AI is doing legal work, without replacing lawyers
Revolutionary advances in artificial intelligence technology tailored for legal work, also known as legaltech, have caused some lawyers to worry that their profession may be Silicon Valley’s next victim. But AI is more likely to support than displace lawyers.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute report, while nearly half of all tasks could be automated with current technology, only 5 percent of jobs could be completely automated. McKinsey estimates that 23 percent of a lawyer’s job can be automated, using currently available technology.
Why limit robot lawyers to just parking tickets, they can do more! In this dynamic legal tech industry, things are changing each week and you can now add NDA to the robot lawyer’s hat of feathers.
Exclusive: Robot Lawyer LISA
Meet Robot Lawyer LISA- your Legal Intelligence Support Assistant. LISA's AI technology enables you to create legally binding agreements with another party, together, helping you both find a middle ground as quickly and cost effectively as possible.
AItoday exclusively spoke to Chrissie Lightfoot, an entrepreneur turned solicitor (non-practising) turned entrepreneur and CEO & Founder of Robot Lawyer LISA.
“LISA solves a major problem and that major problem is that for the last century or so a lot of the population whether they are consumers or businesses are being neglected by traditional lawyers and law firms in servicing their needs because it wouldn’t be cost effective and does or sit within their business model.”
She adds that over 90% of the population isn’t served due to three main reasons: costs involved, time consumed and convenience. LISA can solve these three things: “We have built a tool, contracting and documenting system that empowers and enables two parties or businesses create legal documents themselves.”
Robot Lawyer LISA is the world’s first impartial robot lawyer. Chrissie explained: “She is impartial, she's unbiased and she's objective. As two parties create a document on our platform, it transparent- the advice, support and guidance that LISA gives to parties on both sides Therefore we bring them to a middle ground where they the need for human lawyers on both sides that argue and fight over legal documents, is eliminated.”
So how did Chrissie create LISA?
She says, “I got this idea 18 months ago, while I was working with the technology companies and also as an adviser to law firms as to how to apply legal tech to improve careers of lawyers and the future of law firms. I realises that they had not caught on to the idea of an AI platform that significantly cuts down costs and time involved.”
“I thought what is not out there what people and businesses really need. And what they need is quality nuanced legal advice but not just Legal, commercial as well,” she added.
“The good thing about LISA is That it is not legal templated kind of setup, It is very much about putting it in Commercial context.”
Image by: Robot Lawyer LISA
In the film ‘Back to the Future II’, Dr. Doc Brown tells the protagonist Marty McFly, “the justice system works swiftly in the future now that they’ve abolished all lawyers.” Doc referencing imagined 2015, but as we enter 2018, lawyers are yet far from being abolished.
During development, Chrissie and her team spoke to experienced lawyers who provided the human intelligence behind this platform.
“We are trying to create basic, rudimentary, but fundamental documents. Because a lot of lawyers do not want to be doing the mundane kind of work- forming these documents. They want to create complex, higher capital and strategic documents that they can charge significant amount of money for.”
Artificial Intelligence in Legaltech: Threat or Added Value?
From her experience Chrissie says: “Most of the lawyers, especially experienced lawyers, said ‘Yes!’ We would be happy if a machine could do the high volume low value work while we can focus on the complex high-end tasks.”
Dr. Paresh Kathrani, Senior Lecturer in Law at Westminster Law School, University of Westminster, and researcher in Artificial intelligence, robotics and the law, said: “Artificial intelligence, in the legal professional context, is about applying what AI does in terms of intelligent processes to the delivery of legal services”.
Dr. Kathrani referred to processes such as being able to analyse information in contracts, interpreting and making sense of the concepts contained within the legal sources and predictive analytics where machines are able to work out the elements of risk, or be able to identify optimal means for conducting a case.
He says there are a number of advantages of using AI in the legal profession -, for example it could save time, be more cost effective, provide more accurate risk assessment information and improve client relations.
As seen above, Robot Lawyer LISA touches upon some of these functions.
However, Dr. Kathrani says the greatest challenge for growing AI in the legal sector is changing the mindsets of people who see AI and automation as an existential threat: “At the moment, there is a tendency amongst some to perceive technology as a threat, when it should really be seen as an opportunity to evolve.”
The Canadian Bar Association in a 2014 report, Futures: Transforming the Delivery of Legal Services in Canada stated that the key to a viable, competitive and relevant legal profession is innovation.
Dr. Kathrani’s top tip to Law students to succeed in the legal industry is to keep on top of trends: “The field is moving so rapidly, in the past year there has been a big-fold increase in literature on legal tech.”
Giving an example of a Legal tech breakthrough in recent times, Dr.Kathrani mentions DoNotPay chatbot created by 19-year old Joshua Browder, which basically enables people to challenge parking tickets.
He says: “DoNotPay showcases the potential for technology to facilitate access to justice, as there might be people who either don’t want to approach a lawyer or can't afford to.”
“I think AI has the potential to facilitate access to justice and perform a valuable social function.”
TechCrunch reports:
DoNotPay can help anyone fill out transactional forms for maternity leave, landlord contract violations and more. The 1,000+ bots are fully searchable in natural language — users simply state the problem they are trying to solve and DoNotPay will automatically redirect them to the relevant assistant.
Image by: DoNotPay Youtube
WARNING AHEAD: Changing legal landscape
He strongly believes that AI is a game changer and will have a disruptive, yet positive impact.
He says, “Of course, there are challenges. If something were to go wrong, to whom would we pin blame? Would we attach blame to the lawyer, the programmer or to the person that produces the software? There are a number of ethical challenges.”
There are also other challenges such as protecting client confidentiality and preventing data breaches. Dr. Kathrani calls for robust structures to ensure ethical responsibility of lawyers.
Chrissie Lightfoot shared her predictions about the next stages of legaltech in the UK by saying that she’s confident that within the next two years there are going to be a lot of lawyers and law firms from the top and middle tier, are going to start investing and using, even the real dementary AI– at least a chatbot and AI tools.
“It won’t just be the Top 50 of the country with big pockets. There will be more lawyers and law firms experimenting, piloting and actively using these technologies to reach new clients and serving the existing ones, as there will be more competition from companies such as mine.”
While legaltech can facilitate access to justice, Dr. Kathrani emphasises: “What we don’t want are legaltech systems in place that people can’t access. We need to ensure equal access”
Bill Gates’ interesting financial quote truly captures the AI movement in legaltech:
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next 2 years, but underestimate the change that will occur in 10.”
The time is now. AI has, at long last, come of age. How we apply it in the legal space will pave the path for the future. For now, we wait and watch.
Words: Rituja Rao | Subbing: Ainaa Mashrique
