According to Deloitte, 100,000 legal roles will be automated by 2036. They report that by 2020 law firms will be faced with a “tipping point” for a new talent strategy. Now is the time for all law firms to commit to becoming AI-ready by embracing a growth mindset, set aside the fear of failure and begin to develop internal AI practices. There are many who believe innovation is the key to transforming the legal profession. That’s precisely what we PyperAI“the first legal technology venture created by a law firm,” plans to do. When professional sector faces new technology, questions arise regarding how technology will disrupt daily operations and careers. Lawyers and the legal profession are no exception.

“Can machines think?” Let’s expand this question asked by Alan Turing in the 50s. The countless disaster scenarios, in which artificial intelligence (AI) takes over the world and destroys humanity, are already made-up and still being told in Hollywood.

AI has not yet taken control of humanity, but it has indeed taken control of many aspects of our lives even if we do not perceive it as such. We accept AI as a part of our lives. The simplest example is our smartphones! Let’s dig deeper.

The role of Deep Learning

Over the past 7 years, the sub-area of AI is deep learning. Deep learning is more successful than humans especially in processing visual data and analyzing images from the images, what objects or living things exist, relationships with each other, event estimation, object/person tracking, etc.

Deep learning includes AI models that generate the most successful results in the application areas of recent years, based on artificial neural networks and requiring a lot of processing power.

How do NL Systems Learn Language?

Models used for natural language processing are also within the scope of deep learning. Using natural language processing models, we can parse millions of data files loaded into the computer by class. In this process, the system learns the relationship between words from all the documents and is able to predict that the word ‘carrot’ comes after the word ‘rabbit’ with higher probability than the word ‘sun’. AI can estimate this due to the fact that the words perform meaning analysis based on their statistical status in sentences. It is possible to summarize or classify a long paragraph, including time-space information from the single sentences.

Leibniz: The First Lawyer to Predict the Use of Machines in Law

Leibniz, who is one of the grandfathers of AI, was a lawyer and said: ‘It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could safely be relegated to anyone else if machines were used.’

In 1673, he presented the machine for four arithmetic operations in the UK. Leibniz says ‘The only way to correct our reasoning is to make them as tangible as the mathematicians’ so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disagreements between people, let’s calculate and see who is right!’So, let’s think, why shouldn’t it be possible for machines to complete all steps of the event chain which occurs in a lawyer’s mind while they are deciding?

Why couldn’t the machine do it? Why can it not calculate who is right in the dispute between people or how to find the middle way? Isn’t that a ‘robot mediator’? These questions belong to the 17th century! I would like to point out, and we are at the MIDof 2019!

AI vs Lawyers

In June 2018, AINOW — a research institute examining the social implications of AI — convened a workshop with the goal of bringing together legal, scientific, and technical advocates who focus on litigating algorithmic decision-making across various areas of the law (e.g., employment, public benefits, criminal justice).

They structured the day with the practical aim of discussing strategy and best practices while also exchanging ideas and experiences in litigation and other advocacy in this space. The gathering included several of the lawyers who brought the cases alongside advocates, researchers, technical experts, social scientists, and other leading thinkers in the area of algorithmic accountability.

How will AI impact the legal profession?

Manja says look at these 4 AI trends for the legal profession:

1. Review documents and legal research

AI-powered software improves the efficiency of document analysis for legal use and machines can review documents and flag them as relevant to a particular case. Once a certain type of document is denoted as relevant, machine learning algorithms can get to work to find other documents that are similarly relevant. Machines are much faster at sorting through documents than humans and can produce output and results that can be statistically validated. They can help reduce the load on the human workforce by forwarding on only documents that are questionable rather than requiring humans to review all documents. It’s important that legal research is done in a timely and comprehensive manner, even though it’s monotonous. AI systems such as the one that we are developing PyperAI leverages natural language processing to help analyze documents.

2. Better perform due diligence

In law offices around the world, legal support professionals are kept busy conducting due diligence to uncover background information on behalf of their clients. This works includes confirming facts and figures and thoroughly evaluating the decisions on prior cases to effectively provide counsel to their clients. Artificial intelligence tools can help these legal support professionals to conduct their due diligence more efficiently and with more accuracy.

3. Contract review

A big portion of work law firms do on behalf of clients is to review contracts to identify risks and issues with how contracts are written that could have negative impacts on their clients. They redline items, edit contracts, and counsel clients if they should sign or not or help them negotiate better terms. AI can help analyze contracts in bulk as well as individual contracts.

4. Predict legal outcomes

AI has the capability of analyzing data to help it make predictions about the outcomes of legal proceedings better than humans. Clients are often asking their legal counsel to predict the future with questions such as “If we go to trial, how likely will it be that I win?” or “Should I settle?” With the use of AI lawyers are able to better answer such questions.

Until next time,

Manja

P.s.

If you are interested in what we are developing for Law Firms and Legal profession contact me on Linkedin or Instagram or schedule a call with me here

P.s.s

1. My mission is to become #NextForbesUnder30

2. I am one of the first Women Machine Learning Entrepreneurs in Serbia

3. I have run 4 half-marathons in Belgrade

4. We are developing PyperAI to help lawyers reduce time and risk and focus on making more deals

5. If you need help on your ML or AI project, contact me or my team