越多。但由于你们可以接纳更多人,而且说实话,你们拒绝或不接许多案件,只是因为承办成本太高,所以从他们的角度来看,需求并不是真正的限制因素。And the math on the law firm side is very simple. The more people you represent, typically speaking, the more money you make. But because you can take on more people and you honestly are denying and not taking on many cases because they're too expensive to take on, the demand from their perspective is not really constraint.
说到底,问题在于劳动力供给。比如说,我手头有足够的人来处理这个问题吗?而且让事情更复杂的是,不同公司面临的问题领域各不相同,瓶颈也会不断变化,对吧?比如,一家小公司可能只有一位律师,还有一位案件经理或某种办公室经理负责接听最初的来电并做记录,然后律师再利用空闲时间回复,对吧?他们基本上就是在混乱中四处奔忙。再往上一个阶段,就是他们找到办法把这一切系统化。It's really the supply of labor. Like do I have enough people uh inside to actually service that problem and to make things more complicated different firms here are in different realms of problems where the bottleneck keeps shifting, right? So like a small firm might just have one attorney that is has a case manager or some sort of uh office manager that feels initial call and just notes it down and then the lawyer then responds back in their free time, right? They're kind of running chaotically running around and then there's a next level which is they find a way to systematize it.
你知道,他们有一个接收团队,类似某个地方的呼叫中心,负责接听来电,而现在这就成了新的瓶颈。所以,当你增加营销支出时,比如说,你在那块广告牌上看起来特别吸引人,结果很多人打电话过来。You know, they have a an intake team of call like a call center somewhere that intakes it and now that becomes a new bottleneck. So now when you increase your marketing spend, let's say you looked particularly attractive in that billboard and a lot of people are calling in.
呃,突然间,那个团队现在不堪重负,而你又再次受到自己能代表人数的限制,Uh suddenly now that team is overwhelmed and you're limited again by how many people you can represent,
主持人:对吗?Host: right?
嘉宾:这就是这些小企业每天面对的挑战。它们毕竟是小企业,不是什么大型企业。呃,他们想代表个人,而这里的每个人都上过法学院,不是商学院。Guest: And this is the daily challenge these small businesses are dealing with. It's they're small businesses. They're not massive enterprises. Uh they want to represent individuals and everyone here went to law school, not business school.
他们希望能够陪伴和支持这些人。嗯,所以我们基本上是把这一切整合到 EVE 平台上,这样只有在需要的时候才会请他们介入,对吧?比如他们作为律师的见解,以及他们对如何处理这个案子的独到见解。Eve 一直在提升下限。They want to be there for the people. Um, so we're basically consolidating all of that into the EVE platform such that they are getting pulled in only for what they need to, right? Like their lawyer insights, their particular insights on how do they take this case? Eve keeps raising the floor.
我该如何把它从这一层提升到更高的层次?我认为,这正是所有律师都应该花时间与团队成员交流、帮助客户取得成果的地方。How do I take it from this floor to the next level? And that is where I believe really all lawyers should spend time talking to their people and helping get client outcomes.
每位律师服务的客户数量从 100 个增至 500 个From 100 to 500 Clients Per Attorney
主持人:嗯,在某种程度上,这就是市场失灵的所在:如果我能以每小时12美分雇一名律师助理(或者说,不管它的 token 成本是多少),我就能服务所有涌入的5000条潜在客户线索,对吧?但问题是我做不到。Host: Well, and this is kind of the market failure point to a certain extent, which is I could serve all 5,000 leads that came in if only I could hire a parallegal for 12 cents per hour, right? Or whatever the token cost of it, but it's like I can't.
嘉宾:嗯。Guest: Mhm.
主持人:所以,我只是……没有哪个劳动力市场能够真正运转,但现在有了 AI,我可以。嗯,我是说,你有没有那种前后对比的例子?就像,你知道,像男性植发俱乐部那样。就是,你知道,这是我之前的样子,这是之后的样子。Host: So, I would just there's no labor market that could actually function, but with AI now, I can. Um, I mean, do you have anecdotes of just like kind of before and after? It's just like, you know, like the hair club for men. It's like, you know, here I am before, here after.
我头发长得挺好。不过,对于你合作的那些最优质客户来说,这具体意味着什么?我想他们的收入转型应该相当显著。I have a nice head of hair. But like, what's that for kind of your best customers that you work with? I imagine the revenue transformation is pretty significant.
嘉宾:是的。洛杉矶有一家律所,每位律师管理的客户数量从大约100名增加到了500名。Guest: Yeah. One one firm in LA went from managing about 100 clients per attorney to 500.
主持人:哇。Host: Wow.
嘉宾:没错。这确实是有可能实现的一类事情。值得称赞的是,他们为此付出了非常大的努力。他们最大限度地利用了 Eve,从接收案件、接听电话、自动进行资格审核,到彻底消除他们原本遇到的各种转接问题——比如把事情从一位律师转交给另一位律师,再转给案件经理。如今,这一切都由 Eve 中的智能体处理,一直到和解阶段:在与调解员讨论之前,它会准备简报,告诉你需要重点关注什么、类似案件的和解结果应该是什么样的,以及你之前用了哪些策略才走到这一步。Guest: Right. And that is that is a type of thing that is possible. And they went to their credit, they worked really hard to achieve this. They utilized Eve up to the max of all the way from intake take fielding the call doing qualification automatically removing all the relay problem that they have of passing things from one attorney to another to a case manager all that is now handled within agents in Eve and all the way to settlement where it's actually briefs before they go to a mediator discussion that actually tells you here's what you need to focus on here's what the settlement outcome should look like for cases like this that we worked on and here are the tactics you used before that got you here.
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:这就是未来的样子。它真正做到了持续推动案件进展,而你也在帮助它做得比单靠它自己更好。我认为这就是法律的未来,对吧?作为律师,你会越来越像数据科学家和工程师,不断改进某些东西,让它变得越来越好。Guest: And that is what the future looks like. It's truly moving the case forward continuously and you're helping making it do a better job than it could do by itself. That is I think the future of law, right? Where you as a lawyer are really going to look more like a almost a data scientist and engineer engineering something to be better and better.
法律软件实际上是一个劳动力市场Legal Software Is Secretly a Labor Market
而这正是顶尖律师事务所在前夕多少会经历的一种思维转变。And that is a shift the top law firms on eve mentally kind of go through.
主持人:是啊。嗯,我觉得吧,如果你看看那些不太了解 AI 的普通律所,这其实也算是对整个 AI 赋能应用领域的一种挺有意思的看法。比如说,以前法律行业的软件技术栈是什么样的?如果你是一家像 Wilson Cinci 这样的大型律所,最重要的东西可能就是工时记录系统,对吧?Host: Yeah. Well, I kind of think of if you if you look at uh your average law firm where they don't really know AI and actually like this is kind of an interesting kind of take on the world of AI enabled applications in general. Like what was the software stack for law before? Well, if you're a big firm like Wilson Cinci, probably the most important thing is like your time tracker, right?
因为你是按小时收费的。如果你做的是风险代理业务,那就不一样了:你的时间固然重要,但你不是按时间向客户收费。你可能需要有个……你知道的,针对每个案件,记录自己在这个案子上花了多少钱。不过我想,你主要用的工具还是 Microsoft Word。Because you're billing by the hour. If you're in contingency law, it's like, well, your time matters, but you're not billing your customers on that. You probably need to have like a, you know, each case, here's how much money I'm spending on the case. But like, I imagine your primary tool was Microsoft Word.
而且当时并没有。这就是风投以前误判这个行业的方式:他们会觉得,哦,原告方律师事务所的软件市场很小。And there wasn't, and this is how like VCs would have like gotten this industry wrong before, which is like, oh well, the software market for plaintiff law is small.
他们都会购买 Microsoft Office。是的,Microsoft Office 有点贵。所以,软件支出每年大概有数百亿美元之类的,你知道,乍一看小得简直可笑。但等等,他们带来的成果每年价值却高达数千亿美元。嗯,他们无法带来更多成果,因为他们受到劳动力的严重限制。They all buy Microsoft Office. Yeah, Microsoft Office is kind of expensive. So therefore, like the software spend is like in the tens of billions of dollars a year or something, you know, seemingly comically small. But wait a minute, the outcomes that they deliver is in the hundreds of billions of dollars a year. um they can't deliver more outcomes because they're really constrained on labor.
