The Atlanta Lawyer December/January 2020 | Page 20
robots completely?
iLawyer;
I, Lawyer;
or Bye-Bye
Lawyer
Robo-lawyering and the Future
of the Legal Profession.
DANIELA BRITTON
[email protected]
20
December/January 2020
A
recent global
study from
McKinsey
suggests that
between 400
million and
800 million
i n d i v i du a l s
could
be
displaced by
autom at i on
by 2030. While the most significant impact
is on manufacturing industries, advanced
data processing technologies and machine
learning also affect traditional professions,
such as doctors, accountants, and lawyers.
Research and review tools have already
entered the legal practice; contracts
and certain conflict resolution options
are available online, and new analytical
litigation tools advance quickly. While
attorneys welcome the benefits that come
with the automation of certain tasks, they
also take pride in their unique qualification
and long-established role as a “trusted
advisor.”
Therefore, the rise of technology also creates
fears: What legal tasks or jobs, if any, will go
away? Or will lawyers, in a science fiction-
like scenario, sooner or later be replaced by
My Lawyer, the Robot?
In Isaac Asimov’s book “I, Robot,” Susan
Calvin, the famous robopsychologist at
US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc.,
challenges the notion that robots are “just
mind and iron,” praising their loyalty and
cleanliness that surpassed that of humans.
While Asimov’s famous collection of essays
is a “vintage” work of fiction, it raises
timeless questions of morality, humanity,
and technology that impact every industry,
including the law. If machines can beat
humans in chess, Jeopardy, and GO – can
they be (better) lawyers as well?
Automation means, in general, two things:
the use of technology and the application
of artificial intelligence. While we use
Google, Westlaw and Lexis as well as certain
document review programs without even
thinking about it, we have to realize that
the internet and computers, in general, have
already significantly altered the practice
of law in the past decades, by changing the
way we draft documents, communicate with
colleagues and clients or manage discovery.
No one would seriously want to miss, let alone
fear, those tools. The use of machine learning
applications, however, seems different.
Computers that scan and sort documents,
provide cases and commentaries to legal
questions posed in plain English, or produce
contracts without even involving a lawyer
touch the very core of “lawyering” – and thus,