Robot Lawyer? The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice

What was once a concept confined to science fiction novels, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a reality that has permeated various industries, including legal practice. It’s already indelibly impacting how people live, work and interact. 

An article by Darrell M. West and John R. Allen highlights AI’s significant impact across industries. In finance, it changes decision-making, like loan approvals. In smart cities, AI improves urban management. These examples show that AI’s transformative nature can extend beyond what was thought possible. 

One industry in particular that’s also shifting due to AI is legal practice. From the nuances of handling the liability of self-driving vehicles and processing truck accident claims to drafting legal contracts, AI can influence how some legal practitioners work. 

How Lawyers Use AI

Contrary to the image conjured by the phrase “robot lawyer,” AI in legal practice does not imply a robotic entity arguing cases in court or providing legal advice. Instead, it refers to AI-powered tools and systems that help human attorneys be more efficient, productive and thorough. AI complements a lawyer’s work and lets them do what they do best—advocate, advise, negotiate and problem-solve—with greater efficiency and precision.

Using AI for legal research

A big part of being in the legal profession is research. From researching cases and precedents to studying relevant laws in-depth, legal research is a time-consuming but crucial aspect of building a solid case. With AI, law firms can streamline this process and perform legal research faster and more accurately.

AI-powered tools like LexisNexis use natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze vast legal information databases. They can quickly sift through volumes of data, identify relevant cases and statutes and provide valuable insights and recommendations for lawyers. This saves legal practitioners hours of tedious research and enables them to focus on other critical case aspects.

Due diligence and contract analysis

For corporate lawyers, AI can automate the review of large volumes of documents, thus speeding up the due diligence process. By analyzing contracts line by line, AI can flag unusual clauses, anomalies, errors and potential issues. It can also compare a contract against a database of similar agreements to identify any deviations from the norm. In comparison to traditional methods, AI can be more consistent, mitigating the risk of human error. 

Drafting documents and communications

Drafting documents and communication are tedious parts of the legal process, and any errors or inconsistencies can have significant consequences. This process is precious for personal injury practices as these cases rely heavily on evidence and documentation.

AI-powered tools can generate first drafts of legal documents, such as contracts and pleadings, based on inputs provided by the lawyer. It can also suggest language, formatting and structure for legal documents based on previous cases and templates. All of these tasks can streamline the workflow of lawyers, so they can focus on other, time-consuming tasks. 

Likewise, AI chatbots and virtual assistants are adding an extra layer of client care by providing quick, accurate responses to common client questions. They can also help schedule appointments and send reminders, freeing up lawyers’ time for more complex matters.

Predictive analytics in legal strategy

The use of AI for litigation analysis represents a significant shift in legal strategy development. By processing data from previous cases, AI can also predict case outcomes based on historical data, helping lawyers strategize better. This is particularly useful for lawyers dealing with complex legal matters, as it can provide valuable insights to support negotiations and decision-making

Predictive analytics can also help identify trends and patterns in the rulings of specific judges or the behaviors of opposing counsel. This knowledge can be invaluable in shaping the approach to a case and tailoring arguments to maximize their impact.

AI legal assistance

In her article “The Future Is Now: The Rise of AI-powered Legal Assistants,” Nicole Black discusses how AI-powered legal assistants greatly enhance the efficiency of legal professionals. She mentions their ability to assist with:

• Legal research: AI legal assistants swiftly search and analyze extensive legal texts, delivering relevant information in a fraction of the time compared to humans.
• Deposition preparation: Lawyers can create witness questions with the help of AI suggestions and summarizations. 
• Document review and summarization tasks: AI can go through legal papers quickly, picking out important details, allowing lawyers to summarize cases more readily. 

Specifically, tools like Termi, Midpage.ai and Visalaw.ai are especially useful for lawyers with heavy caseloads as they can offer their services to the public with greater speed and efficiency.

Challenges for AI in Legal Practice

The American Bar Association speaks to the significant impact of AI on the legal profession, highlighting how important it is for lawyers to keep up with AI’s rapid evolution and ethical implications. This is especially true when it comes to maintaining client confidentiality and competence.

As AI and law become more heavily integrated, these ethical concerns—privacy, discrimination and bias being chief among them—continue to impede the daily lives of lawyers. Therefore, lawyers must be mindful of these issues to keep their practices honest and moral. 

Ethical considerations

AI’s application in the legal industry raises several ethical concerns, such as:

• Bias and fairness: Written by Patrick Huston and Lourdes Fuentes-Slater, “The Legal Risks Of Bias In Artificial Intelligence” examines AI algorithms, influenced by human-designed data, and found that most can inherit biases, resulting in unintentional discrimination. Biased judicial data can skew AI predictions on criminal behavior which can escalate rapidly, posing legal concerns and potential class action lawsuits.
• Accuracy: An inaccurate AI tool can have severe consequences in the legal field, such as missed deadlines or incorrect advice. For example, Zillow’s AI algorithm led to financial losses due to inaccurate home price predictions, while Microsoft’s Tay chatbot propagated offensive content. AI can be subject to hallucinations, such as when Google’s Bard falsely claimed that the James Webb Space Telescope was the first telescope to see a planet outside the Milky Way solar system. Biased training data, complexity and other technical issues can cause AI to make false claims that would hamper its usefulness as a legal tool.
• Privacy: AI’s data processing raises concerns about client confidentiality and data protection, as most algorithms rely on personal data, which poses challenges to existing privacy laws not tailored for AI complexities. This raises issues of data misuse, unauthorized dissemination and threats to personal privacy.

Therefore, lawyers must familiarize themselves with AI tools to understand how to use them effectively and ethically. This also means they must supervise their AI tools to ensure that all the work provided meets legal practice standards. If not, there can be serious implications for their clients and the lawyers themselves.

A case in point illustrating these ethical problems is a judge sanctioning lawyers whose AI-written filing contained fake citations. Each lawyer and the law firm were fined and ordered to inform falsely cited judges about the sanction. The judge criticized the lawyers for neglecting their responsibilities and supporting false content. 

Shifting roles for legal professionals

With the wider adoption of AI in various industries, many experts in their fields have expressed concern about being replaced by this technology—and lawyers are no exception. However, the reality is tamer than most people realize. Lawyers will likely see a shift in their daily responsibilities and priorities. Instead of focusing on legal research and drawing up witness questions, lawyers may spend more time with clients or working out complex legal issues. 

For paralegals and legal assistants, the challenge is even more pronounced. As AI starts handling tasks like document review and legal research, their traditional roles may change significantly, requiring them to develop new skills and adapt to a landscape where their usual responsibilities are being automated.

Litigation involving AI actors

As AI improves and its uses are applied elsewhere, we may see more cases involving AI actors, such as autonomous vehicle accidents and workplace accidents that involve robots. 

For instance, the question of liability in accidents involving self-driving cars and trucks is a significant legal issue. Who is responsible for injuries in a self-driving car accident? What about an accident involving a self-driving truck? These questions signify the new legal challenges that lawyers must navigate in the AI era.

The Future of AI in Law

As we continue to see the evolution of AI in all aspects, you can expect it to play a bigger and bigger role in the legal industry. From advancements in capabilities of document drafting and research to the rise of AI tools specifically designed for different areas of law like immigration or IP law, there will surely be something new and exciting.

At Zinda Law Group, we’re staying on top of developments in AI and how it will affect personal injury law. To learn more about this, check out our podcast on ways that AI will change personal injury practice. Since artificial intelligence is impacting so many aspects of day-to-day life, it’s important to choose a law firm with an intelligent grasp of the technology’s legal practice implications.