The legal profession has seen several eras of development that have improvised the notion of justice, ethics, and morality to fit the social and cultural norms of evolving societies. As communities and groups undergo social changes and cultural re-alignments, the legal framework is attuned to the ethos of these societies. This constant process has rendered the legal system a complex and convoluted collection of humanity’s constant strife to attain peace and objective justice. Essentially, these changes and reworks mean that law is a profession guided by both rationalities as well as subjective cultural notions and approaches to morality. The arrival of artificial intelligence and chatbots in this profession essentially introduces a cold, calculating, and fiercely mechanical element into what is clearly a highly human-oriented profession. ChatGPT and other chatbots having cleared the bar exam are indicative of these technologies’ ability to provide at least a rudimentary understanding of human law and its dynamics.
Will lawyers be replaced by AI, though? Possibly not; however, their influence on the legal profession will certainly alter the discipline of jurisprudence permanently, further shaping extant realities to a broadly AI-supported future of human civilization. While AI writing and productivity are obvious considerations when it comes to evaluating these developments in the backdrop of legal discourse, artificial intelligence might also end up providing other crucial insights that are bound to revolutionize the practice of law. Subsequent sections discuss how AI for lawyers might find extensive use as advanced language models become more popular.
AI Lawyers: Fantasy or Potential Replacement for Human Counterparts?
Human skill and artificial intelligence will have to be leveraged to provide pointed legal services in the future.
While the concept might seem far-fetched, AI for lawyers has already existed in rudimentary forms in the past two decades. Legal tasks are cognitively strenuous and require long hours of research, fact collection, deliberation, and writing. Text recognition and referencing tools have allowed lawyers to easily discover documents with specific details along with accessing their variants and history. Centralized intelligent databases have also made it simpler to view legal directories and essential pieces of information. Natural language processing has allowed these technologies to make legal proceedings less tedious and more efficient. The further advancement of AI might also transform the research and analytics aspect of legal systems, allowing lawyers to gain instant access to even larger repositories of records and insights. Given that the legal system is extremely nuanced and highly analytical in its proceedings, an entirely autonomous AI lawyer might not be practical. Instead, achieving middle ground by balancing both human intelligence and AI precision will allow legal professionals to be able to save time, enhance the pertinence of judgments, and also reduce costs.
Current judicial statutes and legal clauses are interpreted in several different ways. The arrival of legal artificial intelligence will enable lawyers to frame their cases in highly customizable formats that fit the exact nature of their client’s concerns to posit the argument most favorably. Big data tools will further enhance the ability of paralegals and student lawyers to easily tabulate and compare a varied range of statistics that pertain to highly specific cases and aspects of these proceedings like outcomes and rulings. Generative AI fine-tuned to procedures like an interrogation, trial proceedings, and patent law might allow lawyers to ask highly specific questions to witnesses and other parties involved in these suits. Artificial intelligence and law might also be able to provide useful tools for clients that are looking to get a quick rundown of the proceedings as opposed to going through long legal transcripts or footage. Despite these versatile capabilities, AI for lawyers and clients will have to be controlled by their human operators to avoid dehumanizing the profession.
Legal Artificial Intelligence: Real World Prospects and Challenges
The advances in chatbots and language models will be used to create law-focused generative artificial intelligence.
Despite the potential to automate and simplify several key legal tasks, AI for lawyers is meant only to be an adjunct tool for existing legal professionals. By taking away the highly strenuous activities of sequencing and referencing, AI in law can help litigators focus on high-priority tasks that need critical thinking and an intuitive approach. Legal artificial intelligence can expand access to the law. Currently, there exists a considerable gap in the availing of legal services by individuals and corporations due to insufficient information, expensive legal services, and the time involved in litigation. Technologies like dedicated legal artificial intelligence bots and platforms might be able to simplify the process of approaching an attorney. They can then identify key priorities through these conversations before interacting with a human lawyer.
Artificial intelligence in law is also bound to transform the way legal education is carried out, bringing in unique tools like adaptive learning to support students in the complex endeavor that is academics in the legal space. While machine learning in education is already transforming other sectors and disciplines, the legal and civics departments are also set to benefit from these technologies. Undoubtedly, the arrival of a more competitive chatbot market and a subsequent rise in law-focused artificial intelligence is set to give rise to a vast array of legal IT firms that will specialize in providing these hybrid services. Lastly, the integration of artificial intelligence and law will have to traverse the rather choppy waters of ethical considerations, given that AI bias and algorithmic transparency are still concerns when it comes to these tools.
Law of the Upcoming Ages
The future of law will be increasingly reliant on technology.
As humanity transitions to more concerted attempts in the development of artificial intelligence, AI for lawyers will become a waking reality as opposed to speculations on technological forums. Global rivalries are slowly emerging, indicating that AI is becoming an increasingly essential tool for nations and cultures to further their interests. As this occurs, the presence of machine learning tools and AI technologies will become ubiquitous, essentially establishing humans’ working relationships with these interfaces. While law and legal education form some of the more humanistic professions, a symbiotic approach must be adopted with the utilization of responsible AI to ensure lawyers remain independent in their judgment, using these tools only as supportive measures in their attempt to argue for their clients. As AI becomes mainstream, AI in courts might also become a common occurrence. From transcription to intuitive recordings of legal proceedings, AI in law will become a waking reality in the times to come.