AI and the Legal Profession
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been referred to as both innovative and a threat to the status quo. In the legal profession, its potential to assist lawyers must be evaluated against its potential risks and shortcomings.
Applications of AI in Law
Legal research
AI can quickly and comprehensively analyse vast amounts of data to find precedents, saving lawyers time and potentially lowering client costs.
Document review and analysis
AI tools can review and analyse large volumes of documents, with many lawyers using it for tasks like document review and summarization.
Document drafting
AI can assist in drafting documents, emails, and outlines, from initial drafts to more complex legal documents.
Contract management
AI is used for contract lifecycle management, drafting, reviewing, editing, and identifying conflicting terms.
Administrative tasks
AI can automate repetitive administrative and case management processes.
Explaining AI
There are currently many different AI models which cater for various requirements. In this regard, ChatGPT (GPT) is the most familiar and commonly used AI chatbot.
With respect to the legal profession AI Legal Assistant (AILA) is specifically designed to assist in legal research, document review and analysis.
GPT and AILA are both generative AI, meaning they generate new content based on prompts given. These AI models are built on large language models (LLM) which are advanced artificial intelligence systems trained on massive datasets of text to understand, summarise, translate, and generate human-like text.
Training
The main difference separating most AI assistants is training. All AI models are trained on LLM’s, whereby they are provided with data in order to learn and produce results.
An AI model that is trained on legal cases and documents will be more suited to answering legal based questions rather than an all-round general AI assistant like GPT.
Tailoring
AI models can be tailored to suit different needs. Accordingly, the AI software can be coded to respond to prompts or even modified to determine how it uses logic and reasoning before generating a response.
The responses are also impacted by the prompts provided to the AI assistant. If the AI is not provided with enough information or a sufficiently specific prompt, it will not produce the desired results.
Security and Confidentiality
A significant concern for lawyers utilising AI is the disclosure and use of confidential information. Accordingly, lawyers need to be very careful not to disclose confidential information during the provision of information to an LLM.
Against this risk is the fact that AI tools like AILA have achieved some of the highest security and confidentiality qualifications obtainable.
Risks and Ethical Considerations
Inaccuracy
AI can produce "hallucinations" or plausible-sounding but incorrect outputs, requiring strict human review and verification to ensure accuracy.
Ethical duties
Lawyers must use AI in a way that is consistent with their professional obligations regarding confidentiality and client trust.
Bias
AI can contain biases, and steps must be taken to mitigate them to ensure fairness.
Over-reliance
AI should not fully substitute for a lawyer's professional judgment, especially in interpreting nuance and emotional complexity.
Data and security
There is a need to develop clear, risk-based policies to minimise data and security breaches when using AI tools.
Transparency
Lawyers may need to be transparent about their use of AI with clients and the court.
Conclusion
It is likely that each law firm will have its own personalised AI tool built and trained on the basis of the firm’s data and information.
Such a development will be very useful in assisting the lawyers at the firm in servicing their clients’ objectives and requirements in a timely and accurate manner.
To learn more about any of the matters discussed here, or if you require legal assistance, please contact Chris Moshidis, Director and Principal Lawyer on +61 3 9521 7956 or chris@urbanlawyers.com.au.