A growing number of legal startups now apply machine-learning techniques to these tasks. The algorithms can process much more paperwork than humans in a fraction of the time. They recognise clauses and point out anomalies. They might highlight contracts where liability is unlimited rather than limited. They can even point out contracts where key clauses are absent. The latter is something that humans do not always reliably do, says Noah Waisberg, a former corporate lawyer who founded Kira Systems, a software tool that uses machine learning to review contracts.

 

Machine learning can also help prepare for trial. It speeds up discovery, and assists lawyers in drawing up a litigating strategy. Lex Machina, a Silicon Valley startup now owned by Lexis Nexis, a legal-information provider, uses court documents from previous cases to make predictions about a particular case, such as its time to trial, its likelihood of success in various jurisdictions, and the damages it could win.

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