Is AI a threat to legal sector?

Abstract:

It is undeniable that technology has developed to a level where major human driven works can now be automated. Already in major sectors AI has created its impression and due to its potential of doing every task quickly and accurately it has created an impression in the mind of people whether it will be taking their jobs, changing how everything is done traditionally. To discuss this perception, I have elaborated on the advantages, disadvantages and future perspective of AI in brief. As said above the research problem which is address in this article is ‘whether AI is a threat to the legal sector’ minding its potential, whether it can replace human legal professional, how can AI help lawyers in their work, what are the possible threats that user should be prepared of. These are the questions discussed in this article.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Legal sector, AI and Law, Automation.

Introduction:

In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created an exceptional presence in every sector and the legal sector is not an exception to it. AI’s capability to complete almost any task in minutes that usually takes hours/days for humans is the reason behind its worldwide recognition. With the introduction of recorded dictation 7 decades ago, online legal research 5 decades ago, internet 3 decades ago and various multi-tasking management software 2 decades ago, our researching, writing or practicing style has changed drastically to that performed initially from 1960s. Initially, an individual would simply use the Microsoft word or any other relevant software to create, modify and share any piece of information, but the frequent advancements in the technology has changed the traditional way of working by the introduction of synthetic intelligence. In this decade the technology gave birth to artificial intelligence (AI). It can be considered as a mixture of novel technology that possesses disruptive potential and transformational power that is now revolutionising our economies and culture in the digital age. The 21st century law is facing unexpected problems because of the frequent and cumulative modifications in the technology.

AI stepped in to the legal sector and changed how legal professionals draft/manage documents and even gave a technical touch to the client and lawyer relationship by automating every aspect of the legal operation. However, it also raised issues like unemployment, false information, copyright infringements, ethical issues and others. It makes sense to raise a question as to whether AI is a threat to legal sector, taking into consideration its good and bad side, this article will continue the discussion by firstly elaborating on the current position of AI, secondly, with the benefits and later possible threats to it. A glimpse of the future aspect of AI will be discussed just before concluding the topic.

Methodology:

The author has used sources like blogs, journal articles and e-books as evidence to answer and question certain areas of this article. This paper is a mixture of writer’s opinion and statements from secondary sources used to support the writer’s statement. The main findings are that AI is not yet ripe for the legal sector and still is not capable enough to fully remove the lawyers as areas like emotional and rational intelligence etc. are missing in the AI system. However, it is vital to survive and ace in the technology developed era to stay updated and polish their skillset in order to be relevant and valuable.

Literature Review:

The rapid advancement of open-source technologies like ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, and DALL-E have sowed a seed of interest, excitement and curiosity in few years. This novel technology has entered every platform where a task accomplishment required human assistance. Above said technologies are sub-branches of “Generative AI”, a branch of machine learning technology that creates new information/data like text, pictures, audio and video by exploiting patterns in already existing data. These systems understand unambiguous and precise information in the form of for e.g., prompts which helps it create desired results. I will discuss how this technology is working and making a remarkable difference in the legal profession.

Legal Research:

Legal research plays an indispensable role in the life of a legal professional, whether it may be research for past judgements to building strong precedent based arguments or staying updated in their domain. Artificial intelligence can streamline the searching process making it way quicker and effective through huge databases of applicable statute, international treaties and past verdicts. Lawyers may feed the system efficiently by above said databases and can carry out the research virtually rather than reading through dozens of hard copies which probably take them hours or even days. With specific keywords and prompt, they can extract required outcome from it. Tools like fastcase can assist users in performing research to find more accurate information quickly and reliably as per the information stored in the software.

Contract Drafting and Review:

Drafting is one of the significant stages where the lawyer must be extra cautious about the wording and the type of content is being written. Generally, a lawyer uses pre-set templates or format to draft the contract and later trim and modify it as per the requirements of the client or in case of pleadings frame it as per the case facts. With the AI, Lawyers can make a contract which is tailored according to the context and demands of clients, it can even suggest custom provisions for different concerns and circumstances. The AI assistant can even help in reviewing the complex-high volume document and find not just desired information but also cross verify to find the glitches or void clauses to avoid penalty.

Document Automation:

All that AI does is automates every possible channel that one’s operated and managed by humans. With the help of automation, lawyers can create a platform where clients can describe their concern rather than the traditional way of engaging in conversation with the lawyer in-person and explaining everything. The AI will be given the details to generate piece of information like invoiced, pleadings, agreements, bills etc. For instance, Luminance created by Slaughter and May and the University of Cambridge, by simulating how lawyer engages in legal practice, how to extract significant facts related to the case without any guidance, automating the hierarchy of legal process.

JP Morgan employed a machine learning system that analyses financial transactions that manually take several hundreds of hours to the legal team. The system by the name COIN, Contract Intelligence is programmed to do laborious task of commercial loan agreements, which before the introduction of this system usually took 3,60,000 hours annually. AI will reduce the billable hours and on the top of that it does not requires health insurance, holiday, and can accomplish a task quickly with accuracy.

