For several years legal industry commentators like Richard Susskind have been predicting that technology in the form of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) will wind up replacing some lawyers when it comes to many of the routine tasks they now perform thereby further depressing the job market for new graduates. So far, the reality has not been as dire as the predictions. A new report by legal consulting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa says that, at least for the near term, they don’t anticipate AI will be replacing lawyers and thus having a negative impact on the job market but instead will be leveraged by them to perform certain tasks with greater efficiency. From page 9 of the firm’s newly published Industry Outlook Report for 2018:

One way legal leaders are increasing efficiencies, enhancing their service offerings and optimizing lawyers is with the help of deep learning technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). In 2017, firms and legal teams looked to these technologies to improve business management and service delivery, and enhance and expand capabilities. Since its emergence, AI has proved critical in legal research. Creating and automating certain legal functions can help teams better understand and classify data, determine trends, manage workflow, conduct due diligence and document review, and implement other prevention tools and processes. This frees up lawyers to handle legal analysis more efficiently and tackle more in-depth, complex matters. While ominous predictions hint at AI ultimately replacing lawyers, this is far from reality. Instead, AI combined with personnel will make way for a supercharged lawyer.

You can read the full report here.

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