How AI and Machine Learning Will Change the Legal Industry in the Next 10 Years

Guest Post by: Career Karma

Law and legislation cover a lot of ground in the business industry. In fact, it is one of the most important factors to deal with in business transactions. But the whole process can be delayed by human mistakes. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have now been added to the equation, and are helping legal companies improve their productivity. In law, just like in many other industries, there are repetitive and redundant tasks. These activities can be easily replaced by automation. Today we’ll show you some of the ways that AI and machine learning will change the legal industry in the next 10 years. 

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Before we dive into the topic, let’s explain what AI is. AI is a discipline that consists of programming machines to simulate our behavior. AI works with deep learning, which is a more complex form of machine learning. An AI engineer can develop algorithms that make machines imitate our activities. 

The whole point of AI is to make our lives easier and reduce the number of repetitive tasks we do at work. This is the reason why AI and machine learning are now being implemented in the legal industry. 

Contract Review 

In an attorney’s everyday life, contract review can take hours. It’s important that all documents are precise and accurate to avoid inconveniences. Lawyers spend a lot of time reviewing and checking all types of documents to ensure good results. But lawyers are human and they can make mistakes; these errors can be devastating for the companies involved and for the attorney.

But what if this task could be performed by a machine? This will allow lawyers to focus more on what’s actually relevant for their case, and create better strategies. This is the role that machine learning can play. With machine learning algorithms, lawyers can easily review contracts by spotting mistakes, irregularities and patterns in a matter of seconds. There’s no need to spend hours on contract revisions. In a few years, this might not even be a task lawyers perform anymore. 

Noory Bechor, CEO of Lawgeex, said: “These solutions are helping legal teams offload the mundane aspects of reviewing and redlining contracts so that they can focus on more high-impact work.”

Contract Analytics

Imagine the amount of paperwork in a lawyer’s office. Hundreds of contracts and other legal documents must be analyzed by the attorney. This job is extremely important, but also very exhausting. By using automation tools, lawyers can easily analyze contracts without having to spend hours on them. 

AI-powered tools can help them identify contracts that are up for renewal and other types of legal transactions. By using these tools, companies can have a wider view of their legal operations.  

Litigation Prediction

Legal prediction can revolutionize the whole industry. Companies have already started to implement machine learning to plan their litigation strategies effectively. This way, companies are able to predict the outcome of their legal transactions and minimize the number of cases they take to trial. 

Litigation prediction has the potential to improve the legal system. And we won’t have to wait too long. A new startup is already working on machine learning systems that target tax law. This machine learning engine, created by Blue J Legal, is able to forecast the outcome of a case with 90 percent accuracy. Benjamin Alarie, CEO of Blue J Legal, said to Forbes: “In the next ten years, these algorithmic technologies will become the natural starting point for legal advice.”

Legal Research

Legal research is a long process that involves analyzing and searching for information to find relevant precedents. These precedents are important to generate a positive outcome in any legal case. Legal research, however, requires a lot of effort and long hours of work. 

Fortunately, this no longer needs to be a tedious task. Today, companies like ROSS Intelligence are building software with a top-notch semantic analysis to help lawyers minimize effort when doing legal research. 

Conclusion 

Machine learning and AI can change the legal industry forever. By applying automation tools, lawyers can now spend more time on relevant activities and improve their operations.