Lawbots are a broad class of customer-facing legal AI applications that are used to automate specific legal tasks, such as

document automation Document automation (also known as document assembly or document management) is the design of systems and workflows that assist in the creation of electronic documents. These include logic-based systems that use segments of pre-existing text and/or ...

and

legal research Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a prob ...

. The terms robot lawyer and lawyer bot are used as synonyms to lawbot. A robot lawyer or a robo-lawyer refers to a legal AI application that can perform tasks that are typically done by paralegals or young associates at law firms. However, there is some debate on the correctness of the term. Some commentators say that legal AI is technically speaking neither a lawyer nor a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may ...

and should not be referred to as such. Other commentators believe that the term can be misleading and note that the robot lawyer of the future won't be one all-encompassing application but a collection of specialized bots for various tasks. Lawbots use various

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

techniques or other intelligent systems to limit humans' direct ongoing involvement in certain steps of a legal matter. The user interfaces on lawbots vary from smart searches and step-by-step forms to

chatbot A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly simulate the way a human would behav ...

s. Consumer and enterprise-facing lawbot solutions often do not require direct supervision from a legal professional. Depending on the task, some client-facing solutions used at law firms operate under an attorney supervision.

Levels of Autonomy

Following levels of autonomy (LoA) are suggested for automated AI legal reasoning: *Level 0 (LoA0): No Automation for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 1 (LoA1): Simple Assistance Automation for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 2 (LoA2): Advanced Assistance Automation for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 3 (LoA3): Semi-Autonomous Automation for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 4 (LoA4): Domain Autonomous for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 5 (LoA5): Fully Autonomous for AI Legal Reasoning *Level 6 (LoA6): Superhuman Autonomous for AI Legal Reasoning

Examples

Some legal AI solutions are developed and marketed directly to the customers or consumers, whereas other applications are tools for the attorneys at law firms. There are already hundreds of legal AI solutions that operate in multitude of ways varying in sophistication and dependence on scripted

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s. One notable legal technology

application is

DoNotPay DoNotPay is a legal services chatbot. The chatbot was originally built to contest parking tickets, but has expanded to include other services as well. As a " robot lawyer," DoNotPay is a downloadable mobile application that claims to make use ...

. It had started off as an app for contesting

parking ticket A parking violation is the act of parking a motor vehicle in a restricted place or in an unauthorized manner. It is against the law virtually everywhere to park a vehicle in the middle of a highway or road; parking on one or both sides of a road ...

s, but has since expanded to include features that help users with many different types of legal issues, ranging from consumer protection to immigration rights and other social issues.

Impact on the legal industry

In the 2016 report,

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professio ...

estimated that more than 110,000 law jobs in just the United Kingdom alone could disappear within the next twenty years due to automation. This change could result in the creation of more highly skilled jobs and in the reduction of paralegal and temporary positions. Deloitte's report asserts that "there is significant potential for high-skilled roles that involve repetitive processes to be automated by smart and self-learning algorithms". According to Lawyers to Engage, between 22% of a lawyer’s work and 35% of a legal assistant’s work can be automated in the US. Top law schools like Harvard have already begun to integrate Artificial Intelligence into the curriculum. Legal tech start-up companies have begun developing applications that assist law firms with completing low-risk legal processes. These applications can enable lawyers to focus on more work that requires their specific expertise. The automation of processes like contract reviewing, enforcement of negotiations (smart contracts) and client intake (expert systems) allows law firms to streamline their procedures and improve efficiency. In addition, automation benefits small-to-medium law firms that do not have the resources to utilize junior talent on such routine tasks. The increase of law firms utilizing automated applications could result into legal tech becoming a necessity in the industry. Digital Reason CEO, Tim Estes, stated that those who refuse the opportunity to integrate AI in their workflow are “most at risk.” In 2018, Forbes reported a 713% increase in investments in legal tech. This rapid growth is reflective of law firms beginning to “cede business to… new model legal providers… that meld technological, business and legal expertise.”

Access to law and justice

It has been widely estimated for at least the last generation that all the programs and resources devoted to ensuring access to justice address only 20% of the civil legal needs of low-income people in the United States. Drawing on this experience, in late 2011, the U.S. government-funded

Legal Services Corporation The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) is a publicly funded, 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation established by the United States Congress. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing funding for civil legal ...

decided to convene a summit of leaders to explore how best to use technology in the access-to-justice community. The group adopted a mission for The Summit on the Use of Technology to Expand Access to Justice (Summit) consistent with the magnitude of the challenge: "to explore the potential of technology to move the United States toward providing some form of effective assistance to 100% of persons otherwise unable to afford an attorney for dealing with essential civil legal needs". In April 2017, joined by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

and Pro Bono Net, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) announced a pilot program to develop online, statewide legal portals to direct individuals with civil legal needs to the most appropriate forms of assistance.

Technological limitations

Current research in subjects such as Computational Privacy, Explainable Machine Learning, Bayesian Deep Learning, Knowledge Intensive Machine Learning, and

Transfer Learning Transfer learning (TL) is a research problem in machine learning (ML) that focuses on storing knowledge gained while solving one problem and applying it to a different but related problem. For example, knowledge gained while learning to recognize ...

reveals that we do not yet have the technology to enable Level 4 to 6 AI lawbots.

References

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External links

CodeX Techindex

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (Stanford Law or SLS) is the law school of Stanford University, a private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, it is regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. Stanford La ...

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