With news that an increasing number of law firms are using artificial intelligence to assist with drafting advice, it begs the question of how artificial intelligence will change the legal industry. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is here to stay, you are likely using it daily on tasks such facial recognition or utilising assistant tools such as Siri or Alexa. When it comes to artificial intelligence influencing the legal industry, the legal community is interested in how it will make its mark. How can artificial intelligence be used to assist the legal industry? Can artificial intelligence become powerful enough that lawyers are no longer necessary?
What is artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (known as ‘AI’), simply put, are tasks undertaken by a computer which otherwise would usually be completed by a human. In the legal industry, AI is being used for written correspondence such as drafting letters of advice, drafting email correspondence, drafting articles to publish onto blogs, among other tasks.
Benefits of Artificial Intelligence
Ultimately, AI is at its best when its purpose is to tool find. Because AI can comb through thousands of resources quicker than the human eye can, AI works best when it is being used to identify where the answer may lie. The legal industry can best use AI when they are trying to locate legislation or case law to find an answer to their scenario. AI can also be used effectively to draft articles for publishing to a company website. The purpose of these blog posts is to provide general information to the public about which legislation or case law provides the answer.
AI is also a boon to a lawyer completing due diligence. AI can find the information quicker than humans can when scanning through a bundle of documents. The use of AI certainly has benefits to the legal industry and has a trickle-down effect as follows:
- Use of AI makes the lawyer and the lawyer’s file more efficient. Rather than spending hours trying to find a document or find the correct legislation, AI can find that information in minutes.
- Because it is more efficient, a lawyer has more time to take on more files and produce results to existing clients quicker.
- Because the lawyer is more efficient and spends less time on the file, the legal files can become cheaper, as less human time is spent on them. This can ultimately lead to law firms being able to reduce their prices and become more accessible to the public who may not have been able to afford the firm’s previous prices.
- AI can complete marketing work that lawyers did not previously have time to complete. AI can draft marketing material and newsletters in the background while the lawyer completes their legal tasks. Being able to issue the marketing materials to the public can bring the firm into more public attention and allow the firm to tap into more potential clients.
The effects of misusing AI
It is important to note that AI best benefits the legal industry when it is used on fact finding and information gathering tasks. AI cannot replace the key skills that a lawyer possesses, interpreting the law and applying to the client’s case. Ultimately, a lawyer’s job utilises creativity and insight. AI currently does not have the ability to use ingenuity and find the best answer out of multiple solutions. This is because AI currently uses algorithms to link facts to a predetermined solution.
The law cannot work this way, we constantly see court decisions being published changing the legal position and court cases frequently being overturned by more recent decisions. While cases can have similar features, their exact facts are never the same, there is always at least one thing that is different (for example, a different builder). That one circumstance could change the outcome of the client’s success. This is something humans can identify and in contrast, AI may be able to identify what facts are different from another case, but it cannot identify the gravity of that difference.
Lawyers can use AI to find information, but a lawyer should not rely on AI to provide the final solution. Lawyers still need to spend the time to review AI generated material, proofread that the material is correct and more importantly, lawyers still need to engage themselves in interpreting the information to the client’s case themselves, and not rely on AI to interpret the information.
Lawyers should not forget their ethical duty to not bring the legal profession into disrepute. If AI is not given the correct instructions by the lawyer when information finding, then AI may use interstate legislation or case law. If the lawyer does not manually verify that AI’s information does correctly apply to their jurisdiction, then the client will be given misleading information which may contribute towards damaging the public’s faith in the legal industry’s competence. Lack of competence leading the legal profession into disrepute may breach a lawyer’s ethical duties and can not only damage the legal profession’s reputation, but lead to disciplinary proceedings brought against the lawyer. AI can be tricky to learn, it will take a few tries to lock down the correct instructions to give to AI so they can provide the right information to lawyers.
How can AI work in the legal industry?
Ultimately AI can work in the legal industry and make the legal profession more efficient, so long as it is used correctly. AI can be used by the legal profession to find the tools (such as legislation and cases) to apply to the lawyer’s scenario. AI can be used to draft articles for blog posts, as this utilises AI in what it does best, information finding. However, AI will not replace lawyers and lawyers should not use AI thinking that it can do all their work for them. AI cannot apply the tools to real life scenarios. In particular, AI will not be able to develop the skills lawyers need in litigious matters, finding how the differing facts can impact the outcome of your client’s case.
Regardless of whatever task a lawyer uses AI for, lawyers should always verify themselves that the information located by AI is correct, to ensure that the lawyer is not giving misleading or wrong advice to clients and thereby, preventing the profession being brought into disrepute. There will always be a need for human lawyers to use creativity to apply legislation to their client’s cases.
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