Zack Halper

It’s often a running joke that law has a difficult time adapting to changes in society; where the medical profession implements robots, lawyers are stuck behind less than state-of-the-art search engines. But perhaps the greatest fault of the legal profession, is not utilizing the growing field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Coming from a cognitive science background myself, I see massive potential for the merging of the two fields that could very well make a positive ripple in the lives of lawyers, and their clients alike. Amongst the many developing options, machine learning is one such area that has caught the interest of legal revolutionaries. Without getting too technical (to avoid boredom for those reading this), machine learning employs a system much like our own brains to provide pattern recognition and data analytic abilities beyond a normal human’s. In a process that is very similar to the way our neuronal networks operate, machine learning finds ways of categorizing or predicting variables by running simulations or by being given data sets, whereby guesses are made by the system for the right answer, and each time it is correct, the functions the system used to achieve the correct guess are reinforced. This means its ability to guess correctly increases, and the speed and efficiency of how it guesses also does. Fairly simple right?

Well, it gets more complicated- but for the sake of brevity, I’ll give some quick examples. AI can be given a supervised, or pre-loaded data set, to allow it to understand where corrections need to be made. This can apply to contract review or criticism, whereby the most complicated aspects of the black letter of the law can be pre-loaded and subsequently commented on, as well as the simplest aspects of grammar that need a touch up (which I think we could all use).[1] Many technologies startup companies such as Lawgeex and Klarity have begun to develop this kind of AI.[2] So before long, we may not have to think before we sign a contract – so long as we have the newest gadget.

Alternatively, unsupervised machine learning can look for patterns or trends in a random assortment of data- think litigation, where charisma has just as much a place as accuracy. However, those human elements might be a thing of the past if Blue J Legal has anything to say about it.[3] The Toronto based team is currently working on an AI system that predicts litigation outcomes in tax law, which can allow clients to decide whether they want to pursue the difficult (and expensive) process of litigation.[4] With a 90% accuracy rate, this new technology might force lawyers to brush up on their mediation skills.[5]

With these growing innovations in machine learning, who’s to say how the law will meld with technology in the near future. I personally predict that machine learning will allow us to create AI that will inevitably make the leap to performing a judge’s duties one day. We’ve already seen the forerunner of this- in the form of an experiment in Estonia that tested the limits of an AI judge to settle contract disputes.[6] By reviewing the documents of the involved parties, the robot judge decided whether the parties deserved the honor of being able to go before a real human judge in small claims court.[7] A system like this could help with the difficult backlog that many courts face today, and the considerable access to justice issues that arise from the cost of litigating disputes with minimal damages to be awarded.[8] This kind of scenario may seem like a dream (or nightmare) steeped in science-fiction, but it’s entirely possible that Judge Judy may have an AI competitor for most well-known TV judge sooner rather than later.

On that note, it is becoming more and more probable that one day, AI judges may operate in tandem with human judges. In theory, while an AI judge handles the logical, axiom-based connections of legal doctrines and ratios that correspond to a party’s argument, a human judge could then judge the ethical, pragmatic and “societal” based considerations, to create two halves of a strange whole. While we are a long way from systems like this developing (leading to the conclusion that I may need to write a book of fiction on the topic), it is likely that we could be closer than ever to a legal paradise of accurate laws and expedient help for wronged individuals with our trusty AI companions. However, I’m sure that depending on who you ask, that future looks more like a dystopia where our robot overlords rule over us with iron gavels. Only time will tell.

Sources:

[1] Rob Toews, “AI Will Transform the Field of Law”, Forbes (19 Dec 2019), online: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robtoews/2019/12/19/ai-will-transform-the-field-of-law/?sh=1c35e1e97f01.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Tara Vasdani, “Estonia set to introduce ‘AI judge’ in small claims court to clear court backlog”, The Lawyer’s Daily (10 Apr 2019), online: https://www.thelawyersdaily.ca/articles/11582/estonia-set-to-introduce-ai-judge-in-small-claims-court-to-clear-court-backlog-.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.