AI is changing the way we do things. It’s helping lawyers and clients alike by taking away time-consuming tasks that would otherwise have to be completed manually with great accuracy.
The potential for AI in law is vast and will only continue to grow. The work of paralegals, legal researchers, and litigators may soon be replaced by artificial intelligence as these professionals find themselves outmoded by the new technology’s capabilities.
With AI-powered legal services, Truve is giving law firms and professional service companies access to a powerful tool that can assist with their workflows. The company’s new platform automatically generates optimal templates for documents such as letters or agreements while taking into account industry standards, so they’re perfect every time!
The applications of artificial intelligence in law are vast and diverse. From helping lawyers with their paperwork to analyzing witness statements more efficiently, computers are becoming increasingly integrated into our professional lives as they become smarter every day! We have grouped AI’s current legal applications into the following categories of applications:
- Helping attorneys operate with due diligence and research
- Providing additional insights and “shortcuts” through analytics
- automating innovative processes (including some writing) in legal work.
AI and other technologies are enabling machines to take on many of the tasks that many used to think required human lawyers, and that’s not plateauing. It seems to be happening at quite a rate. So this could lead to some attrition of lawyers, lawyers leaving the profession, or even taking early retirement because they find that they’re actually spending a lot of time doing work that can be done as effectively by machines.
AI in Law: Current Applications – Early Insights
Based on our evaluation of businesses and choices in the legal field, current applications of AI appear to fall into six fundamental categories:
- Due diligence: AI can help identify and organize relevant information faster than a human can, making the attorney’s task of due diligence much easier and leaving them with more time to analyze the data.
- Prediction technology: AI can help identify and predict the outcomes of court cases and arbitrations, as well as the probability that a contract will be breached.
- Legal analytics: AI can help identify trends in legal data, such as the average length of time it takes for a case to be settled or the most common type of contract clause that is breached.
- Document automation: AI can help create documents, such as demand letters or NDAs, by extracting information from a data set and then generating the document using a predetermined template.
- Intellectual property: AI can help identify relevant prior art for a patent application or help assess the strength of a trademark.
- Electronic billing: AI can help to generate invoices for legal services rendered by extracting relevant information from email communications and documents.
Next, we’ll discover the essential areas of current AI applications in law, individually and in-depth:
Due Diligence
In the legal field, due diligence is the process of investigating a potential business transaction or investment to confirm all relevant information and assess any potential risks. Due diligence is essential to avoid making a bad investment or getting involved in a legal dispute.
AI can help lawyers with due diligence by automating the process of identifying and organizing relevant information. For example, if a lawyer is considering investing in a company, AI can help to quickly identify all of the company’s patents and prior art. AI can also help to identify any potential red flags, such as lawsuits or negative press articles.
Lawyers are not immune to mistakes and inaccuracies when doing spot checks. As such, lawyers need a comprehensive investigation for meaningful results that can positively impact long-term shareholder returns (according to a study by City University).
LEEVERTON
An AI company has been working on a solution that can help lawyers with their due diligence. The company’s software is designed to read and understand contracts in 20 languages. The software then extracts relevant information, such as the expiration date of a lease or the amount of rent that is payable.
Atos, a global IT services company, used LEVERTON‘s software to help with the due diligence of a company it was considering acquiring. The software was able to quickly identify and extract relevant information from thousands of documents. This saved Atos considerable time and money, as it would have taken a team of lawyers months to manually review all of the documents.
JPMorgan
In 2016, JPMorgan developed its own legal AI software to help with due diligence. The software, called COIN (short for Contract Intelligence), is designed to read and understand commercial credit agreements and contracts.
COIN can quickly identify relevant information, such as the expiration date of a lease or the amount of rent that is payable. This information is then organized into a report that JPMorgan’s lawyers can easily review.
The software has been successful in reducing the time it takes to review contracts from weeks to hours. This has saved JPMorgan millions of dollars in legal fees.
LawGeex
LawGeex is an AI software company that provides a tool for automating the contract review process. The software then provides suggestions for editing and approval.
The company claims that its software can cut the time it takes to review and approve a contract from days to minutes. It can also reduce the cost of contract review by up to 90%.
LawGeex’s software is designed to read and understand contracts in English, Spanish, French, German, and Hebrew. The software then compares the contract to a database of over 1 million legal documents.
The software can identify any potential risks or issues with the contract. It will also provide suggestions for how the contract can be improved.
LawGeex’s software is used by over 500 companies, including Deloitte and Sears.
Legal Robot
Legal Robot is a San Francisco-based AI company that offers Contract Analytics, its answer to the growing contract review software market. Currently, in beta, the company states that its software is capable of changing legal content into numeric form and raising issues within the document through machine learning and AI.
Contract Analytics is designed to read and understand contracts in English. The software then compares the contract to a database of over 1 million legal documents.
Prediction Technology
A company has developed an AI system that can accurately predict the outcome of Supreme Court cases with 75% accuracy. The company’s software is based on a statistical model that considers the voting history of Supreme Court justices and the arguments made by the lawyers in each case.
The software was developed by a team of professors from Washington University. In 2004, they tested their algorithm’s accuracy in forecasting Supreme Court decisions on all 628 argued cases in 2002. They compared their algorithm’s results against a team of experts’ findings. The results show that the statistical model can be used to forecast 100 percent of the outcomes compared to an expert’s 59 percent accuracy, in some cases.
