Technology has always been an enabler in businesses, transforming not only the products and services offered but also impacting the bottom-line considerably. Consecutively, it led to the evolution of how humans work, for example, the invention of emails that has made life so much simpler that now it has become next to impossible to work without it. And over the years, technology has continued to amaze us and make our lives simpler at work.
One such technology which is disrupting how corporations work, is Artificial Intelligence. From various industries to diverse professions, every sector has started to experience the power of AI. Legal professionals and law firms are no exception to it.
Simply put, AI is the technology that learns from the human mind which in turn enables it to perform tasks and predict outcomes that usually requires human intelligence. Machine learning, which is a subset of AI, is the programming that recognizes patterns from human interaction and then analyses it to predict more reasonable outcomes.
For instance, we are all familiar with 'Keyword Search'. It helps us to find a word within a set of data. What AI does is, when you search for a set of data, it learns the kind of word you are looking for and where you found it. And gradually it learns from your behaviour about the kind of document you are searching, context, meaning, relevance etc. and then provides you with more refined search results. So, when you search with AI, it will not just find what you asked from a pile of documents but also make sure that it is relevant to you. Interesting, isn't it?
If you are wondering, how it is transforming the legal industry, let me begin with sharing some startling facts with you and then we will talk about how exactly you can benefit from it.
Present scenario of AI in the Legal Industry (Facts)
Start-ups, such as CaseMine and NearLaw are trying to reinvent legal research. The features include VisualSearch and the CaseRanking algorithm to show the most relevant cases quickly. The algorithm sorts and ranks over 300,000 case records across 20+ Courts/ Tribunals to come out with the top 50 cases. The unique approach elegantly identifies the key 0.01% of cases that are relevant to the user. Handy event timelines and an automatic summarization algorithm help us solve the 'depth' problem as well.[1]
Renowned legal firm- Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas are leveraging the power of AI for contract analysis and review.[1]
These are just some examples of how legal firms have already started to leverage AI for their benefit.
Let's see, how you can do it too.
Leveraging AI to Transform your Legal Practice
There are tons of tasks that legal firms must do which are mundane and repetitive in nature. AI is the perfect fit to assist lawyers in such tasks, so that they can focus on more important tasks such as negotiating with the client, advising, or representing in the court etc.
The first and the foremost thing that AI can do for you as a lawyer is e-discovery. Presently, you use sift through a pile of documents to look for a keyword related to your case. Thanks to keyword search which has made this process easier, else imagine how much it would have taken to go through thousands of files looking for a word. AI has taken this one step further, you can now search documents for context, concepts and tone with what is known as predictive coding, going far beyond simple keyword searches.
The use of AI for e-discovery is great in terms of both time and money. It saves a great deal of both.
If you are wondering whether e-discovery is the ultimate benefit of AI? The answer is a big NO. It's just a preview of the power of AI.
AI has tremendous possibilities, but it depends majorly on application. Here's a list of things that AI can do for legal departments where the legal firms can use it to their benefit:
1. Draft contracts.
For contract drafting, it is the ability to use forms which have standard terms and conditions with some editing option that allows the legal firms to have a consistent set of agreements. AI can be used to create such contract forms basis the parameters set by the firm. It saves both time and money.
This can also be set up as an automated tool for clients where they can log on to the website, fill in their requirements and get a standard ready-to-use form for agreements. If required, the firms can review the contracts for a specific client who might have specific requirements.
2. Contract management.
A place where a legal firm can store all their contracts and then manage it basis the terms of engagement is called a contract management system. It is very important for all firms to keep track and manage all its contracts.
Traditionally, it is all done manually, where a person enters all the relevant details into a sheet and prepares a database. But now, with advanced technology such as AI, it can be done easily without much human intervention. The entry of key details can be entered automatically, along with fine-tuning and signature process.
There's a tool in AI called Abstraction. Abstraction helps when there are thousands of contracts to upload on a Contract Management platform. To map every field or manually insert the data into the system becomes a tremendous task, hence AI – Where the machine reads the contracts (OCR or PDF files), and places all the right data into the correct fields, making the work of Legal Departments much easier and time saving.
Another problem with contract management is reviewing these contracts. AI can review the entire database to organize and analyze it. It can also analyze risk while ensuring constant oversight and consistency.
AI can review the entire contract database, analyze and organize those agreements in a manner that would take a team of people months to complete. Moreover, tools can review your entire contract database and manage risk, while ensuring consistent oversight and consistency among your contracts.
3. Legal spend/operations analysis.
Most legal firms have moved to e-billing systems while some continue to use the traditional method of paper invoices. Rarely do people know the amount of valuable information that can be extracted from this database.
AI can analyze these data to generate meaningful insight with respect, how much work was done, what type of work was done, comparing the efficiency of the firm with that of the competitor and so forth. Imagine, how useful this data would be when you negotiate with your client about billable hours.
AI can also create reports and dashboards on what type of work is trending in the industry and can also automatically assign work to the employees basis their strengths and provide for case management tools.
Conclusion
The possibilities with AI are innumerable and the benefits are immeasurable. For any legal firm which is ambitious and looks forward to a prospering future, the time is now. Legal sector is revolutionizing the way it works with the power of AI and as it is said, 'luck favors the bold'; for those who fail to ride the wave of this impeccable technological revolution, the cost is way too high. Organizations like PracticeLeague have already developed some great AI powered softwares especially designed to meet the needs of a legal firm. Check it out, before your competitor does.
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About Practice League:
Revolutionizing Digital Connects between Business & Law
We provide an Intelligent and Unified platform for the Enterprise Legal Ecosystem driving Digital Transformation to the next level. PracticeLeague helps entwine legal efficiency and cost-effectiveness with complex end to end business operations with the sheer power of simplicity, speed and innovation driving today's quintessential competitive edge and the highest standards of corporate ethics.
What we Do
PracticeLeague Ecosystem focuses on integrating Enterprise Legal Management to the core of Integrated Risk Management in alignment with the evolving role of Corporate Legal.
The PracticeLeague ecosystem brings all entities of business and legal ecosystems on a virtual grid empowered with Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Secured Cloud for seamless exchange of data, execution of processes and predictive management with real-time visibility and control.
The ecosystem empowers Legal to collaborate with three key stakeholder communities in the ecosystem, business, authorities and professional services partners to deliver on organizational competitive edge and a strong corporate identity. The platform offers operational analytics to sustain innovation continuum, orchestrates predictive insights from cross-functional practices for richer business context and ensures compliance with regulatory and statutory standards and internal policies.
PracticeLeague LegalTech is a well-established and fast growing Startup with a continuous endeavour to redefine complexities in enterprise legal operations with the power of 'Innovation with Simplicity'.
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