Over the years, technology has changed rapidly. It has an impact on all of us, meaning that professional sectors are influenced by technology as well. Each time a professional sector is faced with new technologies, questions related to how a particular technology will disrupt everyday tasks and operations arise. In this blog, the focus will be on law firms (lawyers), as artificial intelligence (AI) is said to have great influence on legal professions in different ways. More particularly, AI supplements what human beings do, and it can even be used for higher-level operations.
First of all, AI has the ability to analyze data and help to make better predictions about the consequences of legal proceedings, compared to humans. For example, if a client asks his/her lawyer a question like “If we decide to go to trial, how big is my chance to win?”, lawyers will be able to give more accurate answers by using AI. Secondly, AI (such as machines) can help improve the efficiency of analyzing and reviewing documents and decide whether they are relevant. Then, they can sort and find similar documents that are applicable as well. As machines are much faster compared to humans, this will save a lot of time in the legal sector. Thirdly, AI can contribute and help legal support employees to conduct their due diligence faster and more accurately. During this process, legal support employees have to search for background information for their clients. Usually, this work is considered as very tedious and time consuming. Therefore, AI can make this process more efficient. Lastly, Deloitte has mentioned that it is expected that by 2036, 100.000 legal professions will be automated.
I am wondering what you think of Deloitte’s statement. Also, what kind of impact will AI have on law firms in your opinion? Please let me know your thoughts and opinions!
Hi Berna, thank you for sharing this interesting article!
Do you also think that AI will take over every part of a lawyer’s job?
I would say that AI could never really replace a lawyer. AI can simplify their job by taking over administration or analysing tasks but being a lawyer takes much more than that.
In law there are a lot of grey areas where lawyers are needed to give interpretation. This task requires emotional intelligence and advanced problem-solving skills that the current AI is not able to do. As to many questions in law there is no clear right or wrong answer.
Another big problem is trust. Humans simply don’t trust the AI enough to let them handle important cases, where maybe the fate of a lot of people depend upon. This is because it is very hard to analyse how these AI are thinking. It is almost impossible to analyse their way of thinking and how they came to a certain solution.