嗯,而且他们不可能以每小时 12 美分的价格雇到劳动力,因为根本不存在这种劳动力。所以结果就是,软件市场有点像这样一个隐形的劳动力市场,而且规模远远超出了任何人的预期。嗯,这总是件很奇怪的事,因为你不能说软件市场很小,毕竟你是一家……一家法律软件公司。Um and they can't hire labor for 12 cents an hour because it doesn't exist. So it turns out the software market is kind of like this shadow labor market and it's like massively bigger than anybody would have expected. Um, and like it's always just a weird thing because it's like you can't say the software market is small because you're a you're a legal software company,
但人们知道 Harvey,或者知道公司法,或者那些已经存在很久的电子取证工具。不过我想知道,在 Eve 入场之前,主要的软件栈是什么?就是 Microsoft Word 吗?还是说,要让我进入这个行业需要什么?我从法学院毕业了。but people know Harvey or they know like corporate laws or like you know eiscocovery tools that have been around. But I imagine like what was the main software stack before Eve entered? What was it just Microsoft Word or like what was in order for me to go into business? I graduated from law school.
我想进入这个领域的某个特定细分领域。我的软件技术栈是什么来着?I want to be in this particular you know subsector of the field. What was my software stack?
嘉宾:你知道,原告律师行业和机构有个令人遗憾的地方:从历史上看,原告律师其实只需要一部手机和一个电子邮箱地址就够了。说实话,有些独立执业律师甚至因为成本原因而不愿购买 Microsoft Word。Guest: You know, this is the unfortunate thing about plaintiff law and institutions is historically plaintiff law really didn't need more than a cell phone email address. Honestly, even Microsoft Word, some people on the solos would not buy it for cost reasons.
主持人:不,是,是因为你想想看,你实际上并没有做那么多修订标注。Host: No, it's it's because if you think about it, you actually don't do that much redlinining.
嘉宾:这属于信任边界的情况,对吧?所以你……你们一方某种程度上是与另一方对立的。所以你不是……Guest: It's a trust boundary situation, right? So you're you're one side is kind of opposition to the other side. So you're not
主持人:确实是在协作。Host: really collaborating.
客人:是的。Guest: Yes.
主持人:就像你在做合同审查或类似工作时一样。Host: In the same way that you are when you're doing contract review or something along those lines.
嘉宾:大致就是这样。没有任何软件真正解决他们的核心问题,也就是你刚才提到的劳动力限制。这正是他们开展一切工作的核心。因为他们有人手,而且擅长管理劳动力,所以他们找到了办法解决所有问题——在他们看来,所有问题都可以靠人力解决。Guest: So that was kind of it. And no software really solved their core problem which is exactly what you mentioned their labor constraint. That is the core of how they do anything at all. And because they have labor and they're good at managing their labor, they found a way to solve all every problem to them looked like solve with labor.
他们就是这样成长起来的。而由此导致的结果是,大量软件资源都流向了国防机构,因为哈维的预算都在那里。你知道,说实话,今天几乎所有法律软件公司,绝大多数都面向国防领域,因为预算都在那里。对。And that's how they've they've grown up. And as a result of that, what ended up happening was a lot of resources on software went towards defense institutions because that's where the budgets were for Harvey. You know, really any company honestly, legal software company today, vast majority of them are on the defense side because that's where the budgets are. Right.
没错。而这类东西很容易开发,也很容易拿到资金。而在原告方,这些都是每个月都精打细算的小企业,对吧?如果你从第一天起就不能为他们带来成果,那你就出局了。Right. And that's what's easy to build for, easy to get money for. And on the on the plaintiff side, these are small business that are watching their pocketbooks every month, right? If you're not driving outcomes for them from day one, you're out.
你不会得到续约。他们、他们会把你骂个狗血淋头。你知道,他们会想尽一切办法来找你麻烦,对吧?这就是事情变得这么棘手的原因。You're not getting renewed. They're they're going to curse you out. You know, like any anything they can do, they're going to come after you, right? And that's what's made things so difficult.
但我们意识到的是,嗯,他们的核心问题在于,我们知道他们的动机是什么。他们想代表更多人。他们想赢。而我们现在就能做到这一点。But what we realized is, well, their core problem is we know what their incentives are. They want to represent more people. They want to win. And we can do that now.
你知道,如今软件的妙处在于,只要你手动完成过一项任务——即便是处理并转换一批新数据这样的任务,而这正是 AI 真正擅长的事情——你现在就可以把它编码成一个流程。You know, there's once the beauty of software today is once you do a task manually, even tasks that include crunching new piece of data and transforming it, that's kind of what AI is really good at, you can now encoded as a process.
这是一个根本性的新变化,以前从未发生过。他们过去试图在人力运营方面做到这一点,但始终没能成功,因为每个个案都足够不同,根本没法这么做。它仍然受限于能否雇到足够聪明、能够处理这些事情的人。而现在,一个聪明人实际上就能处理我们刚才说的那种 500 个事实和情况都截然不同的个案。嗯,你到底怎么才能把这些都记在脑子里?That is a fundamentally new shift that has never happened before. That's what they were trying to do with people operations, but never worked because every single case is still different enough that you can't do it. it's still bottlenecked on hiring smart enough people to be able to handle it. And now one smart person can actually handle like we talked about 500 different cases of very different facts, very different situations. Um, and how do you even keep that in your brain?
这确实很难,对吧?但现在你不用再为此烦恼了。Like it's hard, right? But now you don't have to.
为什么 Eve 胜过“原始智力”Why Eve Beats "Raw Intelligence"
主持人:我想,现在很多创始人在应用层面都在琢磨一件事:糟了,我会不会被那些大公司碾压?比如那些研发智能模型的实验室,他们可能接下来就要去做 MySpace 了,而我就完蛋了。应对这种情况有很多办法,但说“应对”其实低估了这件事,因为如果你有网络效应,或者掌握了别人没有的数据,就能带来更好的结果。所以,你知道,就算大家都在幕后或独立使用 ChatGPT 或 Claude,又有什么关系呢?不过我想聊聊这个问题——我猜你肯定想过很多:为什么 Eve 会比单纯的原始智能更好?而且,随着越来越多的从业者使用这个产品,它又是如何变得更好的?Host: And I guess one of the things that a lot of founders are thinking about right now at the application layer is like, uhoh, maybe I'm roadkill from the big guys, right? like the labs that produce the intelligence, maybe they're going to go tackle MySpace next and I'm I'm toast. And there are many ways of defending against that, but defending kind of sells it short because if you're able like if you have a network effect or if you have data that actually nobody else has, you can deliver better outcomes. So, you know, who cares if everybody uses chat GBT or clawed behind the scenes or on their own? But maybe talk about like I'm sure you've thought about this a lot, you know, why is Eve better than just kind of like raw intelligence and how does it get better because it does uh the more practitioners that use the product?
嘉宾:是的,我们押注这些模型会变得越来越好。嗯,而我们的价值恰恰就在于此。你知道,如果有一千个阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦可以帮你处理诉讼,或者有史以来最优秀的律师来完成每一项任务,我们当然求之不得。问题是,如果你今天把阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦放进一家律师事务所,他很长一段时间内都无法发挥作用。嗯,这正是 Eve 正在解决的一个普遍问题,对吧?Guest: Yeah, we're we're betting on we're betting on these models getting better and better. Um and our value is exactly that. you know, if you have thousand Albert Einsteins to work with to do litigation or you know, the best attorney ever to do every single task, we would take it. The problem is if you drop Albert Einstein into a law firm today, he will not be productive for quite some time. Um, and that is a general problem that Eve is solving, right?
那个人为什么无法提高效率呢?我想,原因有很多。其中一点是,在原告方诉讼领域,绝大多数数据实际上都无法抓取。不到百分之一的案件最终会和解,并形成判决意见书。And why won't that person be productive? Well, it's due to a number of things, I think. One is in plaintiff law, the vast majority of data is actually non-scrapable. about less than a percent of cases actually settle and get turned into case opinions,
主持人:对吗?Host: right?
嘉宾:绝大多数案件都在提出索赔要求前或诉讼前和解,有些甚至更早,对吧?实际上这只是协商:嘿,我受到了这样的不公。请把这件事解决一下。Guest: Vast majority settle pre-demand or pre-litigation and some even before that, right? Where it's actually just a negotiation of, hey, this is how I was wronged. Please fix it.
主持人:具体来说,就像我出了车祸,而且不是我的责任。嗯,你知道,对方——如果这么说的话,比如对方的保险公司——会说:“哦,你伤得没那么严重。我们赔你一美元。”Host: And to make that concrete, it's like I'm in a car accident. I'm not at fault. Um, you know, the adversary, if you will, like the other side's insurance companies like, oh, you weren't that hurt. We'll give you a dollar.
