Source:-Rediffmail.com
Artificial
Intelligence (AI) is fast becoming the new buzzword amidst the Indian legal
sector.
AI platforms are used for
a wide range of tasks, ranging from automated challenges to parking tickets to litigations
involving US patent cases, judgement predictions, and risk assessments.
The
adoption of AI technology has already gained marked prominence in the global
legal market and Indian firms, too, are looking into this potential treasure
trove of innovative assistance to aid in their own activities in the coming
days.
Michio
Kaku, noted physicist, theorist and futurist once said that the job market in
the future will consist of those activities that robots cannot perform. Taking
heed of this premonition, India's top legal service providers seem to be moving
past the traditional model of technological insularity and setting their sights
on riding the AI wave.
Cyril
Amarchand Mangaldas, one of the leading law firms in the country, has been the
first to make a public announcement, stating their intention to adopt AI
technology for certain legal process activities.
In an
agreement with Kira Systems, a Canada based technology company, the firm
intends on using the Kira machine-learning software for greater automation of
its due diligence and transactional practices, which they say will usher in a
new era of efficiency and accuracy for the benefit of their clients.
"The
application of AI in the legal sector is a growing global trend and allows
lawyers to devote their time and skill towards more specialised tasks. The system
is proven to be fast and accurate, allowing a firm to move up the value chain
and attain greater international competitiveness," says Cyril Shroff,
managing partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
The use
of software has been prevalent in first-tier firms in India for some time
already.
Organisations
such as Nishith Desai Associates already engage data management, knowledge
management and bandwidth management systems, in addition to a variety of public
and in-house applications. The eventual adoption of dedicated AI platforms will
incorporate this use of technology to more data intensive tasks such as
analytics, contract review, document scrutiny and regulatory compliance in the
near future.
The
implementations of these adaptive systems are also pitted to provide greater
efficiency and risk mitigation, while also providing large time based
advantages.
Globally,
the advent of AI systems for the legal sector came as a furtherance of the
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) model to reduce costs of high volume-low value
activities and cater to the changing needs of society.
With the
demand for lower costs in process driven activities and a move away from the
high rate, billable hours and partner tribute model of legal services, the
focus shifted towards investing into the previously ignored areas of innovation
and technology.
AI
platforms are now being used internationally in a multitude of legal tasks such
as automated challenges to car parking tickets, which apart from time and
hassle, would also require a party to incur larger legal fees than the cost of
the infraction itself.
DoNotPay
is one such service in New York and London, which provides such a service free
of cost and has managed to achieve a 64 per cent success rate.
Apart
from these and the wide variety of transactional usages mentioned, AI systems
like IBM Watson and Kira are also being used in other complex legal matters and
for litigations involving US federal patent cases with great success.
In recent
times, the technology has also been implemented in judgment predictions and
risk assessments.
There is
also large potential for the applicability of AI in cross-border contract
drafting, negotiations and decision-making exercises undertaken by law firms
and their clients.
AI also
has the potential to impact the retail legal market dramatically, by proving
greater reach and lowering of costs, which in turn will significantly better
"access to justice" issues and in turn benefit millions of
individuals.
While
most legal professionals agree that AI does possess certain definite
advantages, some are still sceptical of its applicability to more complex tasks
requiring value addition. Many have highlighted that AI platforms require a
comprehensive database, which is still in its nascent stages in the Indian
judicial scenario.
The
integration of continually developing information is another area of
concern.
"The
assimilation of constantly evolving data such as regulatory updates or judicial
precedents into an AI platform poses a challenge. Feeding in large volumes of
information into the system is also a time intensive process. But as the
software is used, it gets smarter and more efficient," notes Huzefa
Tavawalla, head, International Commercial Law Practice, Nishith Desai
Associates.
According
to Sitesh Mukherjee, partner, Trilegal, AI is slowly permeating into the Indian
legal market, particularly with regard to tasks such as due diligence, but its
applicability in other avenues will still take time to gain acceptance.
Critique
aside, the adoption of AI technology in the Indian legal sphere in the near
future is merely a question of degree rather than probability. And, this
assimilation of AI will certainly enhance process management and eventually
change the role of legal professionals in our swiftly evolving business
environment.
"The
commercial applicability of AI software in the legal industry is just 12 to 18
months old. With the increasing use of technology in law firms, we can expect
to see greater adoption of these kinds of platforms in days to come," says
Shroff.
Though a
recent Deloitte study says that AI is expected to automate around 1,14,000
legal jobs in the UK by 2020, its impact on the requirement of Indian legal professionals
should be far from alarming. Rather, it is expected that in times to come,
these industry players will increasingly work alongside AI platforms to provide
greater human resource utility and better legal solutions for society as a
whole.
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