Predictive Analysis:

Usually, a lawyer analyses the past decisions made by the present judge to predict the possible outcome. AI can gather the relevant information and can arrive at conclusion quick. Technically, through visualization of pattens AI can provide insights into the jury’s expected of the case in question. Even judges are taking advantage of AI in determining punishment and granting of bail. For e.g. Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) is a program that uses algorithm to determine the probability of defendant committing another crime. This program uses years of criminal justice system as a source to arrive at a decision.

Efficiency Gains and Cost Reduction:

It is undeniable that AI is quick and gives the very busy lawyer enough time out of tedious routine work to focus on other task with more valuable returns or work that require more attention. Various legal firms and tech companies are deploying auto-bots in creating, managing platform-based service contracts that will last long until changes are required and even helps in performing all the routine legal work. Completing a usual legal work by 5 legal professional who charges 1800 dollars per month, the rental charge of an automated software is 185 dollars a week.

A software by the name Casetext, launched cocounsel which is the 1st reliable AI legal assistant that search, manage, review, prepare documents from the database. It is also being said that it is processing 2 billion words daily “that's the equivalent of 16,500 attorneys doing nothing but reading for every minute of an eight-hour day.” AI can even help in saving cost by avoiding penalties that can be caused by noncompliance of any rule or regulation. For e.g. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) uses end-to-end manual repeating process automatically and replaces human activity by offering facilities like data security, process rule compliance and many more.

Dispute Resolution:

The AI can automate the legal reasoning procedure via logically coding the method or by feeding the relevant and appropriate data to enable the system for providing desired information and assuming the possible outcome. The technology has developed to the level that it can also help the party in framing arguments and data analytics can display how an interpretive dispute can be settled via argument analyses from the past judgments. The AI can even resolve penny matters or matters where it is prima facie that wrong has committed and don’t require a legal professional. A prime example of e-bay can help in understanding it better, E-bay has a “Money Back Guarantee" scheme, in case if the customer is not satisfied, the seller and buyer fails to arrive at a resolution then e-bay will refund the unhappy buyer, after which the seller will be responsible to reimburse e-bay. According to eBay's User Agreement of 19.5.2016, PayPal may be requested by e-bay to restrict the seller’s account to enforce the liability.

Potential Threats AI Poses to the Legal Sector:

Like every coin has two sides, AI revolution also comes with drawbacks that cannot be foreseen unless the system is deployed into legal practice.

Lack of Regulation:

AI is one of the fastest growing branches of technology, there is a rapid adaptation in society due to its uniqueness. However, the legal sector is not prepared for such a quick change and is still under review concerning its legality in the field. Such new technology possesses the ability to threaten the well-established legal code of conduct if they are drafted in the absence of AI era. There is no rules and regulation to control and fence then the probability of AI usage for negative task increases.

Ethics:

The rule of ethics protects a client from the professional incompetency of a lawyer in performing a task or showing negligence in handling a matter. The legal ethics rules are different from which are primarily framed as professional ethics in the absence of AI and if the lawyer fails to show reasonable care, then it may amount to an action of malpractice. It is the obligation of the lawyer to inform the client regarding the potential threat that comes with AI, like data privacy (even cross-border privacy breaches). As it is a reservoir of data, it can lead to data breaches and infringement of the right to privacy of the client and thereby the lawyer needs to be diligent with sharing client’s information. Lawyer should make “make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” Usually, AI tools enable data sharing that can increase the chances of data leak. Reason thereby the lawyer should communicate with the client as to where information will be stored, shared and used.

It is the moral responsibility of the lawyer to take prior permission regarding the usage go AI, the possible risk and limitation also the benefits that AI can offer. The American bar rules has envisaged various rules that should be minded by lawyer while engaging with clients using AI. One of them also talks about keeping the fees criteria reasonable while deploying the AI in work.

Unprepared Professionals:

Most of the lawyers are not from a technical background that can help them understand AI and a lawyer who lacks such analytical and modern technological skills will be outdated. Reason thereby, it is crucial to learn and unlearn relevant and stay updated as per the technology to remain valuable and competent in the field. It is reasonably hard to learn the bids and bounds of the latest technology as the algorithm and data language are complex in nature. It would be hard for current legal professionals to understand how the AI is decoding and encoding message, lawyer should understand to explain the judge and contradict rival, on the other hand judges should learn to become competent enough to accept, correct or reject the advocate’s point of view. These skills require days or even months of practice to fully grasp their work. It is also applicable in cases where the lawyer’s incompetency made the client suffer. A lawyer’s lack of understanding will not only breach the conventional professional liability, however, also land the lawyer into the disciplinary and malpractice liability in case the lawyer fails to keep pace with the evolving technology.