对吧?他们总是试图拒绝、拒绝、拒绝。比如说,如果保险公司拒赔,规则一就是拒赔。规则二也是拒赔。你知道,就这么一直下去。Right? They always try to like deny, deny, deny. like rule number one if an insurance carrier is denied. Rule number two is denied. You know, it just goes on.
这些就是保险公司的全部规定。Those are all the rules of insurance carriers.
所以现在我请了律师,嗯,去真正拿到我应得的赔偿,因为我确实受了伤,我的车也确实报废了,而他们就是不想赔我。嗯,你会拿到和解金,案件不会进入审理,也不会真的开庭,不过你知道,没错,Geico 最终确实赔了 29,000 美元。So now I hire a lawyer um and to actually get what I'm owed because I actually am injured and my car is actually totaled and they just don't want to pay me. Um you get a settlement doesn't go to case. It doesn't go to actual trial, but you know, that's right. That Geico actually did pay $29,000.
我想这真的是非常、非常有用的信息。And that's very, very useful information, I assume.
嘉宾:没错。保险业要应对十万种不同的法律。Guest: That's right. insurance is the one that's dealing with 100,000 different law.
他们拥有共同的社群,也了解所有案例,但由于这些信息分散记录在各家地方公司的档案中,他们并不确切了解 Geico 的每一个动向。They have the shared community, they know all the cases, but because it's charted across all the different local firms. They don't know exactly Geico's every single move.
主持人:完全没错。而且你知道,他们甚至有听起来很不祥的软件,比如 Colossus,它会追踪……你知道,他们基本上是在试图给一根骨折的拇指定价:我们认为这值多少钱。站在他们的立场上,这事确实挺难办的。Host: That's exactly right. And, you know, they even have ominous sounding software like Colossus, which tracks, you know, they're they try to basically say a broken thumb. This is how much we think it's worth. Which is a hard thing to do in their defense.
这似乎是件很难做到的事,但他们正在做。Like it's a hard thing to do, but they are doing that.
嘉宾:但他们也在说,这就是我们可以用多低的金额把这些案件打发掉,而不管当事人的实际需求或具体情况如何。这正是法律体系应该纠正的问题,也是它存在的意义。嗯,现在发生的事情是——这很有意思,也是个挑战——如果你去 Google 搜索“如何为 State Farm 写一封出色的索赔函”,针对的又是这类软组织损伤案件,你会发现如今根本找不到相关内容。即使是刚加入原告方律所的新法律助理,也得自己摸索学习这件事。除此之外,情况还会变得更复杂,因为在当地司法管辖区办案时,当地环境——比如法院系统、对方律师——各自的行事方式都略有不同,而这些背景也很重要。Guest: but also saying this is how much we can get away with giving them away for and irrespective of that individual's actual need uh of their particular situations. And that's what the legal system is meant to fix. That's that's what it's there for. Um and what now is happening is and this is this is the interesting bit and the challenge is if you go and Google how do you write an amazing demand letter for again state farm for soft tissue injury cases like that today exists nowhere even for a new parallegal that is joining a plaintiff firm this is something they have to learn and on top of that it gets more complicated because when you're in local jurisdiction the local environment like the court systems uh you're opposing council, they all behave a little differently and that context matters too.
所以,EVA 所做的,就是把这种以往极难利用的多属性、多维度信息,转化为一个问题:此时此刻,我能做些什么来改善案件的结果?So what EVA is doing is it's turning this historically incredibly difficult to utilize multi-attribute multi-dimensional information that is basically what is the best thing I can do at this particular moment to improve the outcome of the case.
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:在整个案件过程中,同一个问题会被重复问上千次。人的大脑根本无法记住所有这些事情。不过,AI 可以做到。这正是我们帮助律所构建的数据类型,他们也立刻看到了它的价值。当然,他们最先看到价值的环节就是案件受理。Guest: And that same question is repeated thousands of times during the case. And a human brain is just not capable of kind of keeping all of that in mind. Um and but AI is right and that is the type of data we help build for law firms and they're seeing the immediate value from it. And the first place where they see value is of course intake.
我到底该接谁呢?我擅长代表哪类人?也许可以从那里开始,然后不断做得更好,Who do I even take on? Who am I good at representing and maybe start there and keep getting better,
主持人:对吧?我想,嗯,因为这些不是大型律所,对吧?比如说,我是在新泽西州执业的律师,开着一家只有四名律师的小所;而亚利桑那州还有另一位律师,开着一家有七名律师的律所。他们的对手方通常是 State Farm、Geico 之类的公司,顶多也就这些。分享信息其实没问题。Host: right? And I imagine um because these aren't giant firms, right? Like if I'm a lawyer in New Jersey with a four person, four attorney practice and uh over there's another lawyer in Arizona with a seven attorney practice, but their counterparties tend to be State Farm and Geico and whatnot uh at the limit. It's actually fine to share information.
我想知道你们怎么看待数据,因为我想,对于刚起步的公司来说,这始终是个难题。大家会觉得:“不,这是我的数据。”嗯,但我猜这也有一种互惠互利的关系。就像我和一家牙科 AI 公司合作,他们就像是在说:“爱荷华州的牙医没法为佛罗里达州的患者提供服务,但他们希望彼此借鉴、从彼此的集体行动中学习。”I guess how do you think about data because I imagine this is always a this is always you know hard for companies when you're getting off the ground. It's like no this is my data. Um but there's also there's a give to get I assume. It's kind of like you know I work with a dental AI company and it's like well the dentist in Iowa can't serve patients in Florida but they want to learn from the collective actions of each other.
嗯,不过我想问,你怎么看数据隔离之类的事情?Um but I guess how do you think about you know just data se sequestration and whatnot?
嗯,这会不会成为问题?或者你怎么看待使用它这件事?um does that ever become an issue or how do you think about using it?
嘉宾:我们基本上遵循了这个行业现有的交互规则,只是通过软件把它们进一步强化了。这算是我们的立场,对吧?所以,这些交互规则是针对他们各自的案件的。呃,他们希望高度保密,这在法律上非常重要。这涉及律师与客户之间的保密特权,而我们绝不会用这些数据来训练模型。Guest: We we've largely followed the rules of engagement that already exists in this industry but we've amplified it with software. That's kind of our stance, right? So the rules of engagement is for their own cases uh they want to be very private like that is important by law. It's attorney client privilege and we don't train on that data ever.
是的。Yeah.
对。不过,律师们还会做的另一件事,就是分享这些知识——他们实际上会四处奔波,参加 CLE 培训,并互相分享他们是如何应对 State Farm 的 X 和 Y 抗辩策略的。因为 State Farm 会在各种案件中反复使用这些抗辩,对吧?我不是针对 State Farm,任何公司都可以拿来举例,但他们现在做的就是这些。Right. Uh however, what attorneys also do is to share this knowledge they actually travel. They attend CLE and they share tactics each other on how they went up against State Farm's X and Y defense um because State Farm repeats that defense across the board, right? And uh not picking on State Farm, anyone is fair game here, but that is that is what they're already doing.
所以,我们会聘请自己的律师,并跟踪我们平台上案件的成功率。我们希望,如果你使用 Eve,成功率能更高。这就是我们跟踪的数据。嗯,我们还有一款叫 Auditor 的产品,它会在一夜之间分析每个案件的每一页,寻找那些完美的律师每次都能发现的情况。So, we hire our own attorneys and track success rates of cases for our platform. And we want to help if you're using Eve, you should have more success. That's what we track. Um and we have this product called Auditor, which actually analyzes every single case through every single page overnight and looks for uh situations that a perfect attorney would catch every time.
而且总的来说,遗憾的是,绝大多数情况——几乎每一个案例——都缺少信息,对吧?And across the board, unfortunately, vast majority of cases have almost every single case has missed information, right?
而现在,这已经不复存在了。是啊。And now that's no longer a thing. Yeah.
