AI in trial law is no longer optional for firms that want to compete at the highest levels of litigation. Manny Serra recently spoke with Law360 about his nontraditional approach to the managing partner role at Kelley | Uustal and why embracing AI and big data is imperative for modern trial work.
Serra, who has tried over 30 cases and litigated more than 1,500 throughout his career, expressed enthusiasm for both the work ahead and for joining a firm that shares his mindset of taking on difficult challenges rather than choosing the easy path.
“It’s an amazing thing to be a part of a firm that isn’t going to just give in or lay down. It is a fight every single day here, and no case here is ever going to have the easy way out,” Serra said. “That’s the cool part about being here, and that’s basically my whole life.”
AI Integration as Competitive Advantage
Serra is clear about the stakes. “People who use AI are going to replace those who don’t, or in a legal setting, beat them.”
Kelley | Uustal has already seen 7-10 hour savings on legal research by using AI to establish baselines, which attorneys then refine with their expertise. Serra emphasized that the firm’s partners have embraced the technology rather than resisted it.
“Those who don’t use AI are at a massive disadvantage, especially in a competitive landscape like trial work, where you have unique cases,” Serra said.
As part of his vision, Serra is extracting the institutional knowledge built by founding partners John Uustal and Bob Kelley and systematizing it into teachable processes, using data to predict outcomes based on the firm’s decades of trial experience.
“My role at the firm is managing partner, but it’s not that traditional managing partner of bringing your cases and let’s look at who we should depose, or where we are on the timeline, and do I know opposing counsel that can help move this forward a little bit for you. It’s not that old school role. It’s more of a forward-thinking, adaptive role to what the future is like.”
Looking ahead, Serra envisions combining big data, AI, and efficient workflows with the firm’s elite trial talent. While he recognizes the difficulty of that undertaking, the challenge itself is what motivates him.
“I really like a challenge, and I like things that are based upon a really strong principle. And here the principle is to hold corporations or wrongdoers accountable for the harm that they’ve caused to our fellow man or woman in society, that David versus Goliath fight.”
Read the full Law360 interview.
