There is a widespread belief among lawyers and other professionals that investigators, armed only with special proprietary databases, can solve all kinds of problems other professionals cannot.
While certain databases are a help, we often tell our clients that even if we gave them the output of all the databases our firm uses, they would
Have you ever noticed that artificial intelligence always seems much more frightening when people write about what it will become, but then how it can seem like imperfect, bumbling software when writing about AI in the present tense?
You get one of each in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. The paper paints a horrific picture
Artificial intelligence doesn’t equal artificial perfection. I have argued for a while now both on this blog and in a forthcoming law review article here that lawyers (and the investigators who work for them) have little to fear and much to gain as artificial intelligence gets smarter.
Computers may be able to do a lot
An entire day at a conference on artificial intelligence and the law last week in Chicago produced this insight about how lawyers are dealing with the fast-changing world of artificial intelligence:
Many lawyers are like someone who knows he needs to buy a car but knows nothing about cars. He knows he needs to get
Do you ever wonder why some gifted small children play Mozart, but you never see any child prodigy lawyers who can draft a complicated will?
The reason is that the rules of how to play the piano have far fewer permutations and judgment calls than deciding what should go into a will. “Do this, not
We’ve had a great response to an Above the Law op-ed here that outlined the kinds of skills lawyers will need as artificial intelligence increases its foothold in law firms.
The piece makes clear that without the right kinds of skills, many of the benefits of AI will be lost on law firms because you
Anyone following artificial intelligence in law knows that its first great cost saving has been in the area of document discovery. Machines can sort through duplicates so that associates don’t have to read the same document seven times, and they can string together thousands of emails to put together a quick-to-read series of a dozen
By now, if a lawyer isn’t thinking hard about how automation is going transform the business of law, that lawyer is a laggard.
You see the way computers upended the taxi, hotel, book and shopping mall businesses? It’s already started in law too. As firms face resistance over pricing and are looking to get more
Lawyers need to find witnesses. They look for assets to see if it’s worth suing or if they can collect after they win. They want to profile opponents for weaknesses based on past litigation or business dealings.
Every legal matter turns on facts. Most cases don’t go to trial, fewer still go to appeal, but
We don’t usually think of the law as the place our most creative people go. Lawyers with a creative bent often drift into business, where a higher risk tolerance is often required to make a success of yourself. Some of our greatest writers and artists have legal training, but most seem to drop out when