当双方都拥有 AI 超能力时When Both Sides Get AI Superpowers
主持人:也许可以聊聊事情未来会走向何方。因为一方面,我能想象有那么一天,Geico 会变得更聪明一点。他们可能会……他们之前就是靠拒赔变聪明的,对吧?因为他们意识到这是一个对抗性系统。比如说,你知道,我的房子着火烧没了,我要索赔,说里面有一幅毕加索的画;他们就会觉得我是在声称自己有一幅毕加索,然后直接拒赔。就这样,各方都在彼此较劲,但他们也会获得超能力。我的意思是,你已经能看到这种情况有点儿在 Muse 和所有面向消费者的智能代理中上演了:我想在这家根本订不到位的餐厅订个座,而他们有真人接听电话。Host: and maybe talk about the future of where things go because um on the one hand I can imagine a world where it's like one of these days Geico is going to get a little bit smarter um and they're probably going to like because they're deny plan that's how they got smart before right because they realize it is an adversarial system like you know I lost my house in a fire and I'm going to claim I had a Picasso in there and then they're going to think that I'm claiming that I have a Picasso they're just going to deny the claim deny Like so each party is kind of fighting each other, but they're going to get superpowers. I mean, you see this playing out a little bit with Muse and all the consumer agents where I want a reservation at this restaurant that's impossible to get and they have a human answering the phone.
我现在可以对他们发起 DDoS 攻击了,因为我每小时只需要付一分钱之类的。然后他们迟早会意识到自己遭到了 DDoS 攻击,并采取措施防范。所以,你知道,我想一方面,你会如何看待这里的对手?不是你的对手,而是你客户的对手。他们如何适应这个世界?以前 Geico 可以说:“嘿,你的损失金额是 2,000 美元。”消费者会说:“是啊,我的损失可能确实有 2,500 美元。”但以前他们其实不用太担心这一点,因为规模太大了。可现在,对他们来说不幸的是,对世界上的大卫们来说却是幸运的——那些确实受了委屈、成为受害者的人——现在他们可以反击了。I can dodo them now that I have to pay one penny per hour or something. And then eventually they're going to realize that they're getting DDoS and they're going to prevent that. So, you know, I guess on the one hand, like how do you think about, you know, your adversaries here? not your adversaries, but like your client's adversaries. How are they adapting to a world where it's like, you know, it was great for Geico where they could say, "Hey, you have $2,000 of damages." The consumer is like, "Yeah, I did have maybe $2,500 of damages, but it's like they never really had to worry about that before because of the quantum." And now, unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the Davids of the world, like people that are actually agrieved and have been victims, now they can fight back.
而你正在为此提供动力。这算是一方面,但你也提到了长周期智能体。嗯,因为你知道,当很多事情实际上都可以由 AI 完成时,法律实践会是什么样子?我想你曾把律师形容为未来的数据科学家。And you're powering that. So that's kind of one thing, but also you mentioned long horizon agents. Um because you know what does the practice of law look like when a lot of the stuff can actually be done by AI? You have I think you framed it as like the uh the attorneys are almost like the data scientists of the future.
不过,你知道,也许可以谈谈对手方或对抗式流程是什么样的?你知道,像 State Farm 和 GEICO 这样的公司,会因为你进入这个领域而可能采用什么做法?还有一个很大的问题:既然你是在操弄文字、寻找事实,做各种类似的事情,那么法律会如何演变和发展?又或者说,人类没那么重要了。嗯,显然,人类在引导案件走向最终解决方面发挥着重要作用,但 AI 会做什么,又不会做什么呢?But you know maybe talk about like what does the adversary or the adversarial process look like? you know, what are the skate farms and Geico using uh potentially as a result of you entering the scene, but also like how big question, but how does law evolve and emerge just given that you know you're kind of manipulating words and finding facts and doing all this kind of stuff or like the humans are not as important. Um they obviously have an important role of shephering the case to completion, but like what does the AI do versus not do?
人类律师还剩下什么工作What's Left for Human Lawyers
嘉宾:是的,我的意思是,归根结底,我看待这件事的框架是:当你面对一个个人时,他们会需要代理服务。至于这项代理工作由谁来做,你可以假设其中 99%,甚至 99.9% 都由 AI 完成,但总会有那么一点需要人的参与,对吧?而且我们确实相信,人们能够对结果产生积极影响。而这正是你们所面对的情况,对吧?比如说,辩护方,或者更准确地说,机构这一方,所拥有的正是一直以来的优势:他们有更多资源,更多资金,也有更多时间——这其实也是他们的一种相当有力的武器,因为个人往往负债累累,还得支付费用。这是他们手中非常有力的工具,也是他们可以依靠的优势。他们正试图依靠集中化和标准化。Guest: Yeah, I mean ultimately my framework for thinking about this is ultimately when you have an individual they're going to need representation whether that representation like who does the work on the representation you can assume it's 99% AI maybe 99.9% AI there's always going to be that little bit that is the human touch right and we do believe that people are going to make a positive difference to the outcomes of the of the And that is exactly what you have, right? So like what you have on the on the defense side or really institution side is what's always happened which is they have more resources, they have more money. Uh they have more time which is actually another weapon they have which is quite powerful when individuals are in debt to pay their fees. Um and that is a very powerful tool they have and uh that is that is a strength they're working with and they're trying to rely on you know centralization and standardization.
在辩护方,你有一位律师在为你的案子据理力争,并推动对方进入诉讼程序。我认为事情会朝这个方向发展。我觉得会有更多案子真正变得有分量,而那些例行的来回沟通,我想都会由代理人之间相互沟通来完成。我觉得这听起来像是一个疯狂的未来世界,但我认为我们正朝这个方向走。真正能带来不同的是,律师对客户、这组事实,以及当地环境了解多少——比如他们在当地要面对的是谁、对方律所是什么情况;他们会运用这些洞察为客户争取更好的结果。On the defense side you have a attorney that is fighting your case and pushing them to get to litigation and I think that is going to be what's happens. I think a lot more cases are going to have teeth and all the routine back and forths I think is going to happen through agents talking to agents. I think that's, you know, it's crazy future world, but I think that's where we're headed to. And the difference maker is what does the attorney understand about that client, that set of facts, um, and their local environment of who they're going up against locally in that law in that defense firm, and they're using that insight to make a difference for their client.
而且我认为这种情况永远不会消失。嗯,事实上我们已经看到,Eve 上的许多客户正在选择花更多时间进行试用工作。And I don't think that ever goes away. Um it's it's in fact something we're seeing already where many customers on Eve are actually choosing to spend more time on their trial work.
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:因为它确实让这成为可能。以前,一旦上庭,你整个律所都会垮掉。Guest: Because it actually enables that. Previously going to trial took down your entire firm.
突然间,你就把所有时间都花在庭审准备和采访陪审团上了。Suddenly you're just spending all your time doing trial prep, interviewing juries.
主持人:你希望事情平息下来。Host: You want things to settle.
嘉宾:没错。Guest: Exactly.
主持人:这更像是一项和解动议。Host: It's more of a settlement motion.
嘉宾:完全正确。相反,我觉得事情正朝着真正倡导的方向发展。我该怎么做才能真正让大家听到我们的观点?你知道,我的客户已经被逼到墙角了。Guest: That's exactly right. And instead, I think things are going more into real advocacy. How do I actually make our point known? How do I, you know, my client is against back of the wall.
他们在做坏事,也在做好事。我该如何根据对他们真正重要的东西来表述他们?They're doing bad things are doing good things. How do I represent them in what actually matters for them?
主持人:不过我想,这也算是你们在做的数据科学的一部分吧?你们有这么庞大的数据集,这大概是以前从未积累过的,因为正如你提到的,这些情况都非常独特。没有什么像是汇集了所有和解金额的共享数据库。不过我在诉讼融资领域也多少见过这种情况:如果我是一名律师,呃,如果我是一名出庭律师,而你——我的客户——不是按小时付我律师费,那我该从哪儿拿钱来支付自己和员工的工资、办公室租金以及其他所有开销呢?Host: But I imagine this is kind of the data science side of what you're doing as well with this giant data set that's probably never been accumulated before because as you mentioned all these, it's so bespoke. There's no like communal repository for like all of the settlement amounts. But like I've seen this with litigation finance a little bit where if I'm a lawyer, uh if I'm a trial attorney, and I'm not getting paid by the hour by you, my client, well, where do I pay myself and my staff and my office rent and everything else?
嗯,有些公司会出现并说:“这个案子我来出钱。”没错。对。我资助这个案子,是因为我指望你能赢。然后他们会耍各种聪明招数,比如“这是法官,这是……”。Well, there are companies that will show up and say, "I will fund this case." That's right. Right. And I'm funding this case because I'm counting on you winning it. And like they'll do all sorts of clever things like here's the judge and here's this.
比如说,他们在利用数据。所以,除此之外,我觉得那些人一直都非常积极地采用数据科学。但过去,这些数据好像从来没有真正存放在什么地方。现在数据有了归处,作为律师,你就能做出更明智的决策。Like they're using data. So outside of I think those guys have been very data science forward. But historically like this data just like never really lived anywhere. And now that it does, you can make smarter decisions as an attorney.
