Know All About Artificial Intelligence & How It Affects The Legal Industry

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an essential component of the ever-changing industry. With its advent in the new digital era, it has impacted sectors across the spectrum. AI has seeped into every slant of our existence, notably reshaping how we live, work and communicate.

Though the legal industry is not the first domain to embrace AI, it certainly has a lot of potential to reap benefits from this modern technology. Using a machine to complete a manual task relieves a lawyer from the most strenuous or mundane duties and enables the lawyer to concentrate on analysis, counseling, and advocacy.

Reasonably, the biggest value-added by the contemporary and enhanced technology is the convenience. Law firms that are welcoming AI are operating more productively since they spend less time on monotonous tasks.

Having said that, AI, in no sense, is a replacement for lawyers. It is merely a tool that facilitates better productivity and efficiency. However, the key to performing legal tasks with AI effectively is knowing how and when to implement this tool and to identify its shortcomings. To be able to transform the legal sector positively, experts need to achieve the balance between comparing relevant information with lawyers’ abilities in recognizing issues.

Application of AI in the Legal Industry –

There are various ways in which AI is applied in the legal sector and how technology providers are striving to streamline the work processes.

• Due diligence – Prosecutors, legal advisors and lawyers perform due diligence with the help of AI tools to unleash background data. They can also use AI for contract reviews and legal research.
• Foresight technology – AI software can produce outcomes that predict litigation results.
• Legal analytics – Legal experts and lawyers can access data points from past law cases or analyze the win/loss rates and the judiciary’s history to examine trends and patterns.
• Automated documentation – Legal firms can use software templates to create automated filled out documents based on data facts and figures.
• Electronic billing – The billable hours of lawyers and legal advisors can be computed electronically using AI software.

Importance of AI in legal firms –

AI empowers attorneys and legalists with more time to advise clients, appear in courts and negotiate deals. It has the potential to lessen the repetitive process of analyzing and managing the stereotypical procedures with legal contracts, which usually is a significant part of the work that law firms do to support their clients.

AI can also aid in streamlining many of the unnecessary, time-taking processes with highly predictable outcomes. It helps the law firm to meet its primary goal, which is to identify risks and issues with how contracts can be revised to shun negative impacts for clients. Finally, AI systems can help in notifying businesses with alerts in advance or crucial dates in a contract, thereby helping firms to manage their businesses efficiently.

Future trends in AI and law –

With the emergence of so many new technologies over time, the future of law is undoubtedly going to be about the adoption of these advancements. Let us look at some of the changes that the legal industry may be witnessing shortly.

• The entire legal sector, including the senior judges, are expected to depend on legal AI technology to fetch essential data for effective decision-making. Technology is presumed to help in the prediction of cases and non-automated dispute resolutions. However, lawyers will still play a vital role in litigation.
• Legal firms have started creating attractive websites to help tech-savvy customers who want to chat with their lawyers. Chatbots assist clients by answering questions quickly, setting up meetings and building relationships with the clients.
• The newly established legal AI technology, which encompasses predictive coding and machine learning has facilitated the conversion of huge amounts of data, including contract reviews. Law firms have started using AI software to streamline their daily functioning.
• Software developers have now started concentrating on the conception of tools that can help lawyers run their firms productively. With excellent legal software, law firms can gather and process data about their clients easily, adhere to data protection laws and mine their legal issues. They can also use this data to improve their operations and remain ahead of the competition.

There are precisely two main areas of utmost attention that businesses should focus on related to AI. Firstly, firms need to use algorithms and online tools for both writing and handling existing business contracts. They can use the available data from already prepared contracts to identify issues and modify them accordingly.

AI and legal technology in the legal industry can enable businesses to compile and provide information from various sources like tablets, mobile phones, computers, and third-party services. However, this will need powerful IT management tools to help law firms code information and provide only relevant information in a more cost-efficient manner.

But, with all these progressions still to come with AI in law, the ability to be nimble and make expeditious reactions during unforeseen circumstances at trial can never be superseded by a machine.

Facts about AI that will prove AI’s capabilities in Legal System:

Only 4% of the law firms in India are using AI completely. The first law form to start using AI for analysing and improvising legal documents is Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.

Former Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra and Current Chief Justice of India, SA Bode have strongly advocated and vouched for the use of AI in the legal system for more accuracy and less wastage of time. They strongly believe that AI has the potential to transform many sectors for the betterment.

It is said that AI is 24.5% faster than human intelligence and 21% more relevant than human research. This proves the potential of AI in any sector.