What if we could have a legal research assistant who is indefatigable, available 24/7 and sifts through mounds of documents, working at the speed of light? Meet AI, who has taken the legal profession by storm. With the technological revolution shaking up the world, the days of spending hours pouring over tomes that haven’t seen the light of the day in years or researching for legal precedents to help win our cases are long gone.
Today, AI platforms are capable of understanding legal queries, conducting extensive research spanning countless legal databases, analysing all potential remedies and outcomes and back it up with relevant statutory provisions and legal precedents. It can even create initial versions of legal drafts and memos. Thanks to natural language processing, it’s capable of understanding and interpreting complex legal jargon.
The growth of AI presents us with complex legal and ethical challenges. AI poses the question of liability. In the instance where the legal research supplied by AI models turns out to be erroneous, would the blame lie with the AI model, its creator or the lawyer who was hired to do the job? What would be the extent of such liability? Moreover, client confidentiality is paramount. Storage of large datasets presents the risk of data breaches or improper handling of sensitive information. AI lies outside the scope of any current laws and thus, airtight legal and ethical rules are an immediate need.
AI has been hailed for optimizing legal services, enhancing efficiency and accuracy while simultaneously saving costs. It is capable of analysing litigation trends and presenting deeply researched arguments in the matter of a few seconds. However, AI remains a double-edged sword. While it saves the junior associates from being bogged down by menial or time-consuming tasks, it also steals their opportunity to learn valuable skills, which forms the bedrock of their training. Further, unlike humans, AI is incapable of exercising sensitivity or care.
AI offers a compelling future where lawyers have more time to pursue creative and strategic advocacy. However, this AI era requires thoughtfully crafted regulations, ethical standards, data protection protocols and defined applicability. AI laws could be developed with restrictions on which tasks could be delegated. While AI saves time and can perform a wide range of tasks, it is still unable to emulate human emotions or critical thinking. As such, the focus must be on augmentation and not replacement. With legal giants like LexisNexis embracing AI, it might be time for India to befriend this new assistant, harmonized with a dedicated legal code in order to ensure that AI works for us and not the other way around.
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