我当时就在想,我是去打官司,还是接受和解,还是继续争取?哦,Geico 给我开了 12,000 美元。我该不该继续争取,努力拿到 15,000?还是说,去打官司,试着赢个一百?I'm like, do I take it to trial or do I accept the settlement or do I push back? Oh, Geico offered me $12,000. Should I push back and fight for 15? Should I, you know, take it to trial and try to win a h 100red?
比如,我该如何做出这些决定?Like how do I make those decisions?
嘉宾:没错。正因如此,我们才能在每一个具体案例中帮助他们做出最佳决策。Guest: That's exactly right. That's which is why we can help them make the best decision in every single case.
并且知道何时已达成最优结果。and know when an optimal outcome has been achieved.
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:我还是会说,进一步推动这件事仍然是律师的责任,对吧?我想这就是我所说的数据科学类工作,因为……Guest: And it's still I would say it's still the attorney's responsibility to push it even further, right? And I think that is what I meant by data science like work because
你正在借助软件的力量,完成那些你从未想过要做的工作,从而改善结果。you're using the power of software to do work you never even thought to do to improve the outcome.
用 ChatGPT 起诉富国银行Suing Wells Fargo With ChatGPT
主持人:我是说,你觉得法律体系会走向何方?当然,这是个非常宽泛的问题。不过,我之前和富国银行有点纠纷,我当时想:“你知道吗,我已经试着处理这事儿四个小时了。我干脆起诉他们吧。”于是我就去了 CodeEx,你知道,Chad GBD。Host: And I mean where do you think this is a very broad question of course but like where does the legal system go? I was having some trouble with Wells Fargo and I'm like you know what I've tried like for four hours to do this. I'm just going to sue them. So, I went to CodeEx, you know, Chad GBD.
我当时就说:“起诉富国银行。”四小时后,它就起诉了富国银行。它居然还找到了法律文书送达员。嗯,我收到了 SE 的通知,说我们要上法庭,不过你知道,日期是在二月。I was like, sue Wells Fargo. Four hours later, it had sued Wells Fargo. It actually found a process server. Um, I got the notice of SE like we're going to court, but you know, the date is in February.
类似的情况也发生在专利领域:以前申请专利要做很多工作。现在申请专利所需的工作少了,但美国专利商标局(USPTO)仍然是瓶颈。Like another kind of similar vein is happening with patent law where before it's so much work to go file a patent. Now, it's less work to file a patent, but you still have the USPTO, which is the bottleneck.
所以我想问的是,如果你要预测一下,随着 AI 成为行业标配,法律行业接下来会走向何方?你们正在提供相关服务,显然也是原告律师业务这方面的一部分。但如果从整个法律实践来看,假设把时间快进五年,行业会变成什么样?哪些方面会相似,哪些方面最可能发生变化?So I guess I mean if you were to prognosticate like where does the legal industry go now that AI is becoming table stakes and you're delivering you're you're part of that table obviously for plaintiff law but if you think about the entire practice of law in general like how does it change if you were to fast forward 5 years what does it look like what's similar what's different most likely
嘉宾:我认为,你们不可避免地得建立一些制度,让并非所有事情都进入法院系统;而这其实已经是法律中采用的一种框架,对吧?我的意思是,比如某些类型的退伍军人事务案件会交由另一个委员会处理;劳动和就业方面的很多案件,在进入法院之前也会先经过 EEOC。你知道,雇主也已经摸索出不同的调解方式,并进行仲裁,不一定非要通过法院系统。Guest: I think it's inevitable that you're going to have to create systems where not everything goes to the court system and this already is a framework that is used in law, right? Like I mean for some types of uh veterans affair cases that goes through a different committee for even labor and employment that goes through EEOC in a lot of cases before it goes through uh and you know employers have figured out different ways to mediate and have arbitration that doesn't necessarily go through the court system,
对吧?而且,这就是一个自然演进的框架。我预计这种情况会越来越普遍。我认为接下来会出现的变化是,在其中的某些领域,我们可能会经历某种形式的 ADR,也就是自动化争议解决:由 AI 赋能的调解员,或对双方都持中立立场的中心方,利用 AI 大幅加快作出裁决的速度。right? And this is this is the framework that actually naturally evolves. And I expect that to happen more and more. And I think the tweak that's going to happen is that for some pockets of it, we're probably going to go through some version of like ADR, automated dispute resolution where AI enabled mediators or central parties that have a neutral view of both sides are going to use AI to really speed up how they come up with judgment.
我认为判断本身不会真的被取代,但他们会得到一组事实,展示历史上事情是如何发生的。事情就是这样发生的。至于可能存在的偏见,就得由他们来消除。我想我们会在这方面投入越来越多的时间。And I don't think the judgment will really be replaced, but what they will get is a set of facts that shows historically here's how this happened. Here's how this happened. And it's up to them to remove the biases that might exist. And I think we're just going to spend more and more time on that side of things.
小型企业能否实现十亿美元营收?Can a Small Firm Hit a Billion in Revenue?
主持人:你觉得小型律师事务所会变得更大吗?这也是另一个值得考虑的问题。比如说,如果我现在每位律师只能处理 100 个案件,以后就能处理 500 个,但未来也许能处理 5,000 个。你知道,我为什么要把办公室局限在新泽西州一个很小的地方呢?也许我应该把业务范围拓展得更广。Host: And do you think the small law firms get bigger? Because that would be the other thing. It's like if I could only handle a 100 cases per attorney, now I can handle 500, but in the future maybe 5,000. you know, why do I limit my office to like a very small New Jersey location? You know, may maybe I should go more broad.
嗯,你会看到一些规模更大、几乎像企业一样的律师事务所实体。我觉得最大的诉讼律师事务所是 Morgan & Morgan,对吗?嗯,他们的营收高达数十亿美元,但一般的律师事务所规模都很小。不过你可以想象,在 Eve 的助力下,加上我们讨论的所有变化,小型律所实际上也有可能发展成营收达十亿美元的企业。嗯,这有点像风险投资型的创业成果,与所谓的生活方式型企业之间的区别。Um, and you're going to have kind of larger almost like corporate like law entities and like I think the biggest trial attorney firm is Morgan and Morgan. Is that right? Um, and they have billions of dollars in revenue, but your average firm is quite small, but you could imagine powered by Eve and with all the changes that we're talking about, it's like the small firm could actually become a billiond dollar revenue business. Um, it's kind of like venture outcomes versus kind of like what you would call lifestyle business.
你以前当过风投,所以知道这个说法。呃,某种有点贬义的说法,意思是你能赚钱。不过你觉得这算合理的看法吗?我是说,这些小公司里有些真的能做大吗?显然,目前你不能像律所那样上市——也许在亚利桑那州之类的地方可以吧。不过你觉得这些本地的夫妻店,有没有机会发展成规模很大的机构?You were a VC once upon how you know that term. Uh, some somewhat porative term for like you make profits. Um, but how do you think like is that a reasonable take that like some of these small guys can actually I mean obviously you can't go public as a as a law firm for now uh maybe in Arizona or something you can but um uh how do you think there's a chance for some of these local mom and pop uh stores if you will to become very large institutions?
嘉宾:我认为即将发生的转变是,很多律师事务所会变得更像软件公司。我觉得,它们终于要参与这场过去30年来一直在发生、却把它们排除在外的软件革命了,对吧?嗯,只要你深入了解一下,就会明白原因。Guest: I think the transformation that's going to happen is a lot of these law firms are going to look more like software companies. I think they're going to finally participate in the software revolution that's been happening for the last 30 years they've been left out of, right? Um, and if you if you kind of deep dive, you'll understand why.
假设你有一笔 25,000 美元的和解金。律师大概会拿走三分之一。嗯,为了简单起见,就算 8,000 美元吧。你知道,这 8,000 美元里大约一半用于人工成本,30% 用于营销,剩下的可能就是利润了,对吧?大概就是这样。Let's say you have a $25,000 settlement. The attorney gets maybe a third of that. Uh, let's call it 8,000 for simplicity. Uh, and you know, like of that 8,000 about half of it goes towards labor spend, 30% goes to marketing, and the rest maybe is profit, right? like that.
这大致就是如今这门生意的现状。正因为如此,想要把收益重新投入到业务中,从而更好地服务下一位客户,实在太难了。That's kind of the business as it exists today. Because of that business, it is so difficult to reinvest back into servicing your next client better,
对吧?就像你真正能做到这一点的唯一办法,就是今天聘请一位更好的律师,right? Like the only way you can really do that is by hiring a better attorney today,
主持人:对吧?Host: right?