In 2008, the team tested their algorithm again on 516 argued cases. The algorithm’s accuracy had improved to 79 percent.
The software is not yet available to the public. However, the company plans to offer it as a subscription service to law firms and other organizations.
Intraspexion
Intraspexion is an AI software company that offers a tool for predicting and preventing lawsuits. The software uses machine learning to read through corporate emails, documents, and other communications.
The software is designed to identify patterns that may indicate the risk of litigation.
The software can also predict the likelihood of a lawsuit being filed against a company. This information can then be used to prevent future lawsuits from being filed.
So far, Intraspexion’s software has been used by over 50 companies, including Coca-Cola and Boeing.
Ravel Law
Ravel Law is a software company that offers a tool for predicting the outcome of legal cases. The tool is based on a database of over 400 courts. It uses machine learning to read and understand court rulings, judgments, and other documents.
The software can also identify patterns in how judges make decisions. This information can then predict how a judge is likely to rule in a particular case.
Ravel Law’s software is used by over 1,000 law firms, including JPMorgan and Latham & Watkins.
Legal Analytics
Legal analytics is the application of data analytics to the legal field. It can be used for a variety of purposes, such as predicting the outcome of legal cases, identifying patterns in court rulings, and analyzing the impact of laws and regulations.
Some companies that offer legal analytics tools are:
Lex Machina
Lex Machina is a software company that offers a tool for predicting the outcome of legal cases. The tool is based on a database of over 400 courts. It uses machine learning to read and understand court rulings, judgments, and other documents.
The software can also identify patterns in how judges make decisions. This information can then predict how a judge is likely to rule in a particular case.
Ravel Law
The data collected from this research can be used in pitching a law firm’s services to potential clients by providing intelligence on the opposing counsel, generating values regarding the probability of winning cases, and identifying litigation trends that may assist marketing campaigns.
Lawyers using Ravel Law‘s technology will be able to access judges’ data on cases, circuits, and rulings from their dashboards. They can also use this information to land new clients by working with Harvard Law School, which has digitized the faculty at the US Case Law Library into an online platform available through Ravell’s software.
Document Automation
Document automation is the use of software to automate the creation of legal documents. Many law firms are beginning to use document automation software to draft documents, such as contracts and wills.
Some companies that offer document automation tools are:
PerfectNDA
PerfectNDA is a software company that offers a tool for drafting nondisclosure agreements (NDAs). The tool uses machine learning to read through corporate emails, documents, and other communications.
The software is designed to identify patterns that may indicate the need for an NDA. The software can also generate a pre-filled template for an NDA.
The NDA drafting software also comes with document templates, customizable fields, and a contracting wizard that facilitates multiple versions of the NDA. Also, the program allows users to automatically file and track important documents in the digital archive. The software can manage internal clients, external clients, and third parties for the NDA drafting process regardless of their location or industry.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible assets such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks. IP can be very valuable, and it is often worth protecting with the help of a lawyer.
However, the process of securing patents, copyrights, and trademarks can be long and arduous. Traditional brand and patent searches, for example, involve looking into hundreds, if not thousands, of results through manual research. This is about to change. Our patent software puts all of your patent research in one place, by letting you track and visualize patent data as it comes in.
Fortunately, there are now software tools that can help with the process of searching for patents and trademarks. Some companies that offer these tools are:
TrademarkNow
TrademarkNow is a software company that offers a tool for searching for patents and trademarks. The tool uses a complex algorithm that is said to shorten weeklong searches for patents, registered products, and trademarks using the Trademark Clearance platform, which returns search outcomes in less than 15 seconds, in accordance with what the company claims
ANAQUA Studio
ANAQUA Studio is a software company that offers a tool for drafting patents and prosecution. The company’s data sheet states that it’s the first patent application-drafting tool for lawyers that saves four hours on provisional patent applications and 20 hours on non-provisional types.
The system is said to be able to detect document errors, circular claim references, and formatting defects aside from automatically generating literal claim support.
Electronic Billing
Electronic billing platforms provide an alternative to paper-based invoicing to reduce disputes on line items, provide more accurate client adjustments, (potentially) more accurate reporting and tracking, and reduce paper costs.
Brightflag
Brightflag is an electronic billing platform that offers centralized legal pricing software that automatically adjusts line-by-line items. It also allows users to centralize the invoice review so that all documents submitted are routed directly to the correct approver. In addition, the AI provides analytics features by tracking and categorizing all pricing data to determine alternative fee arrangements (AFA) and budgets.
Smokeball
Smokeball’s legal practice management software is cloud-based, automated, and designed to help law firms improve client billing, cash flow, and profitability. One prominent feature of this tool is the capability to track all activities, including emails that are valid for billing. It is the only solution on the market to automate more than 600,000 forms and manage more than 10 million documents.
Insider’s takeaway
However, the catch-22 for AI in law is that to increase efficiency and truly take hold of this technology, firms must first adopt it. But, adoption rates are slow as many lawyers are hesitant to change the way they have been practicing for years. Firms must realize that not only will their competitors likely adopt these tools, but also clients will begin to demand them. The sooner firms start adopting AI legal-tech applications, the better off they will be in terms of keeping up with competition and satisfying client demands.
References:
https://www.bayes.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/202828/Due-Diligence-M-and-A.pdf
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4099370?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://peerj.com/articles/cs-93/
