The Atlanta Lawyer August/September 2019 | Page 17

TECHNOLOGY
None of these methodologies include
the analysis of the legal merits of cases
- yet. Computer programs cannot read
as lawyers can. They lack background
knowledge; including general knowledge
about the world, human psychology, and
regulated domains. Computers also cannot
read statutes and extract legal rules in
logical form or “implicit” information.
And while they can compare contracts to
identify similarities and differences, they
cannot explain them. This makes it rather
obvious that Legal Analytics is a tool that
does not replace but rather complements
traditional methods of practice. Attorneys
shift from executory to supervisory
rules: Instead of researching and reading
the cases themselves, they will now use
their time to interpret the analytical
findings and draw inferences from the
extracted information. Chapman calls this
“supervised machine learning," adding
that, “80 to 90 percent is data clean-up
and getting the data ready to be analyzed."
Unfortunately, the legal industry is slow,
if not adverse, to change. According to
a survey by RELX Group polling 1,000
U.S. senior executives across the health
care, insurance, legal, science, banking
industries, and government regarding the
use of big data in some form, law finished
last among industries and just ahead of
government. Many lawyers suffer from
severe “technophobia,." Only 44 percent
of the law firm leaders surveyed by RELX
Group said they offer employee training on
big data, artificial intelligence and machine
learning. Law also lagged in its use of AI
machine learning and automation adoption.
Who needs Legal Analytics?
Simply put, everyone needs Legal
Analytics. Despite functional and practical
barriers, there is no way around Legal
Analytics. Law firms have to adopt an
interdisciplinary approach because their
clients embrace change and innovation.
“Data is critical to rapid, informed
decision making,” states Mark A. Cohen,
business consultant and Distinguished
Fellow at Northwestern University
Pritzker School of Law. “It is also essential
to streamlining internal operations,
identifying and mitigating risks, gauging
performance and reward, and fashioning
individual and collective benchmarks from
which to measure and catalyze constant
improvement.”
Using commercial Legal Analytics products
such as the new Context® by Lexis, might
not be enough. “Commercial products are
a black box,” says Chapman. “The issue
is: How much do you trust it?” Experts
call analytics a “critical competency”
of any future lawyer. “If lawyers don’t
have the capacity to critically evaluate
insights provided by data or the platforms
crunching and producing the data, lawyers
are ceding control over a major part of
their jobs and obligations to clients,”
warns Anne Tucker, Professor of Law at
Georgia State University College of Law.
“At the core of the work of being a lawyer is
problem-solving. Computational thinking
and critical analysis are problem-solving
tools that we think tomorrow’s lawyers
will need.” Tucker and her colleagues are
building the curriculum, courses, and
events of their Legal Analytics & Innovation
Initiative on their vision of “data fluency.”
Law students learn basic computer coding,
text mining, natural language processing,
and machine learning, and apply their
newly acquired skills in interdisciplinary
labs. “Thinking like a coder, i.e., breaking
problems down and using appropriate
tools, gives you a competitive advantage,”
says Chapman. “You can make your
partner smart - and yourself indispensable.”
For further reading into legal analtyics,
here are some suggestions:
Richard Susskind, Tomorrow's Lawyers -
An Introduction To Your Future
OUP Oxford, Second Edition (2017)
Kevin D. Ashley, Artificial Intelligence
and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law
Practice in the Digital Age
Cambridge University Press (July 10,
2017)
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