Across the breadth of industries, AI’s tendrils have wound their way into various facets, from conversational interfaces to operational refinement, data sifting, and content orchestration. Yet, this piece remains a testament to human authorship. With projections foretelling a global AI market valuation of US$407 billion by 2027, it’s no surprise that enterprises are voraciously vying for their portion of the AI windfall.
The realm of law is no outlier. Despite apparent tensions between privacy concerns and AI-induced hallucinations, the legal profession is being reshaped by AI’s relentless march forward. The potential for beneficial transformation, particularly in the realm of documentation, is vast.
Today, a plethora of robust and secure AI-driven tools exists, capable of automating everything from document creation to redaction, analysis, and beyond. While the AI sphere still has ample room for maturation, successful integration is within reach. The journey ahead involves identifying the tools that seamlessly integrate into specific workflows, keeping abreast of the latest technological advances, and being well-versed in both the opportunities and limitations of this evolving technology.
Let us delve into the positives, the pitfalls, and the ambiguous territories that AI’s encroachment into legal documentation presents.
The Bright Side: Expediency, Economy, and Contentment
Embracing cutting-edge tools is merely the beginning; mastery of their application is where true value lies. Here are some of the advantages AI brings to legal document workflows.
A Benchmark for Exactitude
Perfection eludes us all. Manual operations are often riddled with errors, leading to potentially dire repercussions for both legal practitioners and their clients. Flaws in legal documents can spawn lawsuits, disputes, erroneous legal research, and more. By automating the workflows for document creation, redaction, extraction, and analysis, AI helps eradicate human-induced errors, thereby reducing the inherent risks involved.
Cost and Effect
AI empowers legal professionals to allocate less time and fewer administrative resources to monotonous, document-related tasks. For instance, the redaction of sensitive information is crucial for upholding confidentiality but becomes exceedingly labor-intensive when dealing with large volumes of documents. Tools like Apryse WebViewer offer a cost-effective solution by delivering automatic redaction capabilities that are not only rapid and precise but also secure and irreversible.
Client Service and Satisfaction
By saving both time and money, law offices can enhance their services and boost client satisfaction. Automation facilitates the swift processing and turnaround of documents, which is particularly advantageous when delivering crucial paperwork under tight deadlines. Moreover, the cost savings achieved through AI-driven document processing can be passed on to clients by reducing fees in certain cases, thereby making legal services more accessible to a broader audience.
A Firm Foundation for Future Growth
In essence, the integration of AI tools into document processing workflows allows law firms to maximize the use of their existing resources, paving the way for expansion. Automation liberates time and resources, enabling firms to concentrate on higher-value work and assist a greater number of clients.
The Bad: Hallucinations and Bias
Like any emerging technology, AI is not without its flaws and challenges. Here’s an exploration of some of the downsides.
Rewriting Reality
To err is human, but AI is not immune to mistakes either. “Hallucinations” in AI refer to bizarre or incorrect outputs generated in response to a request. Sometimes, AI models detect patterns where none exist, leading them to produce responses based on these imagined patterns. In human terms, it’s akin to concocting a conspiracy theory or seeing faces in random objects. This becomes especially troublesome in fields where precision and verified precedents are essential.
Placing blind faith in generative AI can lead to catastrophic outcomes for legal professionals. A notable example is the case of Mata v. Avianca, where attorney Steven Schwartz utilized ChatGPT to draft a legal filing, citing several cases to support his argument. The issue? Six of those cases were entirely fictitious. The error came to light when the court was unable to locate any documentation for the cited cases. The situation worsened when Schwartz admitted he had asked the AI tool to verify the authenticity of the cases, and ChatGPT had assured him they were real.
This incident underscores the importance of understanding the limitations of generative AI, particularly when the technology is relatively new. It also highlights the critical need to verify your sources meticulously.
Tipping the Scales
Justice may be blind, but AI sees everything—and that can be a double-edged sword, especially when it comes to bias. AI models are trained on vast datasets generated by humans, and humans select the data on which these models train. Consequently, any biases present in the data can be absorbed by the AI, influencing the outcomes it produces.
This issue is particularly concerning in the criminal justice system, where profiling based on race, gender, and other factors can have severe consequences. For instance, an investigation by ProPublica revealed a significant racial bias in an algorithm designed to predict the likelihood of a defendant reoffending. The system was almost twice as likely to classify Black defendants as future criminals compared to white defendants, irrespective of their criminal history or the nature of their offenses.
While developers can implement several strategies to mitigate AI bias, it remains a complex issue. Until these challenges are fully addressed, it is crucial to stay alert to potential biases in AI-generated documents.
The Grey Area: Job Security and Data Privacy Ethics
AI’s capabilities are vast, but when it comes to foreseeing the full impact of this technology, some uncertainties persist.
Help Wanted
Is AI poised to take our jobs? According to an Ipsos survey, 36% of people worldwide believe so. In the legal field, there’s some legitimate concern. While AI isn’t likely to replace lawyers anytime soon—evident from the hallucination issue mentioned earlier—a study by Goldman Sachs indicates that approximately 44% of tasks within the legal profession could potentially be automated, second only to administrative tasks at 46%.
Many tasks related to legal documentation can indeed be automated, which could eventually reduce the demand for administrative roles. However, as the Schwartz case illustrates, AI still requires significant human oversight. In the meantime, it’s more probable that AI tools will enhance efficiency and enable services to scale, rather than displace workers.
AI Client Confidentiality
AI’s remarkable ability to deliver precisely what you need stems from its access to an enormous amount of data. However, the origins of the data used to train AI models have long been a source of concern and scrutiny. How much personal data has been fed into this technology? How is it stored, who has access, and how is it safeguarded? These questions fuel ongoing ethical debates within the legal sector and beyond, as data protection laws struggle to keep pace with technological advancements.
These concerns are valid, but AI also offers tools to help maintain data privacy and ensure compliance with regulations like the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). For example, automated document redaction can swiftly and permanently remove a client’s personal information and metadata from large volumes of documents, helping to safeguard privacy.