Artificial intelligence is taking over in every industry. Be it Alexa or self-driving cars, artificial intelligence has started to play a crucial role in our lives. AI has been adopted by almost every sector in the world and is helping in learning, reasoning, and decision-making. It has a huge impact on numerous industries all over the world by reducing workload and saving time and costs.
Artificial intelligence has modified almost every profession and has started to grease the wheels of the legal sector as well! In simple words, the software is replacing all the paperwork and document review process and making work in the legal sector more efficient and less time-consuming. Basically, it takes over most of the lawyers’ work and frees them to take over high-level tasks such as client advising, appearing in court, etc.
Altogether, AI is a cost-effective way to carry out document reviews, plow through immense data, and execute legal research. Although it is a new concept in the legal profession, AI has raised many questions on whether or not it is acceptable in the industry and the issues arising subsequently from the usage of AI.
In this blog, we’ll try to understand:
- What is artificial intelligence?
- Emerging ethical and legal issues after AI has been introduced
- How has AI shaped the legal profession?
- AI for legal document review
- Attorneys vs. artificial intelligence
What is artificial intelligence?
While it has been made clear that there is not one specific definition of artificial intelligence (AI).
- John McCarthy, also known as the father of AI, coined the term artificial intelligence in 1956, saying that “AI is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.”
- According to Marvin Minsky, “AI is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men.”
- Demis Hassabis, CEO and founder of DeepMind, now part of Google defined artificial intelligence as, “the science of making machines smart.”
- A report in the 2015 Narrative Science survey interpreted AI as, “technology that thinks and acts like a human.”
Although these definitions are different but have a common theme. Particularly, AI grasps machines to impersonate the human mind, i.e., the ability of a computer to perform tasks like decision-making and problem-solving as a human does. It is a computer science branch that refers to building smart machines to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.
emerging ethical and legal issues after AI has been introduced in the legal sector
Artificial intelligence is developing machines to work as humans, document review, legal research, data management, keeping track of contracts, and whatnot!
Experts like Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft discuss that now it’s high time to build boundaries to separate artificial intelligence from human beings. Basically, risk assessment of newly emerging technology (AI) that is keeping the tech giants up at night!
- Deprivation of jobs! What happens when AI takes over all human jobs? AI is concerned with automation. What happens when everything is done by machines? There will not be any jobs for humans to do! Lack of jobs eventually leads to unemployment which further results in poverty due to no source of income.
- Unequal wealth distribution. Since artificial intelligence is taking over all jobs this means cost reduction in hiring employees and an increase in revenue due to the usage of AI. Therefore, fewer employees means less distribution of turnover consequently leading to individuals owning AI-driven companies gaining a lot of money.
- Artificial blunders! Even machines have a learning phase in which they detect the right patterns. Once the system is trained, it goes through a test to check if the machine is ready to work on the force! Obviously, in the training phase, the system makes mistakes like viewing random dots as something that isn’t there.
- AI biases. We usually let slip the fact that AI systems are created by humans, who can be biased and judgmental. For example, face recognition is an AI system. But it can sometimes miss the racially sensitive marks.
- Misuse of AI. The better the technology is, the more it can be used for the establishment of the firm. But we generally miss out on the fact that this same technology can also be used maliciously.
how AI has shaped the legal profession?
The legal sector is definitely considered conservative when it comes to technology. Not anymore! Artificial intelligence is transforming the way attorneys practice law, not only by reforming frustrating and stressful jobs like document review and management but also by serving as a platform to practice law digitally. If we look on the brighter side AI partners with lawyers, i.e., AI is a hero not a villain in this movie!
Artificial intelligence helps in document review by scanning through thousands of documents in just a matter of time and provides lawyers with much more accurate key information. This helps in drastic savings of cost and time.
Not only this, AI is helping attorneys with legal research. We know finding applicable case laws is a tedious job. But AI brings to the table the solution to all of the attorney’s edgy jobs. AI presents attorneys with a handful of case laws that may be applicable to their cases. Moreover, AI aids in contract management as well.
Introducing AI in the legal profession raised a lot of questions, whether it will eventually replace attorneys. But it marks an opposite effect. It lifts off loads of work stress and helps lawyers do what they are best at. The continued use of artificial intelligence brings human expertise. It combines with human intelligence enhances the legal sector with growth and helps pursue better justice.
AI for legal document review
Paperwork and law practice go hand in hand. With more cases comes great responsibility and stacks of paperwork. Lawyers are in charge of the document review process and are held accountable if anything goes wrong. Even a simple case piles up a number of documents. It is an anxious and demanding task. Fortunately, AI has a solution!
AI work by learning how firms perform document review. Once it knows what to look for and the gist of the content, AI starts its work operation.
AI carries out document reviews in just a matter of time and provides a more accurate result. The incessant use of AI offers a solution to constant occurring problems:
- Document review is a time-consuming task
- It’s expensive
AI scrutinizes loads of records within a few minutes and lays out relevant and necessary information needed to build a case. With the help of AI, a firm drastically lowers its costs with minimal damages.
attorneys vs. artificial intelligence
As a matter of fact, it has already been made clear that lawyers and AI work together as partners and not as competitors. Attorneys must be able to explain the role AI plays in their interpretation. Undoubtedly, a lawyer’s decision to use AI affects his case as well as his oath to provide fair justice within fair charges, i.e., if a lawyer decides not to use AI:
- Result in unreasonable charges
- Affect their conscientiousness in client representation
- Unsatisfactory client
The use of AI in court has already come under perusal and has highlighted major benefits to attorneys. Attorneys who use AI are more likely to provide early dispute dissolvement and better case assessment as compared to others. With evolution, lawyers need to understand the evolving role of AI in courts as well.
So as to provide better representation to the clients, lawyers must stay ahead of all technologies (Artificial intelligence, in this case) and ensure they know how to make the best use of them, including their knowledge of risks associated with it and other legal problems.
The use of AI in the legal profession has just started and given its impact, its ceaseless use and extension will unpredictably structure the sector in years to come. Lawyers aren’t being replaced but that doesn’t mean that technology isn’t making its mark on the legal profession. We’ve been made clear that AI allows lawyers to serve faster, finer, and more effective legal assistance. The end game is that lawyers using AI are better guides to their clients. With a grasp on how to use technology for the best outcome, attorneys will be able to provide much better counseling within much less time and cost.
