Regional Managing Partner Will Now Accept Advice Only From Man Who Does Not Exist

The managing partner of Wetherby Dodd says he has finally found the adviser capable of challenging his thinking: Graham, a silver-haired AI avatar wearing a navy quarter-zip.

Graham is composed entirely of software. He has no clients, no professional history and no experience of running a law firm. His experience was nevertheless recorded as thirty-five years after the managing partner entered that number into a configuration box.

“I need someone who will challenge me,” the managing partner said. “I have made that very clear in his instructions.”

Graham was trained on fourteen years of the managing partner's speeches, firm strategies, annual reviews and congratulatory messages. It is consequently able to anticipate his position on almost every issue and present it as the outcome of independent analysis.

At first the project team offered three avatars. The female adviser was rejected as “a little operational”. A younger male figure was considered insufficiently seasoned. Graham was selected because he looked like somebody who had been a senior partner since before electronic communication became compulsory.

The arrangement has altered the firm's decision-making process. The head of finance recently proposed a change to matter pricing that the managing partner had rejected twice. Graham subsequently recommended the same change, describing it as a natural extension of the managing partner's commercial instincts. Approval was immediate.

Extract from our interview

What does Graham offer that your colleagues cannot?

“He understands the pressures of being responsible for all the decisions.”

Does he ever disagree with you?

“Of course. Sometimes he suggests I communicate my original decision more clearly.”

Can anybody challenge his analysis?

“We have put appropriate governance around that.”

Who controls the settings?

“That is commercially sensitive.”

Partners have begun seeking influence through the team that maintains Graham. One has submitted suggested language about the value of his department. Another requested that the avatar's recommendations give greater weight to historic origination. Executive-committee membership is now considered less useful than access to the configuration panel.

The technology director says the system can be made to cite evidence and test competing hypotheses. Management has asked for these features to be evaluated once Graham has settled into his role.

The managing partner recently announced that the firm had entered a new era of independent advice. Graham appeared beside him on the screen, nodded gravely and congratulated him on the clarity of his leadership.