Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a disruptive force in various markets, and its influence is only getting more pronounced while the demand for it grows. This includes the legal field: AI in the legal industry is projected to reach $2587.04 million in 2027, with a 29.17% progression rate between 2022 and 2027.
Today, professional skills go into the interdisciplinary territory; thus, legal specialists have to master legal tech AI as well if they want to stay on par. To illustrate, in 2023, nearly half of U.S. lawyers with low tech proficiency had unresolved client issues, compared to only 18% among those with high tech skills.
Such noticeable distinctions will affect the industry more with time, and the gap is already evident. The further evolution of AI in the legal field is already moving beyond solving simple tasks and offering state-of-the-art solutions to clients and firms alike.
Despite its known conservatism, the industry is embracing change rapidly. Let’s discuss how to follow its lead.
This article analyzes the benefits of reliable legal AI software, studies use cases, and evaluates challenges in the legal AI software market. We will describe the steps necessary to make your legal AI app practical and ethical.
What is legal AI software?
AI based legal software is a specialized professional tool or application that was developed to assist legal specialists with their expert tasks.
Although every tool has its particular specificities, legal AI solutions, as a rule, can process vast datasets particular to the industry by utilizing machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analytics. It can be helpful with anything from document analysis to identifying issues with legal decisions.
Although it’s possible to use generic AI instruments in a particular field, legal AI tools are designed specifically for a certain legal area or subject based on the team’s demands.
Benefits of legal AI software for law firms
Here are some of the advantages that such an instrument can bring to your team.
- Efficiency. AI for law firms automates tasks that can be particularly painful in this industry, so its ability to smooth routine processes is a definite win. Some functions, including contract review or legal research, can require hours to perform, which is rarely feasible. With AI assistance, cases are handled faster, and employees can work with more incoming inquiries than before.
- Cost savings. By automating labor-intensive tasks, AI legal software reduces operational costs for law firms. Such cutting-edge tools make it easier for firms to cut back on operating large teams or outsourcing routine tasks to other workers while performing the same responsibilities with comparable efficiency.
- Improved accuracy. Even the best professionals can make mistakes; that’s the nature of the human factor. AI tools for law firms mitigate this risk by delivering consistent results. They lead to better performance outcomes, improve credibility, and contribute to clients’ loyalty in the long-term perspective.
- Enhanced decision-making. AI powered legal research and analytics allow people in the field to make smarter decisions based on predictions about case outcomes. This can help summarize case data, performance statistics, or industry trends to develop more up-to-date client-oriented strategies. In a market that heavily relies on logic, the ability of innovative technologies to provide new insights is priceless.
Real-world applications of legal AI software
AI in legal tech has multiple uses. It can be successfully applied to perform tasks of various difficulty levels, with or without human assistance.
Document analysis
Lawyers regularly have to work with large volumes of data and find information in different documents within a limited period of time. AI excels at such objectives. It can easily process multiple legal sources, identify relevant pieces of evidence, and extract the main facts.
Advanced AI tools also provide answers for legal professionals and evaluate the information based on the incoming input.
Legal research
Both Common and Civil law require particular scrutiny of evidence for practice and academic purposes, and AI legal research can improve this process. AI software can find precedents, statutes, and legal cases with the help of NLP, which transforms how it operates with search queries and analyzes the results.
The number of searches it can conduct compared to a human researcher, combined with its precision, contributes to the data investigation capability.
Contract management
AI contract analysis can facilitate the creation and review of contracts by objectively examining the document’s key points and noticing the inconsistencies from the beginning. Currently, it already reviews the missing clauses and evaluates the contract’s compliance with legal standards.
Even though this procedure requires management and final revision by a human specialist, it simplifies contract management in firms that handle a wide range of such documents.
Litigation support and e-discovery
In litigation, AI supports e-discovery by sifting through vast amounts of digital evidence to identify relevant information for legal procedures. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the monotonous search process, lawyers can utilize the advantages of predictive analytics and machine learning to use only the information needed for their cases.
Regulatory compliance monitoring
Business and legal standards constantly change, and companies can fail to notice the transformations in the regulatory environments. A legal AI tool can track these changes across diverse jurisdictions and notify firms of potential risks in real time, right when the issue occurs. This ensures proactive risk management instead of facing legal consequences due to accidental mistakes.
