Why lawyers shouldn’t be afraid of AI and tech tools

Applying artificial intelligence to law is a concept that might cause some lawyers to feel queasy. Here’s some advice: get over it.

Applying artificial intelligence to the practice of law is a concept that might cause some lawyers to feel slightly queasy. Here’s some career advice: get over it.

Those who resist the rise of automated systems and tech tools such as machine learning need to remember the fate of those who once looked down their noses at newfangled concepts like email and thought computers were for support staff. Remember them?

Lyria Bennett Moses, who is one of the speakers at today’s conference, believes one remedy for tech phobia is to simply avoid the term “artificial intelligence” and focus on the automated tools and software products that are lowering the cost of legal practice and improving efficiency.

Bennett Moses, who is director of the Allens Hub for Technology, Law and Innovation, points to the way electronic discovery has transformed this labour-intensive process and urges lawyers to consider this sort of real-world tool instead of focusing on what she describes as the “almost sci-fi view of AI”.

She believes lawyers will increasingly need to understand these tools in order to know the limits of automated systems and recognise outside vendors of second-rate software.

“As these tools become more important in the delivery of legal services, if you don’t have enough of an orientation in that world, if you don’t understand what those products do, you will be less and less useful,” Bennett Moses says.