*AI-powered solutions is driving innovation in law.*

AI and Law: Revolutionizing Legal Practice

This article explores how AI is transforming the legal industry, enhancing efficiency, automating routine tasks, and raising important ethical considerations.

The intersection between artificial intelligence and law has grown in ways that have not been seen before, and this is changing the legal industry and the way that it operates. With the development of the AI technologies, they affect different spheres of the legal industry, including the research and the document review, the case prediction, and the contract analysis. A study conducted by Gartner in the recent past predicted that by the year 2024, the legal departments are expected to triple their spending on technology and AI powered solutions will be the key driver of this change (Gartner, 2024).

“AI is not just changing the legal industry; it’s revolutionizing the way legal professionals approach their work.”

The application of AI in law is making a radical change in the way legal practitioners operate and offer their services to their clients. This article from Ampliro Insights aims at identifying the most important areas that are currently experiencing the growth of AI application in the legal field, such as AI-assisted legal research, automation of legal processes, and the legal implications of AI implementation.

It also considers the effects of AI on the teaching and learning of law as well as the possibilities of AI in increasing the delivery of justice and increasing the effectiveness of legal procedures. It is therefore important that the legal profession takes time to evaluate the changes that are being brought about by these technologies to ensure that they grasp the potential that comes with these changes.

Legal Research & Analysis with Artificial Intelligence

*Enhancing legal research with AI tools.*

AI is revolutionalising the legal research and analysis process and helping lawyers search through large volumes of information and derive important conclusions. This shift is made possible by Natural Language Processing (NLP) which enables computers to process, comprehend, and produce human language text (Sabatino, 2024). NLP has a positive impact on the effectiveness of legal activities, it accelerates the process of legal research and document analysis, which leads to the decrease of time and money spent on these activities (LinkedIn, 2024).

NLP has been identified to play a crucial role in legal AI particularly in the area of document review and due diligence. Through effective processing of large number of legal documents, NLP reduces the time and also reduces the chances of making mistakes (LinkedIn, 2024). It can identify relevant information from a large number of legal documents, improve the efficiency of legal search and even automate the process of legal writing. A recent survey by Thomson Reuters found that 53% of legal professionals are using generative AI for legal research by 2024.

“With AI, legal research is becoming faster, more precise, and far less time-consuming, allowing lawyers to focus on strategic tasks.”

Another tool which is based on AI is Predictive analytics, which is now changing the way lawyers think about the strategy of litigation and the results of the cases. In this way, predictive analytics is able to use historical data, patterns, and statistical algorithms to predict the likelihood of success or failure in a particular legal case with a high degree of confidence (Singh, 2024). This helps the attorneys in deciding whether to take a case, drop it, or manage resources in a better way.

AI in legal writing is also increasing with the examples of CoCounsel from Thomson Reuters that allows lawyers to delegate simple and complex tasks (Thomson Reuters, 2024). These tools can create clauses, edit the contract text, summarize the long clauses and provide definitions to the terms, thus saving a lot of time that would have been spent on routine tasks.

However, there are ethical issues which come with the application of AI in legal practice including; how to explain the predictions made to the clients, the issue of bias in the data used, and the place of human input (Singh, 2024). To avoid the ethical issues, lawyers need to be well informed about the technology that they employ and they must check the authenticity of the work done by the artificial intelligence.

How AI is Performing Routine Tasks

*Efficiency gains in legal with AI integration.*

AI is now changing the way that routine legal tasks are performed and this is making it possible to complete such tasks in a shorter time and with less resources. The same survey revealed that as of 2024, 53 percent of legal professionals employ generative AI for legal research (Thomson Reuters).

A major area of use of AI in law is the automation of document review and electronic discovery. Using the large sets of legal documents, AI reduces the time and avoids mistakes as compared to human intervention (LinkedIn, 2024). It is capable of identifying relevant information from legal documents, assist in the conduct of legal research and even generate legal documents (LinkedIn, 2024).

“Automation through AI is transforming routine legal tasks, reducing errors, and improving overall efficiency.”

Computer-Assisted Review (CAR) employs machine learning algorithms to expedite and enhance the review of vast volumes of electronically stored information (ESI), providing several key benefits:Computer-Assisted Review (CAR) employs machine learning algorithms to expedite and enhance the review of vast volumes of electronically stored information (ESI), providing several key benefits:

Enhanced Efficiency: CAR makes the process of document review more efficient by filtering out the documents that are most relevant and therefore helps to save time and effort to analyze them. In a recent case with DWF, CAR was able to prevent the need for manual review of 50,000 documents thus saving more than $50,000 at a rate of $1. 00 per document.
Improved Accuracy: The CAR’s machine learning algorithms are built to learn from the actions that human take and as such, its ability to search and find the relevant documents improves with time. This iterative process leads to the reduction of the false positive and false negative rates and therefore a more accurate review process.