Fraud detection and risk management
As technologies improve, they also get more sophisticated in cybercrime, which calls for better security. AI is an outstanding response to the latest fraud threats: it can analyze transactional data and communication patterns, noticing any anomalies as a result. AI powered legal solutions already prevent fraud and client data breaches in top law firms.
Legal chatbots for client engagement
Like in any other field, chatbots are a powerful tool for law firms, since they can provide 24/7 support. Such an instrument answers the most common legal questions and schedules consultations — this decreases the number of routine inquiries and enhances the firm’s overall performance.
Examples of legal AI software
LexisNexis
LexisNexis is an information analytics company that leverages AI for legal research and provides analytics services to its clients. Its product, Lexis+ AI, is claimed to be the fastest generative AI on the market that has document management services.
The company has also pushed forward the collaboration of AI and human experts in Lex Machina, targeting legal analytics for private and governmental clients.
Relativity
One of the newest products from Relativity, Relativity One is an AI tool for legal research and e-discovery that solves challenges in handling large datasets.
This instrument offers in-depth insights into legal, investigative, and compliance challenges. It also specializes in analyzing documents pertaining to litigation, investigations, regulatory requests, and data breaches.
Casetext
Casetext’s tool CARA A.I. assists legal specialists with research by analyzing briefs, identifying relevant case law, and suggesting precedents tailored to the arguments required for the practice.
It can operate with limited information and extract relevant case data from one-page documents, but its performance increases with additional information provided by the user.
Harvey
Harvey is a multifunctional AI legal assistant that offers services of support, document storage and management, research, and workflow improvement. Its industry-trained custom models are suitable for legal work in most fields of law.
Harvey is taught to interpret natural language queries, store and assess vast numbers of documents, and utilize multi-model agents to help legal professionals.
At Eastern Peak, we can help you create a secure, intelligent solution that automates legal workflows and enhances efficiency. Looking to build AI-driven legal software?
Addressing common challenges with legal AI software
Adopting new technology is always associated with risks, and AI for legal purposes can be especially challenging as its impact is not yet fully understood.
Ethical concerns and bias
The ethical question is one of the most pressing for AI systems since their objectivity depends on the data they are trained on. Unchecked and poorly curated datasets can make AI prejudiced or push them to make ethically questionable choices.
The industry itself is also under scrutiny: the law is one of the areas where potential mistakes can be costly, not only in monetary terms but also in terms of human resources. Developers must ensure complete transparency, regular algorithm reviews, and provide diverse datasets to prevent this issue.
Ensuring data security and privacy
Legal practices handle sensitive and confidential client information, necessitating secure data storage and proactive protection measures. Applying AI tools for lawyers should comply with strict security protocols, including end-to-end encryption and backup data storage.
Companies should develop a disaster recovery plan and regularly update their protection system. Their policies have to be in accordance with data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA, depending on their jurisdiction.
Regulatory compliance
Currently, AI usage is still in the grey area of regulatory standards, which makes compliance even more pressing. For example, the ability of AI to examine legal documents can be restricted by existing regulations. For this and similar reasons, businesses should be aware of the local and national limitations of AI implementation.
Firms should regularly consult AI vendors to verify that their software is updated to reflect the latest regulatory changes.
User trust and adoption
Adopting such technologies as AI legal tech software may need more effort to overcome the remaining mistrust among conservative lawyers or clients. From the professional perspective, employees can fear job loss or inaccuracy if their firms opt for new solutions. In turn, clients can fear the quality of the legal services with the input of non-human assistants.
Firms should adopt open and honest communication and make sure that their usage of AI is transparent and ethically viable.
Final thoughts
Legal AI will put firms ahead of their competitors, and while this technology is still fresh — soon, it’ll become necessary. Leveraging this strength will boost performance while allowing human professionals to focus on delivering creative and demanding intellectual tasks.
Businesses that create legal AI software implement innovation, building up their competencies. They will benefit financially and from the perspective of client loyalty, achieving lasting progress. However, making the best legal AI software requires going far and beyond accomplishing the existing legal tasks faster; it’s also about identifying less visible gaps and addressing them before anyone else.
Need help with legal AI software development? Our team specializes in creating solutions for diverse goals, and we can help you make an instrument that will solve the challenges unique to your firm. Contact us, and we’ll help you build legal AI software for your niche.
Read also: