From retail to legal generative artificial intelligence (AI) seems to have spread its wings across various sectors. While AI is no substitute for a lawyer or a judge, experts believe that applications powered with generative AI (GenAI) can be trained for assistance in understanding and navigating the complexities of the Indian legal framework. It is believed that with the right prompt, analysis of humongous volumes of complex legal data, identification and summarisation of relevant information can be done in a matter of seconds. “Leveraging generative AI in justice delivery systems and legal workflows has been in trend for most major economies around the world. User cases such as China having a Smart Court system and China Judgements Online platform, among others. These have the potential to aid judges in quick research and informed decision making which facilitates swift delivery of justice. The United States judiciary has been using AI-powered predictive tool COMPAS to analyse convicts’ psyche,” Shiladitya Dash, co-founder, KonProz GPT (Shilpi.AI), told FE-TransformX, adding that other AI tools can also be used by courts to formulate sentencing guidelines, promote litigant convenience and to alleviate the burden of work on judicial Staff, among others.
From what it is understood, generative AI will impact the legal industry in three ways – firstly, lawyers will progressively spend less time doing clerical and entry-level work; secondly, support functions at law firms will become nimbler and more efficient; finally, it will spawn a whole new ecosystem of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs). “ Furthermore, variations in quality and volume of data and training might impact the mileage that a law firm can derive from the use of generative AI. In a not-so-distant future and with EdgeAI advancing sufficiently, there can be a possibility of firms developing ‘lawyer-as-a-service’ models for clients that they have deep insights on,” Hemant Krishna, partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, highlighted.
The reality
As per a survey done in late April, 2023, more than 580 respondent lawyers and legal professionals within corporate law departments in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, as per insights from a report ChatGPT and Generative AI within Corporate Law Departments, by Thomson Reuters Institute. In total, 82% of respondents say generative AI can be applied to legal work, while 54% believe it should be applied to legal work, roughly the same rate as their law firm counterparts. Similarly, 70% believe these tools should be applied to non-legal work as well. Also, about 22% of a lawyer’s job and 35% of a law clerk’s job can be automated, as per insights from McKinsey & Company
By 2024, spending on legal AI software tools is expected to reach about $37 billion globally, as per insights from Zipdo. Industry experts believe generative AI is making an impact on the industry especially when it comes to tackling tax fraud. This technology combines natural language processing and machine learning to analyse documents, tax codes and case law. Eventually, this compiled working process reduces human labour and offers advantages for tax professionals and regulatory bodies, by reducing labour costs. “ It effectively detects anomalies and discrepancies in statements, assisting professionals in the detection of tax fraud. It also makes analysis easier by looking at market movements and tax data. Professionals can predict and stop actions because of this. By producing current tax forms, artificial intelligence also automates the tax compliance procedure. This guarantees that people and companies adhere to the rules, lowering the possibility of mistakes that may lead to inquiries,” Kapil Rana, founder, Hostbooks, said.
The future….
For industry experts AI-powered tools, such as Kira Systems, can quickly highlight critical documents and points, reducing the hours legal professionals spend on this task. Other use cases include platforms such as LegalMation which utilises AI to automate specific litigation tasks. This is expected to help in assessing the possibility of a legal claim, even if not explicitly for validation. “AI could empower legal professionals to focus on complex, strategic work, be quicker and more efficient with heavy data-driven or repetitive work while increasing access to justice and perhaps reducing costs for more routine matters for clients. Whilst the promise of generative AI is transformational, it does appear that the tools available at present are either very expensive (hence not widely tested) or not refined enough to satisfactorily fulfil the promise today,” Kartik Ganapathy, founding partner, INDUSLAW, explained.
According to a Deloitte study, around 100,000 legal roles will be automated by 2036 due to the introduction of AI. The legal sector, characterised by its thorough documentation, complex research processes, and critical decision-making, might be a prime beneficiary of this AI revolution. From automating extensive legal drafts to aiding in strategic litigation decisions, generative AI’s influence is expected to upgrade the legal system. “ Lawyers can use AI to predict possible outcomes based on historical data before taking on a case. These tools analyse past cases with similar characteristics and predict possible outcomes, helping lawyers strategise better. Tools like Lex Machina provide analytics for litigation data, which can give insights into potential outcomes based on historical patterns,” Adeesh Jain, COO, TestingXperts, concluded.