嘉宾:现在的变化是,他们实际上可以积累一套专属于自己的数据库和数据集,从而在某个法律细分领域取得比竞争对手更好的结果,对吧?这其实就是专业化,而从历史上看,这个行业早在大约 30 年前就经历过这种变化。那时候,你知道,社区里的律师什么都办,从劳动案件到知识产权,什么都接。Guest: What changes is now they can actually acrewue a database and data set that is unique to them that gets them results that is better than their competitors for a subset of law, right? And this is kind of specialization and historically this industry already went through that you know like 30 years ago there was a uh you know your neighborhood lawyer that handled everything you know from employment cases to IP to what have you.
主持人:是的。Host: Yes.
嘉宾:没错,没错。现在我们有了各个执业领域的专业化分工。有人特别擅长知识产权,有人擅长劳动法。Guest: Exactly. Exactly. And and now what we have are specializations of practice areas. You have someone that's really good at IP, someone that's good at employment.
现在事情变得更加具体了,对吧?比如说,有人擅长处理出生缺陷之类的案件。我可以预见,这还会进一步细分:有人可能会非常擅长处理涉及 X 和 Y 这类事实情形的软组织损伤案件,而针对这些案件投放广告,可能比一些规模更大的律所(比如 Morgan)更具成本效益。And now it's getting even more specific, right? like someone that's good at let's say nursering birth defects or something along those lines and I can anticipate that to go even another level where now someone could get really good at soft tissue injury cases that involve X and Y fact patterns and it advertising for those cases might be a lot more cost effective than some other larger firm like Morgan
主持人:就是到处展示他们的广告牌。所以,先在本地把某件事做好,然后再扩展到全国,因为你在那个领域有很高的专业能力。Host: just showing their billboard everywhere. So get good at something locally and then expand just across the entire country because you have such high competence around that one field.
嘉宾:完全正确。我认为我们会看到这种专业化,也会看到相反的趋势:一些大型律所——我们也在与一些规模像摩根这样的机构合作——其中有些实际上正在走到一起。因此,那些已经发展壮大的律所,正在四处收购其他律所,因为它们意识到,借助 Eve,可以非常迅速地整合过去极其痛苦的流程。现在,这一切可以完全按照客户的需求来完成:客户想要的是法律结果,而 EV 正是为此打造的。Guest: That's exactly right. And we're so I think we're going to see that type of specialization and I think we're also going to see the opposite where some of the large we're also working with some on the scale of Morgan like some of them actually are coming together. So those ones that got us big are actually going around buying other law firms because they realized with Eve they can very quickly consolidate what used to be very painful reintegration process now it can be done on exactly what the client wants which is hey the client wants a legal outcome and EV is made just for that.
是的。通过这么做,他们就能大幅减少在变革管理、人员调整和运营变更等方面投入的精力,因为 Eve 会替他们处理很多这类事务。他们也能更快让这笔收购产生价值。Yeah. So by doing that they get to largely work away from a lot of the change management uh work workforce changes operation changes because Eve handles a lot of that for them. They can speed up their time to making that acquisition worth it.
可计费工时制的消亡The Death of the Billable Hour
主持人:有意思的是,现在正有一股转向以结果为导向的定价模式的风潮。Host: Well the funny thing is that there's this movement underway to outcome oriented pricing.
所以,软件 SaaS 过去是按席位、按月收费的。嗯,我以前常开玩笑说,这就像软件销售里的星巴克中杯、大杯、超大杯模式。你随便去一家 SaaS 公司的官网看看就知道了。这也就是为什么 Claude 能这么轻易地把它们全都克隆出来。So like software SAS used to be per seat per month. Um and I used to joke it was like the tall grande venty model of software selling. It's like you go to like any SAS company's website. This is why, you know, Claude can clone them all so readily.
它们看起来都一样。就像每月 79 美元、99 美元、129 美元,你知道,就像 Tall、Grande、Venti 那些杯型。嗯,而且是按席位收费的。They all look the same. It's like $79 a month, $99 a month, $129 a month, you know, tall ground venty. Um, and it was per seat.
再看看像 Zenesk 这样的公司,他们最后一次作为上市公司时,ARR 达到了 20 亿美元。后来他们被 Premier 和 Helman and Freriedman 私有化了。现在他们就像是在说:“糟了,你需要多少个席位?也许一个都不需要。”And like look at a company like Zenesk, which had $2 billion of ARR when they were last a public company. They were taken private by Premier and Helman and Freriedman. And now they're like, uhoh, how many seats do you need? Like maybe zero.
我们,我们需要交付成果。所以软件行业的每个人,呃,某种程度上都是这样,很多 AI 公司也是——我们交付成果,按成果收费。有意思的是,你专注的那类法律业务从一开始就一直以结果为导向。嗯,不过还有其他类型的法律业务并非以结果为导向,而我敢说,所有客户都会更希望它们能按结果收费,对吧?We we need to deliver outcomes. So everybody in the software world uh is kind of like in a lot of AI companies like we deliver outcomes. we charge for outcomes. The interesting thing is that the form of law that you focused on was always outcome oriented from the very beginning. Um, but you have other types of law that are not outcome oriented where I guarantee all the clients would much prefer that it was outcome based, right?
我是说,有时候确实挺棘手的,比如我在 McDermott Will & Emery 有一位处理信托和遗产事务的律师。她非常优秀。I mean, sometimes it's tricky like I have a trust in estate attorney at McDermott Will and Emory. She's very good.
她就贵得离谱。我想我的结局就是死亡吧。所以我不知道自己想不想要那样。不过你知道,你可能更愿意直接说有一笔固定费用,但人们往往会有这种数据……你知道,替他们说句公道话,按小时收费的原因并不完全是为了宰客户,而是我脑子里想要的东西和我表达出来的东西之间存在信息不对称。She's like so expensive. Like I guess my outcome the outcome is my death. So I don't know if I want that. But, you know, you would prefer to just say like there's a fixed cost, but there's often this data uh, you know, in their defense, the reason to charge by the hour is not so much to rip off the client, but there's data asymmetry between what I want in my head and how I articulate it.
项目的范围可能会随着时间推移而变化,但你知道,我认为其他类型的法律业务可能也应该更像原告方律师业务,同样采用以结果为导向的定价方式,Maybe the scope of the project is changing over time, but you know, other forms of law, I would argue they probably should look more like plaintiff's law. They should have outcome oriented pricing as well,
对吧?或者像移民法,应该以结果为导向——其实所有领域都应该采用结果导向的定价。但这很难,因为数据不足;比如,我怎么才能代表被告赢下这个案子?不过,我想问问你,你觉得其他领域是不是也可以拓展?可能远不止原告方诉讼业务。我不知道你是否同意,但你怎么看法律行业整体的变化?我总觉得原告方诉讼业务似乎走在了我们现在看到的这些趋势前面:人人都想要结果,却没人想为其中的要素或投入买单。嗯,这可能是唯一一种一直以结果为导向的商业领域。可法律的其他领域难道不也应该这样吗?right? or like immigration law that should be outcome oriented like everything should be outcome oriented pricing but it's hard because there's a data deficiency if you will in terms of like how will I win this case on behalf of the defendant but I guess like how do you think other forms of like you could probably expand well beyond plaintiff law um I don't know if you agree with me but like how do you think about just like law in general changing because I kind of feel like plaintiff's law was like ahead of everything that we're seeing right now it's like everybody wants outcomes nobody wants to pay for the ingredients or the inputs. Um this was the only kind of field probably of business where it's like it was always outcome oriented but kind of shouldn't other parts of law work that way?
嘉宾:这也正是我们的看法。对。所以,难点一直就在于事情确实很难。你知道,无论你站在被告方还是原告方,面对一个新案件时,问题是:这需要花10个小时,还是100个小时?Guest: That is our exact belief as well. Right. So like the hard part has been it is hard. You know when you're on the defense side or even the plaintiff's side the question around a new case is it 10 hours of work, 100 hours of work.
