Understanding the risks of AI in the legal market with Advanced
The dawn of AI has been as seismic as it’s been quick. With promises of efficiency and accuracy, artificial intelligence has firmly threaded its way into our everyday and professional lives, and even in some instances transforming how legal services are delivered and setting the stage for a promising, but not entirely risk-free, future. As AI continues its ascent, legal leaders must navigate its landscape carefully, weighing the potential benefits against the very real risks. Explore how AI is being harnessed in the legal sphere, the inherent risks, and the strategies for sensible implementation.
An unstoppable wave
The dawn of AI in the legal space is set to continue its fast pace, in our Legal Sector Trends Report, we found that upwards of 70% of law firms are either already using some form of artificial intelligence or actively researching how to implement it into their processes.
Unlike the fanfare that has preceded it, AI has infiltrated the legal space not as a professed revolutionary but as a quiet undercurrent, empowering lawyers, paralegals, and support staff alike with its unceasing prowess and learning capacity.
The AI revolution in the legal space has not been that of end-to-end automation – but rather automating laborious tasks such as document review and legal research, delivering rapid and nuanced insights. It predicts outcomes for complex legal battles, and can provide legal analytics, forecasts court decisions, mines data for litigation insights, and significantly aids strategy formulation and client advisories. Additionally, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are transforming legal consultations and routine queries, offering round-the-clock preliminary guidance, and significantly reducing client waiting times.
Understanding the risks
The legal profession is one of the most regulated, and as such law firms and legal professionals are tasked with dancing the delicate tightrope between delivering innovation and greater productivity with ensuring processes are secure and risks minimised at every turn.
This is one of the reasons why 10% of firms in our report told us that they were not considering AI whatsoever.
Caution is certainly not without merit in the realm of generative AI in particular. The opaque nature of some AI models, coupled with potential biases embedded within their programming, raises profound ethical quandaries, and transparency and accountability can become elusive if third parties hold critical legal implications. Not to mention tendencies for generative AI systems to hallucinate. Care needs to be taken when using AI systems to ensure that work produced by AI systems are accurate and not taken at face value. Using generative AI must come with the ability to verify any statements before use, or you risk facing fines and cases being thrown out, like these US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT.
There is also a big concern around data for firms when using AI systems built on large-language models. Without utilising providers that you can control the flow of data from, data inputted in such systems could be used by the system for further development. As law firms deal with privileged and sensitive information, this would pose a significant security risk that needs to be managed.
Managing risks to get ahead
Understanding the risks is but the first step; mitigation and management are the subsequent, and often more crucial, strides. Firms need to be proactive and strategic, enacting a paradigm of change that doesn’t jeopardise the client’s faith in legal service.
Procurement of any AI tools should pass a number of safeguarding points, particularly around the use of data, accuracy of systems and – beyond that – the robustness of your policies and procedures for working with AI tools to ensure that standards are maintained.
AI systems are not static entities; they require constant monitoring and recalibration. Law firms must institute regular reviews of AI tools, not only for technical bugs but also for intellectual property concerns, privacy breaches, and ethical implications.
Fostering an environment where AI acts as a complement to human skills, rather than a replacement, is key. This is achieved through appropriate training and knowledge sharing, ensuring that the human’s ability to perceive nuance and exercise empathy remains unparalleled.
Finally, insist on AI systems that can be explained and, if needed, defended. The creation of understandable AI models ensures that lawyers can vouch for the methods by which they were used, thereby maintaining professional ethics and regulatory compliance.
AI’s role in the legal sector is one of transformation and revolution, but with transformation comes inherent risk. Without adequate foresight and management, these risks could undermine the very fabric of legality that AI seeks to fortify. Law firm leaders must remain vigilant, aware, and above all, proactive in their approach to the challenges posed by AI. It is through this mindfulness that AI becomes not a tool of disruption, but of sustainable innovation and growth, synonymous with a legal system that not only evolves but adapts, all while maintaining its fundamental integrity.
