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"Here Come the Robot Lawyers" proclaimed a recent headline.
Similar headlines abound these days as journalists highlight both
the fears and hopes aending the increasingly widespread use
of artificial intelligence (AI) in law. The looming question (read
fear) in all this concerns whether AI "robots" can possibly replace
the judgment and expertise exhibited by trained and seasoned
aorneys.
But that question and the arguments that ensue over
whether any machine can possibly supplant human intellect miss
both the point and the opportunity of AI in law.
Lawyers now serve legal markets in the same manner
that the old Bell monopolies served the telephone markets. Yes,
your telephone operator may have been nice, but you needed
a telephone operator to make long distance calls. Innovation
amounted to adding a few color options to the basic black model,
and call rates occupied a stratosphere that only monopolies
inhabit.
Let's start with the opportunity. Clients have been telling us
for years that the law firm service model is abysmal. Association
of Corporate Counsel (ACC) surveys highlight year aer year that
lawyers don't return phone calls, that they are difficult to reach and
unresponsive. Altman Weil, BTI Consulting and others capture the
repeated complaint that lawyers don't trouble themselves to learn
their clients' businesses. And as though that weren't bad enough,
only a small fraction of chief legal officers surveyed by the ACC
believe firms are willing to change their service models.
But that's not the whole story. These complaints are about
lawyers failing to act in accordance with their clients' desires. But
by John Alber
Reframing the AI Question
in Law
Reframing the AI Question in Law
