This article has been written by Vasu Manchanda, a student of Faculty of Law, Delhi University.

“Despite all the hype and excitement about Artificial Intelligence, it’s still extremely limited today relative to what human intelligence is.”

-Andrew Ng

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) is a technology that can behave, act, and have cognitive abilities, much like human beings. It is a system that can evolve independently, autonomously, and possesses skills to take rationally intelligent and calculated decisions. It is also capable of analyzing data on its own while identifying achievable goals by choosing the best alternative to arrive at evidence-based results. Further, it is competent in accepting past experiences, observing its environment, and has a self-learning capability. According to Bellman, Artificial Intelligence is “the automation of activities that we associate with human thinking, activities such as decision-making, problem-solving, and learning.” The basic example of AI is the first instalment in the “Terminator” saga which was released in the year 1984, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger who portrayed the role of AI-based humanoid robot, the machine which was programmed to help the mankind but developed its intelligence on its own that it became a threat to the world.

The term “Artificial intelligence” was coined by a computer scientist John McCarthy at a conference at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the USA. He defined AI as the science of making intelligent and autonomous computer programs and machines. It pertains to biologically inspired information systems. It further circumscribes various technologies such as deep learning, machine reasoning, machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. 

AI has started replacing human beings in diverse fields and has a transformative impact on various industries like transportation, education, healthcare, logistics, e-commerce, defense, and security, but whether it will prove to be revolutionary in the legal arena also, is debatable. 

It is capable of autonomously generating original and creative work for both personal purposes as well as for industrial goals for which it is deployed. AI-based humanoid robots are smart, intelligent, and human-like. This, thus, creates paranoia about its intelligence that it may outdo its creators and become uncontrollable if not properly regulated by law. 

Integration of AI with law

A lawyer, as a student, spends several years in understanding various statutes and in reading innumerable case laws. She spends furthermore years at professional training before practicing the law of a country. It takes great effort and learning to become an efficient legal researcher. A newly enrolled lawyer spends an extensive amount of time, and energy in honing her legal research, drafting, and conviction skills, to be able to serve her clients better. John Grisham, an American bestselling author and an attorney by profession, stated in his very first book, A Time to Kill, that what a good lawyer one would be if she can’t find an important document in thirty seconds, and that the work of a lawyer is to research, research, research, and organize. This holds true not just in theory but in practice as well.    

The law of any country, especially India’s, is quite dynamic. Considering the number of cases that are heard in the courts daily, and amendments passed by Legislature, it’s almost impossible for a human mind to retain all the information unless one has a photographic memory like Mike Ross, a fictional legal character from an American TV series, Suits. Thus, law firms and law schools across the nation invest a lot of time, money, and other resources in training law students so that they become efficient and smart attorneys and serve the clients and society better. 

It is pertinent to note that before the field of law was digitized, lawyers used to spend a significant amount of time in libraries and chambers reading various commentaries, judgments, research papers, and reference books. With the advent of legal search engines such as Manupatra, SCC Online, Casemine, India Kanoon, and West Law, the lawyers are able to save their time as structured legal data is readily accessible at the click of a button.

However, due to unorganized data persisting, long and convoluted judgments, and a lot of scope of development in the legal search engines; law associates, legal researchers, and interns, still take a lot of time in finding that one precedent that would win their client the case. It is pertinent to mention that law firms spend a hefty amount of money on research techniques that are often not added in the billable hours. Thus, adding on to the operating cost of the firm. To fill the void and advance the legal industry further, various AI-based software have been developed to provide lawyers with greater efficiency and understanding of the case laws and legal agreements that they deal with in practice. Such AI-based software helps in framing better legal arguments, legal applications, notices, and commercial contracts in an efficient and expedited manner.

Suggestive clauses and legal agreements in such software are structured after a thorough analysis of thousands of negotiated contracts, giving lawyers a sense of the clauses that need to be heavily negotiated with. It also helps in identifying risky clauses and issues involved in a contract. Unlike fresh law graduates who are error-prone and take a while to learn how to do legal research and find case laws on intricate legal issues, an AI-based software is more efficient and foolproof in legal research, proofreading, drafting contracts, due diligence, and in analyzing and reviewing legal documents. However, it is pertinent to note that it may not be completely error-proof. With different inputs or keywords, it may perform differently. 

A few such AI-based software deployed by law firms around the world are as follows:

