INTRODUCTION :
Technological Revolution have been witnessed in almost every professional field across the globe. The use of Big Data has been the force of the this change or revolution to be accurate. The scope of technology is multiplying day by day. With each passing day, humans are coming up with newer methods to use technology to benefit them and to make their life easy. Technology is giving rise to many new things like e-payment, e-shopping, e-courts, e-filings, e-classrooms, virtual offices, blockchain, cloud computing, and much more . The compilation of data to set up a specific pattern to provide outcomes which are purely data specific, not affected by any irrelevant external factors like human error have been of great use to calculate better decisions and steps in order to solve issues/problems.
Modern technology is continuously reshaping industries nowadays. As beneficial as implementing new tech can be, it’s always quite disruptive to do so at first. Every industry needs time to properly adapt to new technologies before they actually become an asset. A perfect example of this scenario is the law industry. The fact of the matter is that no industry can avoid the changes imposed by new tech.The legal sector is now faced with new processes and modernized workflows as a result of a digital transformation.
HOW LAW WAS PRACTICED IN PRIOR CENTURIES :
Prior to the “type-writer” era, law practice was quite a traditional, manual, meticulous, laborious act. As the typing machine and telephone came in, it eased the manual scripting and mode of communication to some extent.
The emergence of electronic type-writers, copiers, fax machines and the desktop computers with certain applications paved faster way to the legal practice.
Mobile phones, Laptop computers and internet highway advanced the practice to next level which enabled a global link in terms of records, research materials and large voluminous data access. A paradigm shift came in disguise of Smartphones and the global legal platform is at its excellent edge of cloud computing era.
CONCEPT OF LEGAL TECH :
MEANING –
Legal technology (usually called Legal tech) refers to technologies and software that substantially changes the way we use legal services in our daily lives. In broader terms, it represents the set of technologies that –
- eases the practice of law for attorneys and legal professionals, and
- enables customers access legal competence or justice.
With the terminology clearly defined, let’s take a closer look at the set of advantages of technology in the law industry.
FORMS OF TECHNOLOGY IN LEGAL SECTOR :
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) –
The term artificial intelligence (AI) alludes to any human-like intelligence showed by a computer, robot, or other machine. In well-known utilization, artificial intelligence alludes to the capacity of a computer or machine to emulate the abilities of the human brain—gaining from models and experience, perceiving items, comprehension and reacting to language, deciding, tackling issues—and joining these and different abilities to perform capacities a human may perform, like hello a lodging visitor or driving a vehicle .
BIG DATA & LAW :
The application of AI in law can be derives by use of ‘LEGAL ANALYTICS’. Legal Analytics can be defined as the executives’ cycle of extracting noteworthy information from information to aid in-house legal pioneers and leaders on themes as assorted as issue forecasting, measure improvement, legal technique, near legal expenses, billing streamlining, asset the board, and financial tasks. In simple words a management process of using relevant knowledge from data to be put in action by leader and decision makers in the field of law to improvise on specific issues. It sounds like a third party assisting legal professionals irrespective of their position to come to a better conclusion based on far sightedness. This complex word – Legal Analytics, is what we are using in us to gather information about any precedent, act, or case law, in form of ‘ONLINE DATA BASE’.
The point is how computer science concepts like AI, Big data are coming in use in field of law. These are making life of Legal Professionals easy and their work efficient by saving tons of hours by making everything available online at one click. Data has become a part of litigators’ work schedule; the more information one has, the more knowledgeable she becomes. The data provides the legal professionals with information that helps them to predict the future of client’s case, hence saving time being efficient & effective.
Technology-helped surveys (TAR) :
Technology-helped surveys (TAR) are the principal significant use of AI and large information investigation in legal practice. They utilize mechanical answers for sort out, investigate and search enormous, various datasets. Studies show that TAR improves proficiency in record survey time by fifty-crease contrasted with human audits. For instance, prescient coding is a TAR strategy that can be utilized to prepare a PC to perceive significant reports by beginning with a “seed set” of papers combined with human criticism. The prepared machine would then be able to survey huge quantities of reports rapidly and precisely, going past singular words to zero in on the general language and setting of each record. Various worldwide law offices currently use TAR items because of their effectiveness and exactness.
Legal bots :
Legal bots are intuitive online programs intended to connect with a group of people to help with a particular capacity or to give modified responses to the beneficiary’s particular circumstance. Numerous law offices are creating bots to help current or forthcoming customers in managing a legal issue dependent on conditions and realities. Different gatherings are growing free legal bots to help individuals who may not in any case approach legal assets.
For instance, a Stanford law graduate fostered an online chatbot considered DoNotPay that has helped more than 160,000 individuals settle stopping tickets, and is presently being extended to assist evacuees with their legal issues.
Before the introduction of data in law, professionals used to rely on their experience in order to predict or calculate probability or possible outcome of client’s case or issue. It was their knowledge & expertise they have gained all over the years to develop a strategy on how to approach a case. Many times they have used personal experience to gain an edge in the case.
Now the 21st century lawyer is quite far sighted, have multi-field knowledge and values the Big Data. But why?
