Technology

New Book Aims To Demystify A.I. For Lawyers

A straight-forward look at the technology that will drive the industry.

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The hype cycle surrounding AI has taken the legal community on a journey. From the early days of never-ending, but also never plausible, promise to the spirited backlash, to the “well, actually you’ve been unwittingly using it all this time!” It seems as though lawyers are more at piece with A.I. these days, at least to the extent they’re told that the legal research software is, fundamentally, “doing AI” behind the scenes.

But to some extent the profession traded the backlash for a lack of imagination. Artificial intelligence can rev up legal research, but it’s capable of a lot more if lawyers just have some faith.

Last week, Kira Systems gurus Noah Waisberg and Dr. Alexander Hudek released AI For Lawyers: How Artificial Intelligence Is Adding Value, Amplifying Expertise, and Transforming Careers (affiliate link) attempting to provide lawyers with a straight-forward guide to the technology and its potential.

From research to analytics to contract review, the book lays out the potential AI can bring to your practice. It’s almost as if the logic of A.I. permeates the very structure of the book, with multiple asides from other authors adding fresh insights or demonstrated use cases in their own personal styles — no survey of a body of data would be complete without tackling it from multiple perspectives and drawing consensus conclusions. A chapter on research penned by the Casetext crew imparts a story from a solo practitioner using their A.I. product to successfully keep a client from a life sentence. Most artificial intelligence stories aren’t nearly as dramatic, but it’s hard to argue with the value of getting over whatever technological hangups you might have when keeping up to date on the latest advancements could have an effect like that.

The book doesn’t shy from the ethical questions surrounding the tech. Dealing with bias and unauthorized practice concerns can be as much a reason keeping attorneys away as being an inveterate luddite and calming those nerves is at least as important in any introductory tome as a convincing use case.

If you’re still frightened by the concept of bringing artificial intelligence into your practice, this is the book for you. And if you’ve already embraced the tech revolution, this book can still offer a useful survey of the opportunities out there for expanding the use of AI in the legal industry.

Even if they aren’t going to take over the profession, the robots are coming and how comfortable you are with them is going to define the practice in the future.

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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