Artificial Intelligence (AI) headlines aimed at junior lawyers could either be interpreted as scare-mongering or an advertising opportunity. Either way, the prospect of a meaningful role of AI in the legal sector grows more real every year.
As competition tightens and profit margins continue to be squeezed, firms will find themselves increasingly looking to technology to drive down overheads. Predominantly, they are looking to reduce or eliminate completely the large expense of junior fee earners currently required to perform routine tasks.
But just how is AI changing the legal environment? See for yourself…
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TermFrame |
Pinsent Masons |
TermFrame helps to guide lawyers through a variety of transactions whilst connecting them to relevant templates, documents and precedents when appropriate. It can also extract, review and analyse key contract risks, and provide actionable risk reports. |
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Verifi |
Linklaters |
Verifi sifts through 14 UK and European regulatory registers to check client names for banks and can process thousands of names overnight. (A junior lawyer takes an average of 12 minutes to search each customer name.) |
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MarginMatrix |
Allen & Overy / Deloitte |
MarginMatrix codifies law in various jurisdictions and automates drafting of certain documents. The system helps major banks navigate new regulatory requirements. The time to draft a document has fallen from three hours to three minutes. |
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Pyrrho Investments v MWB Property |
Cooley |
In a litigation dispute the court permitted use of AI to identify relevant word concepts and clusters of words in 29m documents which had to be considered for relevance and possible disclosure. |
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Kim |
Riverview Law |
Kim is a virtual assistant that can suggest the best order in which to renegotiate a series of corporate contracts. |
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Kira Systems |
DLA / Clifford Chance |
AI tool for document review during the due diligence process for M&A transactions, scanning contracts in minutes as compared to days. |
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Luminance |
Slaughter & May |
Luminance reads and understands contracts and other legal documents in any language, finding significant information and anomalies without any instruction. |
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ThoughtRiver |
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ThoughtRiver scans and interprets contracts used in commercial risk assessments and presents it in a central online dashboard. This enables clients to more easily assess risk. |
Rushing back to University to earn a degree in computer science will not be necessary at this stage. However, be aware of how your role may change and become more focused on your technical expertise rather than your ability to research and review. It may serve you well to be open and alert to AI innovations, and allow yourself to be agile in your career.