Can You Hire Big Data & Fire Your Lawyer? The Future of AI in Business Law

One of the most hotly contested aspects of taking on artificial intelligence (AI) has always been the potential for machines to take over jobs that have historically belonged to humans. The debate’s first arena was in manufacturing, where machines are now doing most of the grunt work normally reserved for people—assembling products, painting parts and finished products, welding, bolting, and more. The result has been interesting. While AI has resulted in fewer people jobs in manufacturing, the jobs that exist now are far safer and generally pay better than ever before.

Think AI Can’t Get a Job? You Might be Surprised

But as big data and machine learning mature, it’s becoming clear that menial tasks that machines can take over aren’t reserved to ten-dollar-per-hour machinists. Those jobs now include many highly educated and well-paid professions. For example, if you do much online reading, it’s very probable that you’ve already read a few articles that weren’t written by a professional journalist, but by a computer. Yep, AI can write.

AI in the Legal Profession

Another profession that AI could soon take a chunk out of is the legal profession. Since businesses regularly pay $500 to $1,000 per hour for legal work (sometimes even more), the prospect of turning your big data into a replacement for the legal department is quite a draw. In fact, products that promise to do just that are already becoming available on the marketplace.

Can a machine really do as good a job as a real lawyer? According to many legal experts, when it comes to the systematic processing of information, machines can do even better. For example, reading a lengthy contract (which is most often printed in the most frustratingly tiny print possible) and assessing the pros and cons is quite tedious for people. But that same task is trivial to a machine. There are already tools on the market for reading and analyzing contracts, and at least one legal firm believes that AI will replace human legal departments almost completely as soon as 2030. While that sounds incredibly far away, it’s really just a scant 14 years.

Is It Time to Fire Your Lawyers?

But you may not want to call a meeting and give your legal department notice just yet. There are still some areas in which a real person is needed, and perhaps always will be. For example, machines don’t do such a stellar job when it comes to sitting down and alleviating the concerns of injured parties. Computers aren’t good at hand-holding with a grief-stricken family after a company accident causes the loss of a worker. They similarly aren’t good at talking down an angry worker who feels they were discriminated against, or at standing toe-to-toe with a company attempting a hostile takeover. Human lawyers excel at these things.

As with most jobs that AI might eventually take over, either partially or completely, it remains to be seen how legal work might look when it’s all said and done. Clearly, there are areas where a person will always be needed, just as with the factory and the news media. But many of the low-level and entry-level legal jobs that require systematic review and processing of basic information might give way to AI sooner rather than later.

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