“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.
It would be a fair statement to say that the legal profession is averse to change. This is even more pronounced in the Common Law jurisdictions. From how we dress (wigs and gowns even here in the tropics) to how we address the court (My Lord, My Lady) to the doctrine of precedence captured in the latin maxim stare decisis et non quieta movere. We still file most documents in paper and still send correspondence by post even with the ubiquity of the internet and email communication.
We, as a profession, simply abhor change.
But in the 21st Century, with the major advancement of technology, the legal profession has also slowly but surely been embracing the changes.
Law firms are currently embracing electronic filing and archiving in servers and databases. Research is being conducted through online searches that are cross referenced rather than through the physical books and Law Reports. Billing and case management softwares are starting to make their way into law firms which is making for more efficient law firms. Huge legal libraries in offices as well as filing rooms are now shrinking and will soon disappear as we continue to rely on cloud computing.
Lawyers are advertising their services on social media and are making themselves much more accessible even giving advise on platforms like Twitter. Whereas as a Profession, lawyers were seen as expensive and pedantic with specialised knowledge of the law courts, and use of archaic languages and arcane procedures, a lot of legal mystery is being demystified through the use of the internet and social media. While it would take a visit to the lawyer to have your contract done, the internet now contains thousands of templates for a layman to choose from.
And this is still just the beginning. Whereas traditionally, the target of technological automation was mechanical labor and factory jobs[1], improvements analytics has now caused this trend to extend beyond blue-collar jobs and into white-collar jobs, such as the legal profession. In more technologically advanced countries, analytics and complex algorithms are being used to replace routine tasks automating them to make them cheaper to run. In the UK for example, in 2016 The Royal Bank of Scotland announced it would be switching customer advice services over to “robo-advisers.”[2]
The next step in the technological revolution within the legal industry is the use of robotic and Artificial Intelligence including machine learning. Companies such as Seal have been developing software that can conduct contract discovery and analytics. The software is used to identify themes and clauses using various combinations of words to identify non-standard clauses or provisions that may be written in abstract or confusing ways.[3] Therefore, what would have taken some lawyer hours to find now takes seconds.
Law firms too in the developed world have been using robotics and algorithms to automate routine processes, with some firms already using virtual assistants to assist clients and perform in-house functions.[4] In the USA for example, Baker Hostetler, a US-based law firm, adopted an AI lawyer named ‘ROSS’ which is built upon IBM’s cognitive computer “Watson.” Its natural language processing capabilities equips it to answer research questions from lawyers by reading through legal documents, gathering evidences, drawing inferences and giving highly relevant answers. The firm is planning to license ROSS for use in its Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Creditor’s Rights Team.[5]
What does this mean for the lawyers? Well the future is yet unwritten and no one can predict how the profession will be affected by the leaps and bounds being experienced in the law. However, a study by Deloitte[6] offers a few insights. It states that within the next two decades, in the UK an estimated 114,000 jobs in the legal sector will have a high chance of having been replaced with automated machines and algorithms. According to the article, those 114,000 jobs represent 39% of all jobs in legal.
There will always be a need to have skilled lawyers. If for nothing else, for them to be the butt of many bad lawyer jokes. But the lawyers will have to have the right training and specialized skill and experience to provide high level and high value legal advise for decision making. Low value administrative process in the legal profession will be left to automation. Questions will abound about cyber security and confidentiality concerns, but essentially the benefits will outweigh the cons in my view.
In conclusion, it is my belief that technology will continue to make the legal profession more accessible and cost friendly as well as more efficient.
[1] https://futurism.com/85-jobs-threatened-automation-spell-doom/
[2] https://futurism.com/the-royal-bank-of-scotland-replaces-face-to-face-financial-advice-with-robo-advisers-6/
[3] https://www.seal-software.com/platforms
[4] https://www.seal-software.com/blog/impact-technology-legal-profession
[5] https://www.gep.com/mind/blog/impact-technology-legal-services-bridging-gap-between-technology-and-legal-services-part-2
[6] https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/audit/articles/developing-legal-talent.html
Legal Articles and Random Thoughts 