AI is transforming the legal world at an accelerated pace, from automating mundane tasks to predicting legal outcomes. As lawyers continue to practice in this new legal paradigm, trends in AI legal tech are emerging. This article will focus on how AI is helping lawyers get their day to day tasks completed faster and with more accuracy.
Legal Research
All the traditional legal research platforms now have their own proprietary AI assisted legally trained research bots. The legal data sets for these AI legal research models are existing statutes, regulations, case law, secondary resources, etc.—the same legal data sets that the traditional legal research vendors have always used for research, albeit without AI. Thus, the chances of hallucinations or faux cases are minimal. As opposed to other AI non-legal models (ChatGPT), these legally trained data sets will respond to a legal question from existing law, not from a search on the world wide web (like ChatGPT). This approach enhances the prior versions of these legal research platforms and are substantially more accurate than the non-specialized AI tools. These AI systems can also quickly sift through case law, statutes, etc., to find relevant information on a specific case. This can save lawyers a significant amount of time and effort in conducting comprehensive legal research.
Legal Writing
Likewise, the same traditional legal research platforms are training their generative legal AI models to address legal issues and drafting. With AI, a lawyer can generate many different types of legal documents like contracts, wills, legal correspondence and memorandum. Of course, as with all AI, the documents produced by AI should be a good first draft. A lawyer will need to review the AI generated documents for accuracy.
Document Review and Automation
Legal AI tools can review large volumes of documents, transactions and evidence at a fraction of the time it would take a lawyer to do so. It can help identify key points, extract relevant information, and highlight potential issues or inconsistencies, streamlining document review for lawyers. Lawyers can then use the summaries the AI generates to focus on the relevant matters within the documents. These same AI tools can review case law and provide a summary identifying the court, parties, facts, issues in the case, relevant laws that impacted the outcome and the court’s ruling, essentially providing a case brief in seconds.
Legal Analytics
AI has the capability to evaluate and predict court outcomes. AI algorithms can analyze datasets of past legal cases and identify patterns and trends. By identifying factors that have influenced past rulings, AI can help lawyers make more informed predictions about the potential outcomes of their cases based upon similar patterns in the law. When AI analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of a case, along with the relevant case law and outcomes, AI can assist lawyers in developing a more effective case strategy and assess the risk associated with various legal approaches. Finally, this assessment facilitates settlement negotiations, potentially reducing the need for trials. This information can help lawyers make more informed decisions and tailor their strategies accordingly.
Contract Review and Analysis
AI can assist in contract review and analysis. It can help identify key clauses and highlight potential issues. Legal professionals, particularly in-house counsel, traditionally allocate a huge amount of their workload to the time-consuming, mundane review of contracts. AI has the ability to fast-track contract review focusing on the most important key provisions identified by the organization.
Equipped with Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI systems can parse through large volumes of contracts, extracting key clauses and provisions. Furthermore, Machine Learning (ML) models, when trained on vast amounts of historical contracts, acquire the proficiency to recognize standard clauses and provisions. These AI models are adept at detecting anomalies and inconsistencies in the contracts or deviations from standard clauses. AI can compare different versions of the contract, automatically highlighting changes, additions, or deletions. By leveraging AI for contract review, legal teams can significantly reduce the time and effort required for manual review, while potentially improving accuracy and consistency.
AI systems can also help lawyers draft, review, and manage smart contracts, ensuring they accurately reflect the intended legal agreements and obligations. When employed to administrate the execution and implementation of smart contracts, AI can notify legal professionals of any discrepancies, thereby safeguarding adherence to contractual terms. The application of AI in these legal operations not only streamlines workflow but also ensures the integrity and enforcement of contractual terms.
Blockchain Use for Smart Contracts and Evidence
AI legal tools can be trained to analyze and interpret the code of smart contracts deployed on blockchain networks. This can help lawyers understand the logic, rules, and implications of these self-executing contracts. AI can also analyze transaction data on public blockchains, enabling lawyers to trace the movement of digital assets, and potentially uncover patterns or irregularities.
Blockchain technologies are immutable and time-stamped, making them potentially valuable as evidence in legal proceedings. AI tools can assist in preserving and analyzing blockchain data, ensuring its integrity and admissibility as evidence in court proceedings. AI can also be used for digital forensics, analyzing blockchain transactions, smart contract extensions, and associated data to uncover patterns, trace assets, and potentially attribute actions to specific parties.
Compliance and Regulatory Monitoring
AI is a transformative tool for legal professionals, offering an advanced means to keep abreast of evolving legal statutes, regulatory mandates, and compliance obligations across various jurisdictions. It serves as an analytical instrument, scrutinizing contracts and policies to ascertain adherence to pertinent regulatory frameworks, including but not limited to anti-money laundering directives, alongside a spectrum of federal, state, and municipal requirements. This technological innovation not only enhances the efficiency of legal practitioners but also fortifies the integrity of the legal process.
Summary
While AI is a powerful tool for lawyers, it should be used as a complementary tool rather than a replacement. Lawyers play a crucial role in interpreting the results of AI, exercising ethical and professional judgment, and making final decisions based upon their legal expertise, experience, common sense and ethical obligations.