Use Cases & Applications of AI: Better, More Efficient, More Accessible Legal Services
Last week at LegalWeek, I had the opportunity to speak on the “Use Cases and Applications of AI in Legal Services” panel at the AI Bootcamp. The panel discussed a range of use cases including legal research, e-discovery, and contract analysis. Across these use cases, a common outcome emerged: widespread adoption of AI technologies will empower attorneys to do better work, faster and will ultimately result in making legal services more accessible.
The legacy technologies attorneys have relied on for years have not evolved along with current technologies outside of legal tech. For example, we’ve come to expect that when you run a Google search, Google will use what it knows about you to find the best results for you. It uses information about what you’ve searched before, where you’re located, what you’re interested in, and more to tailor your results to what you would most like to see.
Traditional legal research platforms, on the other hand, need to be re-taught what you’re looking for with every new search. Not only does the research process take much longer, but you can also miss a lot of useful information. That is not only wasteful — it’s frustrating as hell.
AI technology understands you, and it knows what you’re working on. We see this in the technology of Kira Systems, Neota Logic, and DISCO, among others. Casetext’s CARA technology, for example, analyzes a brief to learn about what you’re searching for: it looks at the cases you’ve already cited, the jurisdiction you’re practicing in, the issues you’re discussing, and more, to return incredibly tailored results: cases that are highly relevant to the brief you upload.
Put simply: CARA understands you. It knows you, it knows your case and delivers results customized to you. The added speed, efficiency, and quality that comes along with that understanding is why we are confident that in the near future, 90 percent of legal research will be done on Casetext. Not on LexisNexis. Not on Westlaw.
For the researcher, that’s obviously a much better experience. But beyond the benefits to the researcher, applying AI technology to the law will expand access to legal services. As I’ve explained in the past, I believe that the impact of AI on the legal industry will be much like the impact of automation on the garment industry. Automation drove prices down, which led to a greater demand for more garments at cheaper prices (and ultimately to even more jobs for garment workers).
I believe we’ll see a same thing happen in law: automation will drive prices down, leading to greater demand for legal services. Right now, as many as 80% of legal needs are unmet due to the high cost of representing clients. A decline in the cost of legal representation would mean that more people would be able to get the legal help they need (and might mean more jobs for attorneys, too).
By continuing to build on the applications of AI we already see in the market, I believe we’ll soon see a major shift in legal services: away from inefficient, outdated technologies that drive up costs and put legal representation out of reach for many, and toward efficient, high-quality, accessible legal services.
