This blog explores artificial intelligence and its role in the legal industry.
With the vast development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its abilities, questions have arisen about how we will regulate this area as it develops. Particularly given the amount of power it already holds. Politicians have been battling with balancing the quick analysis and comparison of data with ethical developments that make sure we can regulate AI in a way that protects individuals, rights, and societal values. Researchers have been working on making AI decision making processes more understandable, which will significantly help with regulation.
AI has recently been on the rise in the legal world - what does this mean for legal professionals and the way they might work in the future?
One of the possible uses of AI in the legal profession is in the review and analysis of documents. Use of the natural language processing (NLP) components of AI have made it possible for AI to find significant information and patterns within documents. Due to the development of NLP programs, AI can quickly take large documents and summarise them, allowing legal professionals to get a quick overview and quick decision turnovers. Although this is a huge benefit to the legal industry, it also comes with risks. Firstly, due to the current lack of regulation, there may be breach of confidential client information. Further this method of working may encourage lawyers to think that what AI produces is sufficient to use unfiltered, causing them to overlook errors and miss key details of a client's case.
Another way the legal industry may use AI is in the area of legal research. By quickly researching legal databases, AI can help legal professionals find any relevant precedents, legal opinions, and cases as well as applying them to a client case. NLP algorithms can help to improve the accuracy of searches, making them more efficient by eliminating some of the time and effort required by lawyers. This may also help to reduce costs for clients overall.
Legal professionals must be cautious when conducting research using AI because the AI is only as good as the data it holds. This data may be biased, outdated, or inaccurate. AI may also be unable to interpret historical contexts or precedents that are only interpretable by a human legal professional. In the legal industry, equal treatment and access to justice are vital. Legal professionals, therefore, must verify all research conducted using AI to ensure its accuracy.
AI can assist legal professionals with writing and drafting legal documents. NLP components of AI allow it to suggest proper terminology, correct spelling and grammar, and assist with idea generation. This allows for a high standard of quality and consistency in legal documents produced by a legal professional. The main issue arising when drafting legal documents with AI is that it may leave out key areas of a case due to its inability to look at a case with a subjective approach and understand the underlying motivations. Therefore, the legal writing drafted by AI may be harsh and/or inconsiderate of all aspects of a case. Additionally, using AI for legal drafting and writing purposes may cause issues around legal responsibility. If AI produces legal writing that leads to unforeseen/unfair and/or inappropriate outcomes, it is unclear who is to blame due to the current lack of regulation. We can assume the lawyer who used it and presented the work but regulation above and beyond the professional codes of conduct of that individual is needed.
AI has affected the legal industry and its professionals in a variety of ways, despite its fairly new introduction. Although AI can be a useful tool which allows legal professionals to work more efficiently, there are many legal and ethical issues that arise when using AI to complete any type of substantial legal work. To conclude, AI can be a great place for legal professionals to start, but it should not be their only means of advancing their clients' cases.
By Sophia Smith (QMUL Summer School Student)