很多时候,只有真正接手之后才会知道。嗯,这也是为什么在原告案件方面,我们必须深入到每一个执业领域,努力实现理想结果。你知道,去年我们做的就是如今所谓的长周期智能体;当时要取得成效,正是需要这样做。现在,要真正促成法律结果,我们做得越来越好了。归根结底,我认为,要让法律普及化,面对一组事实,你需要知道要得出某个结果需要多少计算资源。这需要汇总数据、更加充分地利用数据,同时也要更好地运用计算资源,以实现既定结果。In many cases you really don't know until you take it on. Um and for plaintiffs that is why we had to go so deep into each practice area into achieving outcomes and you know we were doing what is now coined long horizon agents like last year that's just what was needed to drive results and now it's getting better and better to actually drive legal outcomes and ultimately I think what is needed for democratizing of law is from a set of facts you need to know how much compute resources you need to arrive at a outcome. And that happens through both aggregation of and better usage of data and better usage of actually running the compute to achieve set outcome.
所以我们两方面都在做,对吧?这就是为什么我们会高度聚焦于成果,并希望推动成果落地。最终,这种大卫对抗歌利亚的局面会在各处上演。你知道,这不只发生在大型律师事务所或企业法务部门。And so we're doing both right. So like that is why we're laser focused on outcomes and we want to drive outcomes. And eventually this David versus Goliath uh thing is happening everywhere. You know it's not just in uh you know big law or in-house legal.
预算就在那些地方。所以他们实际上可以在一段不固定的时间里开一张空白支票,而促使他们衡量这究竟能给我带来多少成果价值的机制,目前并不明确,对吧?我的意思是,你知道的,比如你去筹款时,可能会收到一张 10 万美元的支票;这究竟会带来什么具体成果?嗯,你知道,这很难说清楚它的价值是什么,但这就是他们如今唯一能定价的方式。Those are just where the budgets are. So they actually can write basically a blank check for intermittent period of time and the forcing function around how much is this actually worth in outcomes to me is not known right like I mean you know this like when you go fund raise you might get hit with like a 100k check what is the exact outcome of that uh you know like it's very hard to know what the value is but that is the only way they can price today
对,嗯,这是因为他们并不知道自己的工作实际预期能创造多少价值。right um and that's because they don't know what the expected value of their work actually is.
主持人:嗯,这也是一种不对称性。就像,我也说不清。就像,好吧,你需要为你的 C 轮融资聘请一名律师。这是什么意思?Host: Well, that's the asymmetry as well. It's like I don't know. It's like, okay, you need to hire a lawyer for your series C. And what does that mean?
嗯,它可能非常简单,也可能非常复杂。所以,很难制定统一费率。没错。Well, it could be like very simple. It could be very complicated. So, it's very hard to have a flat rate. That's right.
嗯,因为他们可能会吃亏。呃,往低了说,他们不会吃亏。对。就像我向你收25,000美元。我在这件事上花了一个小时,但如果我现在得花4,000小时的律师时间,他们就可能会吃亏。Um because they could get burned in Well, they can't get burned in the low direction. Right. It's like I charge you $25,000. I spent an hour on this, but they could get burned if it's like I have to now spend 4,000 hours of attorney time.
我可能会因此亏钱。当然,每一家公司他们……哦,好吧,实际上,正如你所知,在公司法领域……I could lose money on this. which of course every single firm they oh well actually like as you know in corporate law
这些是亏本引流的产品,然后你们再通过并购、IPO之类的把钱赚回来,不过显然这跟原告律师业务有点不一样。你们是怎么收费的?我是说,你们刚开始做这门生意的时候,不可能第一天就知道具体要怎么收费、面向哪类客户吧?我想你们在这方面的想法也随着时间发生了变化。these are loss leader products and then you try to make it up on the M&A or IPO or something but obviously a little bit different than plaintiff law. How do you guys charge? How did you because I imagine you had a it's not like on day one when you started the business you knew exactly what you were going to charge for like what type of customer. I imagine your thinking has evolved on this as well.
嘉宾:当然。好吧。所以,我的意思是,实际上,说来也奇怪,从第一天起,Guest: Absolutely. Okay. So, I mean from actually, weirdly enough, from day one,
我们一开始可能点的是那个那个,呃,你知道,呃,叫什么来着?Tall grande。we started probably with the with the uh you know, uh what was it? Tall grande.
主持人:Tall、Grande、Venty。是的,Host: Tall Grande Venty. Yes,
嘉宾:Vente 模式。呃,我们一开始就是这么做的,因为当时我们也不懂,对吧?后来深入研究后,我们意识到,他们真正关心的是结果。他们关心的是:我怎样才能服务更多客户?Guest: Vente model. Uh that's that's what we started with because we didn't know any better, right? And then as we dug into it, we realized like what they care about is outcomes. What they care about is how do I serve more clients?
所以,这实际上迫使我们从很早的时候起就以结果为导向。呃,你知道,我们说的是大约一年半前,这挺有意思的,放在今天来看,那还算很早。So, that actually forced us to be outcome based from very early days. uh you know we're talking like a year and a half ago which is pretty funny that's early uh in today's world
主持人:AI 时间就像狗龄乘以 100,没错。Host: AI time like dog years times 100 yes
嘉宾:没错,嗯,但这其实就是发生在我们身上的事,对吧?而且还有很大的增长空间。现在你知道,我们谈过那个价值示意图:三分之一给了律师,其中一半是人力成本——这部分他们以后就不用再花了,对吧?那你究竟要怎样把这些转化成更有用的东西呢?奇怪的是,要创造更多有用的工作,最好的办法其实是把这些资源花在更多的 token 上,以及让 Eve 做更多工作,为你的律所赚更多钱,对吧?这大概就是我们如今所处的循环。市场上的很多趋势也正是在助力我们。比如,我们确实认为,按小时计费的模式不会彻底消亡,但我觉得它会逐渐让位于按席位定价的模式。嗯,对于某些法律业务来说,这可能是最好的收费方式,因为在多年后结果出来之前,很难判断其价值。Guest: exactly um but that is that is kind of um what happened to us right and there's so much room to grow where now that you know we talked about that value diagram of a third goes to attorneys half of that is labor that is half they don't have to spend anymore right so how do you actually turn that into something more useful and that way the best way to get more useful work is actually to spend it weirdly on more tokens and more work that Eve can do to make more money for your firm, right? And that is kind of the cycle we're in today. And a lot of the market dynamics that is helping us is exactly this. Like we actually believe the uh billable auto model, I don't think it's going to die completely, but I think it's going to be on the way of the seatbased pricing model. uh where for some subset of law that is probably the best way you can charge for the work cuz it's very difficult to know value until an outcome many years later.
单个案例中的 10,000 次触达The 10,000 Touches in a Single Case
但其中很多事情现在已经不再是这样了。你知道,对于很多事情,你其实已经知道结果会是什么。嗯,而且你应该能够把自己的工作折算成摊销后的金额,再把结果交付出去,对吧?这就是我们押注的方向。也正因如此,我们从第一天起就专注于端到端地交付法律服务成果,并且把流程做得尽可能简单:律师只要说“这是我接手的一位客户,把案子交给 Eve”,需要你的时候,Eve 就会把你拉进来,然后你就可以开始工作了。你看,我们之前聊过,原告律师往往受限于供给,而不是需求——很多人都是如此,因为客户源源不断,他们却无法为这些客户提供服务,原因是算下来经济上并不划算,比如获客成本(CAC)和客户终身价值(LTV)之间的关系。对他们来说,这和所有企业面临的都是同一个老问题:你的瓶颈在哪里?是什么阻碍了你更快地发展?But for a lot of it that's not true anymore. You know for a lot of it you actually know what the outcomes are. Um and you should be able to take your work down to an amortized amount and deliver that back right. uh and that is what we are betting on right and this is why we focused on delivering legal outcomes from day one end to end and doing that in such a way that it is as simple as a lawyer saying here's this client I got in give it to Eve will pull you in when you're needed and you're good to go where like see we've talked about how uh plaintiff attorneys like they are they are supply constraint not demand constraint or many of them are because they have this infinite influx of clients that they can't serve because the math doesn't really work in terms of, you know, cost versus, you know, CAC versus LTV. It's the old fashioned thing for any business applies to them as well. You know, where are your constraints? Like what kind of holds you back from growing faster?
我是说,你们显然发展得非常快。你们的增长瓶颈是什么?嗯,你们需要哪些投入,才能实现更快的增长?I mean, you're obviously growing incredibly fast. What are your rate limiters? Um what do you need as inputs to grow faster as an output?
