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There’s a lot of hype about “robot lawyers” these days, but what does that even mean? Rest assured there aren’t any actual robots practicing law and I’m pretty sure we’re not going to see that happen in the near future. Let’s face it: robots are still learning to walk and falling down isn’t out of the question. Rest assured, robots aren’t going to be lawyering anytime soon.
So you might be wondering: what’s all the fuss about? Can artificial intelligence tools truly make a difference in law firms today or is it a lot of talk about nothing?
The short answer: it’s worth your time to investigate AI software since there are tools already available that have the potential to save your firm time and money. This is because AI technologies hold the promise of automating the mundane aspects of practicing law, allowing you to focus on more interesting, high-level analytical tasks.
There are three types of AI software that offer the most utility to small-firm lawyers: contract analytics, data analytics, and legal research tools. I’ve written about each of these AI software tools in-depth in the past, and today I’m going to round up those posts to provide you with an overview of your options in each category.
Contract analytics software
One of the most promising types of AI software available to lawyers right now is contracts analytics software, which allows lawyers to upload contracts such as NDAs, and then receive a report that analyzes the contract and points out any outlier clauses.
Contracts analytics software works by constantly “learning” from the many contracts already in its database. The software then applies this knowledge to uploaded contracts and compares the document under review against the hundreds of thousands of similar documents contained in its database. After the analysis is complete (usually in less than a minute or so), a report is provided that includes recommended revisions drawn from the analysis of the components of similar contracts. The report highlights clauses that typically appear in other contracts but are missing from the one being reviewed, and also points out outlier clauses found in the contract that are atypical.
To learn more about this type of software, including many of the different products currently available, check out this earlier article of mine.
Data analytics software
There are a number of different types of litigation data analytics tools that provide lots of useful insight into different aspects of the litigation process, including information regarding judges, law firms, companies, expert witnesses, and more.
Judge analytics software provides data and insight into the rulings and decision-making processes of judges. Oftentimes this software also provides insight into whether a particular type of motion will be successful if brought before a particular judge. Law firm analytics tools provide insight into a law firm’s prior litigation history, including case outcomes, clients represented, and the lawyers assigned to given cases.
Another category of analytics software is company analytics. This software analyzes a company’s litigation history, including lawsuits, outcomes and the law firms that handled the litigation. Similarly, expert witness analytics tools typically provide reports regarding an expert witness’ involvement in past litigation, including CVs, the parties for whom they testified, whether their testimony was excluded, and on what grounds.
Last, but not least, there is software that provides case analytics information. Using these tools you can obtain data on specific types of cases, including the number of cases filed in that category, the length of the time that the case was pending in court, and appearances in the case.
In this article, I discuss this type of software more fully, including some of the litigation analytics tools currently available.
Legal research tools
Finally, there are the AI tools that use natural language processing to improve legal research capabilities. With this type of software, the search results are not based solely on the words entered into the search box, but also rely on the past behavior of the user and other users who’ve made similar inquiries. The thinking behind this is that by doing so, the results should ultimately be more uniform — and useful — across the board, since the results are based on a broad set of data analytics rather than just an analysis of the terms entered.
I wrote about the steps being taking to incorporate AI tools into Lexis and Westlaw in this earlier Above the Law post. And for more information on a different approach to incorporating AI natural language processing into legal research, check out this post where I include a discussion of a legal brief analysis research tool that uses AI technology to provide relevant results.
I think we can all agree that robot lawyers won’t be taking over anytime soon. That being said, AI software offers great promise and shouldn’t be overlooked simply because it sounds too futuristic to be a reality.
Lawyering can sometimes be a tedious endeavor, and if 21st century, cutting-edge technologies like AI can reduce the amount of time spent on mundane tasks, why not take advantage of it? After all, as lawyers, our time is better spent on more interesting and impactful work. Let’s leave the monotony to the robots.
Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.