Contract Analysis and Management

It is an exciting time for contract analysis and management as new tools powered by artificial intelligence are emerging. These tools are capable of reading and interpreting large volumes of contracts within a short time and without making errors. For instance, identifying the key obligations for 2,000 contracts can be time-consuming and may require more than 80 hours and has an error margin of between 10-20% according to ELLEgal. AI gets the important data with the efficiency of 96% and takes no more than six hours of practice to fulfill the 48-hour task (ELLEgal, 2024).

AI contract management systems can also:

Develop templates that can be used in the creation of contracts to reduce the time taken in the creation of contracts.
Analyse data to assess the risks, costs and anomalies and use NLP to determine the type of contract.
Automatically forward certain contracts to certain legal departments, and then receive a notification that they are ready for signing.
Schedule for the contract expiry and the contract renewal.

To easily identify these clauses, it is possible to highlight them in contracts to help solve the problems before the contracts are sent out.

AI-Powered Legal Assistants

Applications like CoCounsel by Thomson Reuters are already helping the legal professionals to delegate the work easily whether they are simple or complex. With CoCounsel, lawyers can quickly and accurately complete tasks such as:

Preparing for a deposition.
Searching a database.
Reviewing documents and contracts.
Summarizing long, complex documents.
Extracting contract data.
Monitoring contract policy compliance.
Drafting correspondence.
Gathering timelines (Thomson Reuters, 2024).

These AI-based legal assistants are revolutionizing the way that legal professionals practice law and are allowing them to spend more time on tasks that only a human can do.

Ethical Considerations and Challenges

*Balancing ethics and AI in legal practice.*

This paper identifies the following ethical issues in the application of AI in the legal profession; bias and fairness, data privacy and security, accountability, and transparency. These challenges need to be met as more and more AI systems are being integrated into the legal decision-making processes to avoid misuse of the technology.

Another important issue is that of bias where the AI systems may reinforce or even magnify the prejudices inherent in the data set fed into them. ProPublica conducted a study and realized that the COMPAS algorithm which is used to predict the likelihood of a defendant to reoffend was racist because it classified black defendants as high risk at a rate of 44%. 9% compared to 23. It was 5% for white defendants (ProPublica, 2024). It is crucial to avoid bias and promote fairness in the legal AI systems as the latter can lead to negative consequences and the loss of public confidence in the legal process.

Other important ethical issues that are also of concern in the application of AI in law include data privacy and security. Legal AI systems contain a lot of sensitive data of the clients and any sort of security compromise can lead to significant damages. For instance, Clearview AI collected billions of images from social media platforms and other websites without permission and this was considered as a breach of privacy (LegalFly, 2024). Proper data protection policies and strong compliance with the rules and regulation on privacy are paramount in order to protect the clients’ information and ensure confidentiality.

“As AI becomes more integrated into legal practice, maintaining ethical standards and transparency is more crucial than ever.”

Another set of concerns, which is also related to the use of AI in the legal sphere, is the issues of accountability and transparency. When AI systems are used in the context of providing information or making legal decisions, it is crucial that the decision-making process is explained and that there are ways to determine who is to blame and how to compensate for the damages when the AI systems are improperly used. The case of Houston Federation of Teachers v. Houston Independent School District also demonstrated the significance of explainability, since the EVAAS algorithm used for the teacher’s assessment was not transparent, and thus, the teachers could not appeal against their evaluations (LegalTech Blog, 2024).

In order to meet these ethical concerns, there is a need to ensure that legal professionals and developers of AI come up with ethical principles and standards that can be followed in the application of AI in legal practice. This entails the practices like the algorithmic impact assessments, the involvement of the stakeholders in the development of the AI, the periodic check and supervision of the AI systems and lastly the public engagement in order to create awareness and confidence in the use of the AI systems. Thus, the legal industry can leverage the use of AI for the delivery of legal services while maintaining high ethical standards that will prevent any form of unethical practices, infringement of privacy, or lack of accountability and transparency.

The Future of Legal Education and Training

*Legal education is evolving with the integration of AI.*

While AI is becoming more prevalent in the legal industry, law schools and lawyers must modify the learning process to incorporate the new technologies. As of now, more than 55% of the law schools have specific AI courses in their curriculum while 83% of the law schools have some form of AI education integrated into their curriculum (LLM Guide, 2024). More and more law schools are introducing AI into the curriculum to prepare students for the need of technologically competent lawyers (NY Times, 2024).

