Artificial Intelligence has permeated almost every industry, including the legal sector. Either in word or deed, over the last couple of years. From financial institutions to ride-hailing services such as Uber. Companies are clambering over one another to take advantage of this technology. The race to stay ahead of the competition.
The legal sector isn’t only for sharp-suited lawyers. They may have trained for years to build and present a case. Able to persuade a jury of their peers of the validity of their argument. But with AI, the tide might now be turning in law. The legal sector has come under scrutiny in recent years. Especially so with the prominence of the freedom of information movement.
Could Artificial Intelligence be the answer in the legal sector?
AI is a platform with no prior allegiances. No vested interests and no way of falling victim to bribery… so could it reform the legal profession? Tony Williams, of specialist consultancy Jomati, has recently touched on the subject. He’s stated that the legal profession will benefit from using AI more than factories or service industries.
The main obstacle to using Artificial Intelligence in a courtroom is not the technology, but legislation. While the technology is being developed, it could be years before it’s given the all-clear. That said, we said the same about driverless cars. Its path into the courtroom is currently blocked by a maze of red tape. Artificial Intelligence can have benefits to the admin side of the legal sector for now.
Kim Technologies is an Artificial Intelligence start-up based in New Jersey. They design and develop Artificial Intelligence solutions. Acquired by UK legal business Riverview Law, they aim to build collaborative Virtual Assistants. They want to “address the challenge encountered by knowledge workers everywhere. The need to automate data, documents, processes and workflows” according to Chief Customer Officer Andy Daws.
“It’s positioned to support the ‘Rise of the knowledge worker’ as our knowledge economy bumps into the second machine age”.
The flagship product automates tasks that would take hundreds of hours to complete. It also has dashboards to provide transparency and business insight to leaders. As well as for the individuals undertaking the work.
This sounds like a dream come true for businesses. They can automate the monotonous processes which used to be the bugbear of in-house legal teams. Whilst also being able to check the status of every open case within the team. This should improve case efficiency and outcome.
Are there any disadvantages to the Virtual Assistant platform over its traditional contemporaries?
For example, how secure is the platform, considering that it will have access to a business’ legal data? Andy points to the recent Panama Papers leak as a prime example of why security needs to be a priority for law firms.
Before the Panama Papers debacle, there were many efforts made to hack into the world’s top law firms. In a bid to hack information relating to acquisitions and mergers. He is unequivocal about Kim’s approach to security. “We offer both public and private cloud environments. Some of our larger customers have opted for on-premise deployment. This ensures that it falls within its existing security infrastructure and protocols.”
One must also question whether this spells the beginning of a new era of law firms. Paralegals have been the bedrock of every top firm for many years. Could an unwavering autonomous equal, replace them? One which doesn’t get tired, need paying or slow down?
Both Daws and Chapman insist on the development of Virtual Assistants won’t mean the end of lawyers. It will mean fewer lawyers and an increasing focus on higher value work. They refer to using the technology in this way ‘Augmented Intelligence’. “Augmented Intelligence focuses on the interaction between humans and computers. Rather than seeking to replace humans, seeks to support and enhance human actors. For this reason, it’s sometimes also referred to as Human-Computer Interaction or HCI. It starts from a different premise and seeks a different, more collaborative, outcome.”
One of the most exciting things about the development of the Kim platform is that it is sector and function agnostic. This means that the technology is usable in any industry or business. It provides knowledge workers the opportunity to streamline their workflows and improve efficiency. While there are other legal AI options, such as ROSS, Kim is already working both cross-functionally and cross-sector.
So what of the future of Artificial Intelligence in Law?
Could we soon see robot lawyers take to the floor in a courtroom? Addressing the jury in perfect prose. All before delivering the argument in a fraction of the time of their human counterpart?
This seems unlikely right now, but the future might be different. Yet, Chapman insists that the future of AI in Law is collaboration. A partnership with human lawyers, rather than replacing them. “It is a brave lawyer who bets against the impact on the legal market and lawyers of machine learning, artificial intelligence, data (as opposed to rules) driven systems.” This brings us back to the idea of ‘Augmented Intelligence’. Kim’s solution offers administrative automation capabilities. Yet, there could be a chance in the future of a lawyer using an artificial intelligence algorithm to win a court case. Inputting the case material as semi-structured data. Then allowing the platform to devise a plan and the probability of a successful outcome.
Cases which might before have taken months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to conclude could be open and shut in a matter of days, even hours. But, are there any barriers to such a system being implemented?
Legal data confidentiality
Firstly, legal data is completely confidential. This is why Google came up against criticism for using NHS data. The data was to train their Deep Learning algorithms searching for diseases. This means that the case might be the same for a legal platform.
Legal AI platforms would need hundreds of thousands of case data, if not millions. Securing the sort of legislation that could make this possible could take years. Furthermore, would lawyers want to collaborate with this technology? Given that it could make their 7+ years of legal training somewhat redundant. Again, this is where the ‘Augmented Intelligence’ element of this technology is crucial.
Artificial Intelligence in the world of work is a tool to speed up the process and reduce workload. It could also provide an overview of the case material. Done by using Natural Language Processing to summarise a particular set of documents. Then, cross-reference texts with other information to see if there is corroboration. The future of AI in Law is what Riverview and Kim are offering right now. This is likely only to grow in the years to come.
Would you trust it?
The question seems to be the same in every industry in which Artificial Intelligence is becoming more prevalent. Would you trust a robot to do it for you? Whether it’s robot doctors, taxi drivers or police officers. Many are skeptical that autonomous technology has the right human attributes. They need compassion, emotional intelligence and drive to do the job as well as a human. Whether they would be able to or not, it isn’t going to happen overnight. Not without significant testing and investment. In the meantime, the idea of a human and AI working together to solve a problem might prove to actually be all we need.
Augmented Intelligence might be in the crosshairs of what we desire. Technology that can do the legwork for a human in a fraction of the time and the human. In the field of Law, most would prefer to interact with a human lawyer, rather than a computer. Although litigation is not the sole aspect of the legal profession. When Artificial Intelligence is used in the legal sector, it may be unsuitable to deliver statements or evidence.
Imagine an AI platform speaking about the unequivocal guilt of a particular party. It might be a little too close to Ultron from ‘The Avengers’ for many people’s liking. Even so, AI has the potential to bring the legal profession into the twenty-first century. Saving time and money, whilst making the lives of those on all sides of the legal spectrum easier.
