Artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm, so much so that even industries once seen as fundamentally “human,” such as the legal sector, have seen the innovation make a profound impact. Still, lawyers must make certain key considerations before seeing the profound positive impact this technology could have on their practices.
Rob Scott, who is a lawyer himself as well as co-founder of monjur and the creator of Lawbie — a revolutionary legal AI platform — has seen firsthand both the importance and challenges of AI use in the legal space. “With the growth of large language models, AI is poised to revolutionize the way law is practiced,” he explains. “Collaboration between legal professionals and technology will allow them to solve increasingly complex business problems in the legal sector.”
Legal AI and data privacy
In the legal sector, one of the biggest concerns surrounding AI use is data privacy. Lawyers regularly deal with confidential client information, and many AI models use the information that users feed into it for further training. Unfortunately, some users have reported this to cause instances of accidental plagiarism or IP infringement.
Lawyers must use AI responsibly to ensure that privileged client information is not left vulnerable or exposed. Generally, this requires a law firm to enter a formal data processing agreement with the service provider, though this may not provide sufficient protection for all purposes.
“We recommend that law firms adopt an acceptable use policy for AI,” says Scott. “Some law firms will want to limit the use of AI while others may be more aggressive in allowing its use but still will need to carefully define how it can be used inside the firm.”
That being said, AI is not a novel technology in the legal space, as there are already some well-established and widespread use cases. For example, many lawyers already use artificial intelligence for legal research and e-discovery. This technology has allowed lawyers to increase both their efficiency and accuracy significantly.
Sorting through potential evidence can take dozens of hours, and even the most dedicated lawyers can’t possibly comb through every available source. In contrast, an AI model can be trained to search vast databases quickly, even accessing information that a human lawyer may not have thought to check.
Use cases of AI in the legal space
Lawbie has revolutionized the use of artificial intelligence in the legal sector by introducing a tool that lawyers can use to expedite the process of reading and understanding contracts. Lawyers use the AI-powered scanner to scan a contract, and then the model reports back, identifying any sections of the contract that need to be manually reviewed. For example, by comparing a new version of a contract against a previous draft, the AI can identify any verbiage that may have changed and needs to be paid close attention.
Of course, the most obvious benefit of a tool like Lawbie is its ability to help improve the efficiency and accuracy of lawyers’ duties. The process of comparing two contract drafts is time-intensive, requiring the lawyer to compare the two contracts to a meticulous level of detail, which can take several hours. And after evaluating several contracts, it can be easy to miss some of the smaller subtleties of contract language — even to a trained eye. This is why using tools like Lawbie can help lawyers provide even better service to their clients.
Responsible use of AI in legal
Nevertheless, when adopting artificial intelligence tools of any kind, lawyers must consider the regulatory and compliance standards they must uphold. There are state, federal, and even international privacy laws that may be implicated by artificial intelligence programs. AI developers and users must also take into account the specific laws that are being passed regarding the use of AI, such as the European Union’s comprehensive AI regulation that requires AI systems used for “assistance in legal interpretation and application of the law,” to be registered in a specific database.
Even beyond the requirements they have by law, lawyers must keep in mind certain ethical concerns surrounding the use of AI, including transparency about how and when AI is being used in legal practice. “In our firm, we label all documents containing AI-generated content as such so all internal team members know when it is being used,” Scott adds.
Additionally, Scott emphasizes the dangers of AI in the hands of inexperienced lawyers. “Because the output of AI models is based on pre-existing data, if that data it is fed during the training process is inaccurate or biased, the output could be equally flawed,” he explains. “All work product still needs to be reviewed by experienced counsel who will know when the AI gets things wrong.” This is why Lawbie is a tool designed to be used by skilled lawyers, rather than a replacement for them.
Considering the nature of their work, lawyers must approach the adoption of artificial intelligence tools with even greater caution and consideration than those in other industries. However, this shouldn’t stop them from taking advantage of the numerous productivity benefits the technology could offer them.