Job Displacement:

Majority of the legal work that is usually done by legal assistant or paralegal will be automated within few years because the Generative AI is capable enough to process all the administrative task. One of the reasons is also that these automated systems are not just speedy in the work but are also accurate enough, which will give the lawyer sufficient time to concentrate on other tasks like engaging with clients, preparing for court hearing etc. A Goldman Sachs report says that artificial intelligence could atomate 44% of legal task in US. They even estimated that more than 40% of administrative work is at the verge of automation, whereas 35% of business and financial operations could also be automated. For instance, the Casetext’s CEO Jake Heller created a first brief in 5 minutes by taking few basic information like jurisdiction, motion and type of arguments to be inculcated in a legal document.

This will be a great opportunity for the lawyers who are already in the field for several years, however, it will be a disgrace to young and junior lawyers who are just starting their career and are seeking genuine legal work to enhance their skills and excel in their field. Soon, traditional skills would be less in demand and technical skills will takeover the market due to automation in every task. Soon the lawyers will start over relying on the AI and will stop applying their own intellect in problem solving and managing their work which might lead to less creativity in the workplace. For e.g. Lawyer in New York used AI for pleading and didn’t cross-verified the same that result into mentioning of false precedents. Moreover, dependence on computers have been primarily reason in the aviation industry where the pilot left the decision making on the computer rather than using their own intellect and how they were trained.

Bias:

It is clear till now that AI is a machine that works on the type of data it is being fed. If the data is not relevant and neutral, the outcome will be biased and inaccurate. Biases can be driven by many factors of human behaviour, a judge may also be biased in his/her decision unknowingly based on the character. In the study of dead salmon that was unable to prove whether the salmon was alive because it was using ludicrous patterns and noise-synthetic intelligence. The worthless patterns if are not organised will lead to silly and unanticipated results.

Lack of emotional intelligence:

AI is a synthetic being, it lacks emotional, rational thinking ability. Humans, on the contrary, are able to feel and understand humans better and can even think out of the box in exceptional or unanticipated situations. Emotions play an indispensable role in the legal practice, it is not only essential for genuine customer interaction and retention but is also significant protection against malpractice claims. Emotion less engagements may restrain lawyers from building lasting relation with clients. Because, the AI may correctly draft a legal document necessitating jurisdiction, party name, question of fact/law and relevant statute but AI may not be able to write a sensitive letter expressing the deep concerns of the clients. In an instance, the Microsoft virtual assistant started ordering the user to correct themselves and gave incoherent answers, it went to the extent of saying “admit that you were wrong and apologize for your behaviour.” Replying to this issue the tech company said this glitch happens due to long conversations that confuse the bot, hence the company limited the user inputs to 50 per day in order to curb the issue. It is also being said that AI outcomes are hallucinated i.e. giving false and senseless answers confidently. This can increase the chances of mentioning wrong clauses or details in the contract. AI lacks reasoning ability, it can give opinion on different aspects but won’t give whether it is written or wrong. In addition, it will not give the reason as to why something is the way it is.

Future Prospects: Coexistence or Disruption?

Predictions for AI's Role in Law:

In the job market there is a hype going on that AI will take away legal professional’s job however the current scenario is already described in by Bill Gates in his book The Road Ahead, “we always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” AI has stepped into every sector and is developing rapidly, today the legal firm that exploits this latest technology to the fullest will be considered as valuable and competent in comparison to those who are considering this change as a threat rather than opportunity. It is an opportunity because AI increases productivity, efficiency and is cost-effective. For e.g. even if the AI draft is not complete and perfect it just has too be quick enough as the draft made by AI is just few amendments far to make it perfect. In the advent of AI, now legal professionals need to enhance their skillset and boost their knowledge with sound understanding of modern technology. Natural language processing, machine learning, emotional, analytical skills will be in demand and technology competent can take advantage of this because of this automation will increase the liability issues of automated machines, regulation of AI etc.

Long-Term Implications:

In the near future, we will be able to witness a hybrid model of legal workforce, where AI and humans will complement each other. From drafting, legal research to decision making AI will be used to automate the task but the end touch is given by humans to increase the precision and accuracy. Said hybrid approach will be a unique blend of strength of AI i.e speed, accuracy, with the strengths of humans i.e. reasoning, emotional and ethical understanding.

Conclusion:

It is undeniable that AI’s benefits outweigh its disadvantages, it can increase productivity and proficiency at a minimal cost. Minding its proliferation, it is in the interest of the legal professionals to consider this as a healthy challenge to learn AI and make best use of it for the betterment of the whole society. The frequent shift won’t happen immediately but and that’s why there will soon be a need to teach the law students regarding this advancement and make them value technical skills as any other skill for effective advocacy. Legal professionals should consider AI as a companion by taking out meaningful legal work in a matter of second, rather than considering it as a competition. Ether they will stay updated or be outdated.

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