嘉宾:你知道,这真的很有意思,因为很多法律领域的基准测试,包括你们公开分享的那些基准测试——Anthropic、OpenAI,以及我们密切合作的许多机构都在做这类工作——都非常关注几乎单一的结果:比如给定一项任务,它做得是不是基本还不错。如今,世界正转向智能体式工作,而对我们来说,唯一重要的始终是智能体的实际成效。所以现在,越来越多的重点都落在最终结果上。就目前而言,我们的技术和流程仍处于这样的阶段:每个案件都需要相当多的人工介入;但随着我们处理的工作越来越多,这种情况每个月都在大幅减少。在我们这个行业,这必须针对每种案件类型逐一实现,对吧?所以我们正在把每个案件都当作一门科学来研究。Guest: You know it's it's really fascinating because a lot of the legal benchmarks like even benchmarks that you share publicly that anthropic openai many of whom we're working very closely with are working on care a lot about like almost single outcome right like here's a task did it kind of do mostly okay and the world is now moving into agentic work for us the only thing that ever mattered was the agentic outcomes right so like now all that is getting more and more the end outcome here is Today we're still at the point with technology and processes where there's still a decent amount of human touches needed per case, but by doing more and more work, we've been drastically reducing that month over month. And in our industry, we need to do that per case type, right? So like for every single case, we're learning that like a science.
比如,你究竟要怎样解决这个案件?又该如何打造一个迷你版的律师大脑,让它能够处理所有这些数据点,得出解决方案,并在各个环节推动事情进展,同时使用它能调用的所有工具,包括云端工具等等,来实现这个结果?这是个非常棘手的问题,对吧?所以目前很大程度上,我们受限于工程师的数量。我们有无穷无尽的事情要做,才能推动这件事向前发展。另一个令人振奋的地方是,只要我们能端到端地处理机动车事故案件,比如说,世界因此释放出的价值就会高达数千亿美元,而这还只是其中一个细分领域。Like how do you actually resolve this case and how do you build a mini attorney brain that is capable of crunching all these data points to that resolution and driving it across the board and working with all the tools they have access to including cloud and whatnot to drive that outcome. And that is a really hard problem. Right? So we're largely limited by engineers at this point. like we have a limitless number of things to do to drive this forward and the other fun part is we have demand the moment we are able to deliver on let's say moving vehicle accident cases end to end the amount of value that gets unlocked for the world from that is in the hundreds of billions of dollars and that's just one subtype
主持人:其实这是个很好的问题。你们有没有处理过完全自主、端到端的案例?比如接听电话、接入客户,你知道,最后从 Geico 拿到支票之类的。你知道,这种端到端的流程发生过吗?还是说……Host: actually that's a great question have you had a fully autonomous endto-end case it's like answer phone onboard client you know get out get check from Geico, you know, like has that happened end to end or like
嘉宾:还没有,不过快了。呃,这就是为什么我们需要工程师,对吧?这么说吧,让大家有个概念:一个案件可能要来回沟通 10,000 次。差不多 10,000 次吧。哇,你可以这样理解,对吧?有个客户找上门来,假设这是一起人身伤害案件。Guest: not yet, but we're close. Uh that is what that is why we need the engineers, right? So like to put things in perspective, a single case has probably 10,000 back and forths. 10,000 something like that because wow, here's how you think about it, right? A client comes in, let's say it's a PI case.
现在你有了医疗记录。所以你现在得实际打电话给保险公司和医疗保健公司,去拿到客户已经有的那些记录,对吧?像这种事情现在要花两周时间。而借助 Eve 外呼代理,我们实际上有了能够主动拨打电话的语音 AI。有意思的是,我们已经看到代理在和其他代理交谈,并学习如何突破……Now you have medical records. So now you have to actually outbound call insurance companies and healthcare companies to get hold of the records that the clients already had, right? So like that is actually that takes two weeks today. And with Eve outbound agents where we actually have voice AI that can do the outbound call and funnily enough that's an area where we're already seeing agents talking to other agents and learning how to get past
彼此,这真是太好笑了。嗯,这是需要采取的一个步骤,对吧?对吧?然后接下来,你得创建一份文件,并且真正和对方进行沟通。each other which is hilarious. Um and that is like one step that's needed, right? Right? And then from there you have to then create a document and actually have a conversation with the other side.
所以这些都是我们端到端完成的任务。今天还需要一点人工参与,有人让结果变得更好一些,或者把某件事做得稍微好一点。但我们现在正在构建的,正是如何真正端到端地推动整个流程。对。So all of this are tasks we are completing end to end. So today there's a little bit of touch required where someone makes an outcome better or um does something a little better but exactly what we're building right now is how do you actually drive this whole thing end to end. Yeah.
感恩节发现技巧The Thanksgiving Discovery Trick
我们已经在一些客户那里看到了这项技术真正投入使用的早期迹象。回到国防领域,以及他们庞大的信息体系,你有没有看到他们总体上的反应发生变化?举个例子,就像是:“糟了,这些人因为这件事联系我了。”我总得先安抚一下他们,因为他们对此可能有相当严格的规定。And we seeing early signs of that where it's actually live in some customers. And have you seen going back to the defense side and their colossus of information, have you seen their reaction just in general change? So, as an example of that, it's like, uhoh, these guys contacted me with this. I always need to settle because they probably have like pretty firm rules about this.
我想他们不会只是随便临时编个数出来,毕竟他们每年要处理这类事情成千上万次,甚至更多。所以,假设我是 Geico,你要求这么多。那我第一次出价就会定在这个数,不过如果他们的成本降低了,也许情况就会变,对吧?那么,你有没有注意到你客户的对手方——不是说你自己的对手方,而是你客户的对手方——在反应上有什么变化?They don't just like randomly make it up as you go, I would assume, because they're dealing with this tens of thousands of times, if not more, per year. So, if I'm Geico, it's like, oh, you demanded this much. Well, my first attempt is going to settle here, but like if their costs go down, maybe that changes, right? So, have you seen any change in reaction of your, you know, not your counterparty per se, but of your client's counterparties?
嘉宾:我会说,总体而言,嗯,防御方仍然很大程度上沿用按小时计费的商业模式。Guest: I would say largely still, uh, the defense side very much still works on an hourly business model.
所以,他们的进度还没完全跟上我们律师的节奏。所以,这里我想说,价格方面存在很大的不对称。我们合作的这家律所以前遇到的情况是,辩方会一直拖延,直到感恩节前一天或重大节假日前一天才发出证据开示请求,对吧?So, they haven't quite caught up to the same pace as our attorney. So, like there's a lot of, I guess, pricing asymmetry here. What defense used to do for this one law firm that we're working with is they would wait they would push out discovery request dates until a day before Thanksgiving or a major holiday, right?
然后把证据开示请求发过去,因为他们知道那个人会去度假,整个假期都得被这些工作缠住,结果要么做不好,要么就匆忙应付。后来,因为他们反复使用这种伎俩,对方就在 Eve 上创建了一个智能代理,专门当天回复。于是下次这事一发生,他们就立刻连同答复和抗辩一起回应,辩方都懵了:这是怎么回事?And then send discovery there because they would know the person would go on vacation and be stuck with all this workload over that vacation and they wouldn't do a good job at it or would rush it. And now what they used they because it was such a repeated tactic by them they created an agent on Eve to respond the same day. So next time this came through like they responded immediately with the responses and the defense were like what is going on here?
主持人:是的。Host: Yeah.
嘉宾:这些策略并不Guest: The tactics don't
而且就像我们看到的,现在这种情况正在出现很多变体,这让防守方意识到:等等,这就是对方有资源时会发生的事。对。哦,糟了。对。这就是看着挺有意思的地方。and like we're seeing there's so many variants of that is happening now which is causing um defense to realize wait is this is what happens when the other side has resources. Right. Oh crap. Right. and that's that's what's fun to see.
主持人:嗯,Jay,这次对话非常精彩,我学到了很多。嗯,我之前没意识到你们每处理一个案件都要进行 10,000 次接触,不过这确实很有意思,也很高兴能成为你的合作伙伴。嗯,期待把 Eve 带给接下来的 10,000 家公司。Host: Well, Jay, this is a fantastic conversation. I learned a lot. Um didn't realize there were 10,000 touches every time you went through a case, but uh really fascinating and delighted to be your partner. Um and bring Eve to the next uh the next 10,000 firms.
嘉宾:谢谢。我是说,我们还有很多工作要做。呃,今天我们大概已经帮助了几十万名客户,而还有数亿人等着我们去触达。我希望每天都能为他们的生活带来改变。所以,如果你对此感兴趣,请加入 Eve。Guest: Thank you. I mean, we're we still have so much more to go. Uh we've probably helped a couple hundred thousand clients today and we have hundreds of millions to touch and I would love to be making a difference in their life every day. So if that's of interest, please come join Eve.
主持人:太棒了。谢谢。Host: Awesome. Thank you.