To become a Legal AI practitioner, one has to combine the knowledge of law with the knowledge of technology. The following are the available educational paths for those who want to become legal tech professionals: law degrees with AI specializations, dual law and computer science degrees, online classes, certifications, workshops, seminars, internships, and practical training (Legal-Tech Blog, 2024).

“As AI reshape legal, future lawyers must be equipped with both legal and technological expertise to stay competitive.”

It is, therefore, important to identify new competencies that are required when adopting AI in the legal profession. It also stated that, due to the growing use of technologies and data analysis, today’s lawyers require a fundamental knowledge of these tools and therefore, technology friendly personnel are considered valuable assets in the legal workforce (NY Times, 2024). It is therefore important to understand how to use these tools in order to be competitive in the job market in the future (LegalFuel, 2024).

Some of the conventional positions may shift to technical positions as the AI technology develops in the future. New positions like the legal technologists and data privacy officers are becoming more sought after, this shows that there is a need to learn and transform in the legal profession (NY Times, 2024). Some of the ways of how to succeed in the AI-law market include the following: staying abreast of the trends, networking, developing oneself, focusing on the areas of practice like AI law or data protection, and using job platforms (LawFuel, 2024).

Conclusion

AI is becoming more and more popular in the legal industry and this is changing the way that lawyers and other legal professionals do their work. From using artificial intelligence in legal research and writing to the use of technology in performing routine tasks, these innovations are revolutionalising the legal profession. It is therefore imperative that as the AI technology progresses, legal professionals learn new skills and competencies that will enable them to fit in the market.

“As AI evolves, legal professionals must adapt to stay competitive and deliver better services.”

From here on, the future of law and AI is set to present a number of prospects and issues. For AI to be fully effective in the legal industry, there are some issues that need to be addressed including ethical issues, proper use of the technology and changes in the educational systems. Therefore, it is possible to use AI to enrich services, expand the access to justice, and develop the new opportunities in the sphere of the legal profession if the profession accepts these changes and pays attention to the human side that AI cannot affect.

At Ampliro, we’re dedicated to helping legal professionals navigate the integration of AI and automation into their work processes. Our experts specialize in streamlining operations, automating routine tasks, and ensuring that your practice benefits from the latest advancements in AI. We also offer customized “Insights” reports, providing you with detailed analysis and tailored recommendations to optimize your use of AI in the legal field. Connect with Ampliro today to find out how we can support your journey towards a more efficient and future-ready legal practice.

**About the Author**

Ampliro’s CEO, Andreas Olsson, is an expert in AI and automation, helping legal professionals integrate new technologies to boost efficiency and accuracy in their practice.

References

Gartner, 2024. Legal departments to triple technology spending by 2024. Available at: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2024/legal-departments-technology-spending

Sabatino, G., 2024. The use of natural language processing technologies in the legal profession. Available at: https://www.sabatino.pro/2024/01/04/the-use-of-natural-language-processing-technologies-in-the-legal-profession/

LinkedIn, 2024. Legal AI: The crucial role of natural language processing. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/legal-ai-crucial-role-natural-language-processing-9wvsf

Thomson Reuters, 2024. Legal AI tools essential for attorneys. Available at: https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/blog/legal-ai-tools-essential-for-attorneys/

Singh, P., 2024. Predictive analytics and case outcomes: A brief overview. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/predictive-analytics-case-outcomes-brief-prabhjot-singh

ELLEgal, 2024. AI in contract management: Increasing accuracy and efficiency. Available at: https://www.ellegal.com/2024/ai-in-contract-management/

ProPublica, 2024. COMPAS algorithm bias study. Available at: https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing

LegalFly, 2024. The unseen data privacy risks in legal AI. Available at: https://www.legalfly.ai/legal-ai/the-unseen-data-privacy-risks

LegalTech Blog, 2024. EVAAS algorithm and the importance of transparency. Available at: https://legal-tech.blog/the-importance-of-transparency-in-ai-systems/

LLM Guide, 2024. Law schools integrate artificial intelligence into curricula. Available at: https://llm-guide.com/articles/law-schools-integrate-artificial-intelligence-into-curricula

NY Times, 2024. AI is coming for lawyers, again. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/10/technology/ai-is-coming-for-lawyers-again.html

LawFuel, 2024. Legal AI careers: Prospects and opportunities navigating the future of law. Available at: https://www.lawfuel.com/legal-ai-careers-prospects-and-opportunities-navigating-the-future-of-law/