Its because of sudden change in Legal education mainly due to technology. “Technology has altered the way, simplicity, speed and time with which we lead our exercises. Deals are directed quicker, learning and instructing are more extravagant, and for the most part the legal profession is better situated. The legal profession is known for its traditionalism and conservativism which many accept should be safeguarded to keep up the eminence of the profession. In any case, mechanical progression may have put a strain on this belief system. The flood of mechanical headway and globalization which has moved through different parts of the general public has not left the profession in its way. Technology including Information and Communication Technology (ICT) presently assumes a quintessential part in legal practice and instruction. It is getting progressively clear in India just as a reality that technology is an essential for compelling and effective legal training and practice.”
APPLICATION OF ICTS IN LEGAL EDUCATION :
From the very start, the legal profession is thought to be noble. As a result, the best legal education system is required. The use of ICTs to teach law has been a minor concern among law schools and universities for many years. As a result, they confront a variety of challenges, including lower enrolment, fewer career opportunities for law graduates, and the incapacity of new law graduates to present their cases in court, among others, leading to the closure of numerous law schools. Against this context, technology presents appealing potential for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of legal education. This is why, in today’s world, every law school is attempting to be equipped with ICT facilities:
Electronic Books – E-books are the electronic versions of printed books. The e-books include hyperlinks, search functions, and multimedia capabilities in addition to textual content. E-book compilers also convert source files into easily distributable formats such as HTML, PDF, and RTF. In other terms, an e-book contains electronic content that is visibly displayed to the reader.
E-Journals – A periodical magazine that is published in electronic format, usually on the Internet, is known as an e-journal. Compared to traditional printed journals, electronic journals provide a number of advantages. Student can search the content page of the full text of journal to find article of their choice. They can read it anywhere in their laptops or even on mobiles so they don’t have to be in the library. Students can save the journal in their desktops or laptops for future reference.
ONLINE LEGAL DATA BASE :
Computer Assisted Legal Research “(CALR) is a quintessential advancement in the profession. It is a part of ICT This has delivered the celebrated exploration locales/administrations Westlaw and Lexis.They comprise of a plenty of cases, rules, legal choices and scholarly articles that are helpful to both the attorney and law understudy. They have become an unquestionable requirement have for each law staff and firm as they empower huge measure of pertinent information to be gotten to in practically no time and without any problem. Such information in the past would have been accessible to the huge firms and law resources with the monetary assets to have an enormous library. Indeed, even where the correct books are accessible, it takes a ton of time and a lot more individuals to lead research. All the more disadvantageously, with countless materials to counsel, it is possible that the significant information isn’t gotten to or investigated during the time spent being in a hurry.
Two major Electronic Legal Data Bases are listed below :
- LexisNexis Database: LexisNexis® is an worldwide supplier of substance empowered work process arrangements planned explicitly for experts in the legal, hazard the board, corporate, government, law requirement, bookkeeping, and scholarly business sectors. It furnishes clients with admittance to billions of accessible reports and records from more than 45,000 legal, news and business sources.
- Westlaw is Thompson West’s online legal examination research base help. It gives fast, simple admittance to resolutions, case law materials, openly available reports, and other legal assets, diaries and law surveys
NEW MARKET DEMAND :
Like any other industry today, the legal sector must abide by the needs of its clients. Consumer behavior is known to change due to the new technologies on the market and consumer expectations are on the rise as well. These new trends create urgency for independent lawyers and law firms to improve their operations in order to remain relevant as well as competitive on the market.
Therefore, anyone in the law profession will eventually have to opt for the right products and the right solutions that modern technology can provide. For example, the traditional use of paper in the legal sector is slowly being replaced by digital solutions, such as electronic filings and billings. Also, paper databases are being replaced by modern e-libraries.
What’s more, lawyers rely on management tools and software solutions to manage their everyday tasks. Even though these new solutions are a step towards improved efficiency and performance for legal professionals, it’s quite a deviation from how things used to be.
IMPLICATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN LEGAL SECTOR AND ITS IMPACT :
The legal sector is now faced with new processes and modernized workflows as a result of a digital transformation.Changes in legal education system by introducing Online data bases were the initial steps for change which made it very efficient for law aspirants as well as professionals to work effectively and provide results on time with minimum errors. Cases, Acts, Precedents all are available online with just one click into the data base. Varied opinions of law professionals can also be accessed through E-Journals of reputed universities and are available to the public at large which leaves scope for legal knowledge and assessment of policies, acts & laws in a better way. Artificial Intelligence (AI) too has been a futuristic approach adopted by organizations in various fields. A self-learning software which uses data to arrive at on outcome with behavior like humans.
AI has been useful to many organizations to calculate their next step or assess their decision. The field of law involves establishing a strategy on the basis of facts, evidences (data) to calculate the next step (outcome). The use of big data and Artificial intelligence will make this more efficient, streamlined and effective.
Artificial intelligence and e-discovery are the sizzling trend of modern era which is utilized optimum across the globe in all possible spheres of business and industries. Within a span of a decade from 2004 to 2014 the global scenario was reshaped and revamped with technology.