• Spotdraft– It is AI-based contract management software that helps organizations draft legal agreements. It attempts to facilitate the agony of loads of paperwork by offering progressive tools managed by AI. It allows clients to draft and sign contracts, receive payments, and send automated timely reminders. It breaks down the convoluted contracts and reports to help the clients identify the adverse clauses in the contracts. 
• Casemine– It is an AI-based legal start-up that exhibits inert nexuses between the case laws, thus making legal research more extensive and effective. It empowers the researchers to look beyond a straightforward keyword-based search with great restraints. Its Installation Qualification (IQ) software provides recommendations of acts, or judgments, to make the research more comprehensive and in-depth.
• DoNotPay– A Stanford student, Mr. Joshua Browder, developed an AI-based legal website, DoNotPay.co.uk, to help the drivers who receive parking tickets pay fine. All that the drivers have to do is upload their information on the website, and the AI lawyer does the rest. It has even successfully overturned the ticket penalties over some mistake in the signs or the ticket itself.  
• LegalZoom.com, Inc – It is a US-based legal technology company that offers drafting of legal documents, business contracts, trusts, power of attorney, wills, pre-nuptial agreements, patents, copyright registrations, trademark applications, and lease agreements to its customers primarily small businesses and middle-class families, without the need of having to hire a human-lawyer.
• Litify – Headquartered in Brooklyn in New York, Litify provides technology solutions for law firms by offering user-friendly, trusted, and intelligent practice management platforms. It empowers the legal community to furnish optimal outcomes. It further automated document generation, matter management, and client communication. 
• Everlaw– It is a US-based legal tech start-up. It applies AI to legal reports to assist lawyers to analyze data expeditiously. It uses computer science to comprehend organized data and find the most relevant cases on the subject matter.
• Leverton– It is an AI-powered data extraction and contract analytics software managed by a team of innovators, scientists, engineers, and product fanatics based in New Delhi, London, and New York. It is capable of reading and analysing contracts in twenty languages. 
• Contract Intelligence– JP Morgan Chase & Co. recently developed an AI-based legal technology tool to transform contract processes and overcome contract related challenges. It can provide better insights into contracts consisting of unstructured data. Further, it can extract complex attributes within minutes, a task that would otherwise be exceptionally time-consuming.

The above-mentioned examples show the inclination of law firms to deploy AI-based legal research and drafting software in their operations as it can take massive data and analyze the same in a matter of seconds, which a human lawyer finds it hard to do. Data explosion is too much for a human lawyer to handle. This gives an upper edge to such software over paralegals and junior level law associates. Further, it has a self-learning capability, can automatically update the documents, find the most relevant judgment with the help of keywords and review agreements. While the incorporation of AI-based software is expensive and requires a high cost of maintenance, it is still proving to be cheaper than the money invested in training young lawyers and the hourly rates charged by partners at leading law firms all around the world. This raises a serious concern among law associates about the security of their jobs, especially at big law firms and as in-house counsels. 

Adoption of AI technology can help law firms save a lot of money that they invest in training and retaining employees. It is also able to predict the outcome of the case better without any prejudice, thus, resulting in expedite settlement of disputes. For instance, BakerHostetler, one of the largest law firms in the USA, has deployed ‘ROSS’, the world’s first AI-based attorney. It is built on a cognitive system and uses machine learning technology to answer in natural language. Further, it responds to questions after searching through billions of documents, thus, making its research methodology more efficient and authoritative. It has automated legal processes and has made them less expensive. It can read through the law, research on complex legal issues, monitor recent case laws to notify associates of judgments that can affect a case, learn from the lawyers every time some task is assigned to it, gather evidence, make inferences, and deliver the most relevant and evidence-backed results. The company that developed it claims that it can clear all US state bar exams giving human lawyers a run for the money. But, whether an AI-based attorney can practice law as a non-human entity is still not clear. 

Not only in the USA but also India, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, one of the biggest law firms had entered into a contract in 2017 with Kira Systems, a Canada-based machine learning software supplier, to enhance the accuracy, efficiency, and effectiveness of the law firm’s existing model for legal research and other services. Even International law firm Clifford Chance uses Kira software for its operations. An analogy can be drawn with American technology company Grammarly that uses AI-powered and natural processing digital writing tools to make communication more effective, mistake-free, and impactful. Thus, making jobs of proofreaders and editors somewhat redundant.

Further, a lawyer qualified in common law would have a hard time looking into the fundamentals of Chinese or Scandinavian law which might be based on different legal systems and jurisprudence. Also, it may not be readily available in the English language. However, with the help of AI-based software, she can easily and efficiently translate the complex contracts in whatever language she desires and draft documents as per the requirements of the client. A lawyer’s digital acuteness can help her earn more money by reducing her transaction costs in drafting the contract. 

Conclusion

Although AI is helpful in multiple ways, some experts believe that AI-based humanoid attorneys will not be able to put across compassion in the courtroom. Exceptional research skills will not make it understand the importance of ethics, morals, and sympathy, which is like second nature to the officers of the court. The clients of the firm may not always be big corporate houses. In delicate civil and criminal matters, AI might not be able to play the kind of significance as a human lawyer owing to her understanding and convincing abilities. An AI-based attorney would lack humanity and emotions. This factor is extremely crucial because it would always be humans whose ends it would serve. An AI-based attorney would also not be able to maintain professional relations with clients, which is known to be an important soft skill in the legal field. 

Thus, AI-based humanoid attorneys might not be able to substitute human lawyers in courtrooms completely. It is felt that AI-based software has the potential to assist lawyers with intricate research on a point of law, draft applications, affidavits, and further prepare files for hearings. This would undeniably make operations at law firms more efficient and make paralegal and junior level jobs redundant. While in-house counsels and law firms can benefit heavily from its adoption in their everyday business operations, the judiciary and individual practitioners, due to lack of resources and technical acumen, would take time to embrace such technological advancements in the legal field. 

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