Technology came in rescue to mobilize the desk oriented, pen-pushing working style of law practice. Legal practitioners need not be glued to libraries, record offices, telephones or copiers to work on their cases. With the help of advanced computing, storage systems, internet, search engine tools, smartphones, tablets, kindles, there emerged a migration from conventional desktop working mechanism to mobile operations.
Prior to the techie era, the simplest research work for a case may be time consuming which involved manual inquiries in person, library visits, record references, calls, meetings and consumed several days to achieve the required result. The situation in the court halls were more intricate, time-consuming lengthy process. This is one amongst the major setbacks in the litigating system and a branch of root cause for piling pendency of cases.
As the technology evolved, the legal field across the countries quickly switched and adopted it into their practices to link worldwide to stay state-of-art in currency with modern times and remain tuned to the latest information. The work which took laborious days together to accomplish in earlier era is completed within hours now in the modern world.
FUTURE SCOPE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN LAW :
The turn of events and utilization of AI for the arrangement of legal administrations is restricted with respect to three primary viewpoints, to be specific (1) data; (2) algorithms; and (3) implementation.
Data are a basic piece of AI frameworks as both preparing material for creating AI algorithms and information material for the genuine utilization of AI. “The turn of events and utilization of AI algorithms in the arrangement of legal administrations is restricted by an absence of effectively available and analyzable datasets . The adage goes that most law offices are “archive rich and data poor” and public data, for example, legal choices and conclusions are either not accessible or so differed in design as to be hard to utilize successfully. Moreover, low quality or defective datasets can make AI frameworks yield one-sided results. Datasets may have low quality or blemishes for an assortment of reasons. For instance, the data may display human predisposition, for example, spotters’ sex segregation of occupation up-and-comers. Data assortment or planning methods may bring about factual predispositions in the dataset like unrepresentative examples (choice inclination). Datasets may even be deliberately controlled or undermined to yield prejudicial investigations. Past data quality issues, critical data protection and network safety concerns likewise emerge with the utilization of gigantic amounts of data by AI frameworks.”
Algorithmic limits additionally sway the utilization of AI in the legal business. “As referenced in the above models, all AI frameworks at present accessible perform without a doubt, unmistakable arrangement of undertakings. Man-made intelligence works best when there are clear data designs a complete answer; it performs ineffectively when applied to the theoretical or open-finished circumstances requiring judgment, for example, the circumstances that legal advisors frequently work in. In these conditions, human aptitude and knowledge are as yet basic to the turn of events and the accessible AI arrangements still not adequately refined to comprehend and adjust to subtleties and to react to assumptions and layered significance, and grasp the items of common sense of human experience. Accordingly, AI still far from totally supplant individuals in the legal calling.”
The utilization of AI “is additionally restricted by difficulties emerging during an association’s AI execution cycle and this perspective could likewise profit by additional exploration center. Right off the bat, understanding the plan of action effect of AI arrangements in this specific area which have numerous plans of action dependent on hours charged, for example, those generally utilized by law offices, may not boost the productivity upgrades that AI frameworks can give. Furthermore, viable sending of AI requires a plainly characterized use case and work measure, solid specialized mastery, broad staff and algorithm preparing, professional change the board measures, a hunger for change and a readiness to work with the new advancements. Potential AI clients ought to perceive that viably conveying the technology might be more diligently than they would anticipate. Surely, the best test might be just getting expected clients to comprehend and to confide in the technology, not really conveying it.”
CONCLUSION :
The biggest concern which exists in other fields as well as in legal sector is Data privacy. The data bases, E-journals are baby step for Law in implementing AI and BIG DATA which doesn’t involve or require information which have a possibility to disrupt an approach calculated by the legal professional. When it comes to implementing AI to calculate next step in a case, it would require personal information of the issue/case/matter. An algorithm has some setbacks or limitations, one of which is requirement of clear data patterns to come to a decision or give an outcome. In this field, the input cannot be standard, constant in nature, hence to develop a pattern would be complex because of fluctuating facts and overridden evidences. To operate or function at full force, law firms would require to outsource Big Data, legal analytics task to some established organisation. Outsourcing clients’ data have been backfiring since, Facebook’s case with Cambridge Analytica to the public at large and heavy criticism have been putted on the organisations using data which have either been outsourced to them or acquired from their own ventures. But outsourcing data is the need of the hour hence, positives can’t be ignored. Outsourcing data leaves the primary organisation, in this case law firms, litigators and legal professionals to focus on the core activities while getting professional assistance to be more efficient and effective in their conduct. Calculating a better next step will be assisted by Data available to a legal professional along with an AI behaving humanly and providing outcomes purely based on data & algorithms. The initial steps are taken and have been successful in generating more dynamic law aspirants and improvising the legal education system. In the professional-practical area the test would be real, hence, more research is required to analyse the applicability of AI and Big Data to set up algorithms based on patterns established by data given by law firms.
References :
https://www.lawadvisor.com/articles/the-effect-of-technology-on-the-legal-profession
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