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The Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Research in the Legal Profession

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Preprints (www.preprints.org) | NOT PEER-REVIEWED | Posted: 5 October 2021 doi:10.20944/preprints202110.0085.v1

The Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Research in the Legal Profession

Samuel Maireg Biresaw1*

1 LLB, LLM in Business Law, LLM in International Commercial and Business Law (University of East Anglia,
UK), Lecturer in Laws, Debre Tabor University School of Law

*
Correspondence: [email protected] or https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7078-3643

Abstract

Legal research is an indispensable skill for lawyers. Therefore, it is always necessary for
lawyers to engage in legal research in due course of trying to alleviate various legal problems.
Although the purpose and methodology of the research may vary from lawyer to lawyer,
doing research is a common activity. As a result, the quest to assess the impacts of artificial
intelligence (hereinafter ‘AI’) on legal research allows one to measure the influence of AI on
the legal profession in general. Moreover, with the advent of Legal AI, it is now evident that
the legal profession is not immune from disruption. According to the above, this article
discusses the impacts of AI on research in the legal profession in general in accomplishing
various lawyerly tasks by different legal professionals.

Key Words

Artificial intelligence; Legal research; Disruption; Legal AI tools

Introduction

Legal research, which refers to the process of identifying, analyzing, and applying the law to
solve a particular problem, is a core lawyering skill that significantly contributes to almost
every aspect of legal practice.1 There is no particular field in the legal profession that does
not involve the underway of legal research.2 Hence, legal research is determinant to almost all
the activities of legal professionals.3 Although different professionals may undertake different
types of research in scope, nature, and magnitude, researching the law is a common

1
Mike McConville & Wing Hong Chui, Research Methods for Law (Edinburgh University Press 2007) 7, 8.
2
Carol M. Bast & Margie Hawkins, Foundations of Legal Research and Writing (4th edn., Delmar Cengage
Learning 2010) 9; Amy E. Sloan, Basic Legal Research, Tools and Strategies (7th edn., Wolters Kluwer 2018)
12.
3
P M Bakshi, Legal Research and Law Reform, in S K Verma & M Afzal Wani, Legal Research and
Methodology (2nd edn, Indian Law Institute 2001) 111-137.

© 2021 by the author(s). Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY license.

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denominator to accomplish the tiniest of legal tasks.4 Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to

conclude that the quality of legal services rendered by lawyers is directly dependent on the
quality of the research undertaken to that effect.5

Due to the above correlation, when one tries to measure the impact of AI on legal research,
implicitly s/he is also assessing the impact of AI on the entirety of legal practice. This is
because (1) almost all activities in law are done through the instrumentality of legal research,
and therefore (2) all types of legal professionals necessarily engage in legal research to
accomplish legal tasks.6 For example, legal research can be done by judges7, practicing
lawyers8, legislators9, Arbitrators, law professors and students10, paralegals11, legal aid
providers, law clerks, law librarians, private investigators, law enforcement officials, writers,
authors, and other institutions.12

Accordingly, this article contains five parts. Part one deals with the historical background of
AI. Then part two discusses the definition of AI. Then, part three discusses the definitions
and conceptual analysis of Legal research. Thereafter, part four discusses the positive impacts
of AI on research in the legal profession and legal AI tools currently impacting legal research.
Then part five discusses the negative impacts of AI on research in the legal profession. Then,
the last part deals with the conclusion of the study.

1. The Historical Background of Artificial Intelligence

In 1950, British mathematician Alan Turing published a paper on computing machinery and
intelligence posing the question of whether machines can think.13 However, the term AI was
put to use for the first time in August 1955 in the Dartmouth Summer Research Conference
Project Proposal authored by John McCarthy, Marvin L. Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and

4
J. C. Thomas, ‘A Modest Programme for the Improvement of Law Teaching’, (1978) 9 (4) Victoria University
of Wellington Law Review 405, 426
<https://heinonline.org/HOL/handle=hein.journals/vuwlr9&div=6&id=&page=> accessed 06 July 2021.
5
T. Hutchinson, Researching and Writing in Law (2nd edn., Pyrmont NSW 2006) 7.
6
Dawn Watkins & Mandy Burton, Research Methods in Law (2nd edn., Routledge Publisher 2018) 8, 9.
7
Frederick C Hicks, Materials and Methods of Legal Research (3rd edn., Lawyers Cooperative Pub. Co 1942)
23, 31.
8
D. W. Vick, ‘Interdisciplinary and the Discipline of Law’, (2004) 31 (2) Journal of Law and Society 163, 177
<https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2004.00286.x> accessed 06 July 2021
9
John C Wahlke & Heinz Eulau, Legislative Behavior-A Reader in Theory and Research (Free Press of Glencoe
1959) 413.
10
Amy E. Sloan, Basic Legal Research, Tools and Strategies (7th edn., Wolters Kluwer 2018) 12.
11
Edward A. Nolfi, Basic Legal Research for Paralegals (2nd edn., Iriwin Publishers 2008) 15.
12
Valerie Atkinson Brown, Legal Research via the Internet (West Thomson Publishers 2001) 23.
13
OECD (2019), Artificial Intelligence in Society, OECD Publishing, Paris, p 20,
<https://doi.org/10.1787/eedfee77-en> accessed 06 July 2021

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Claude Shannon.14 John McCarthy, who is typically thought to have coined the term AI was
an American computer and cognitive scientist, and one of the founders of the AI discipline.
Marvin Lee Minsky was an American cognitive scientist in the field of AI and one of the
main AI theorists.15

When it comes to the use and application of AI in the legal profession, AI has been in use
within the meaning attributed to it by computer science since the 1960s. 16 Computer-Assisted
Legal Research (CALR) debuted in the mid-1960s, but the first CALR systems were
primitive by today’s standards and not widely available.17

The CALR revolution gained ground with the introduction of Lexis in 1973, which was the
first commercial, full-text, electronic database of case law and was aggressively marketed to
attorneys and judges.18 In the same year, four New York law firms subscribed to the Lexis
legal information service.19 This event ushered in the start of a new era for legal technology.
The Lexis service rapidly expanded because for the first time lawyers had a comprehensive
and searchable electronic access to case law, unprecedented in size and scope, which greatly
simplified the research process.20

West Publishing Company followed Lexis in entering the electronic legal research market in
1975. The initial Lexis and Westlaw databases were much more limited. By the mid-1980s,
both systems offered a considerable selection of international legal authorities. By 1990,
LexisNexis was processing 100,000 online searches in one day; by 1998, that number grew to
600,000. By 1994, nearly all major law firms in the United States had access to Lexis and

14
Alzbeta Krausova, ‘Intersections between Law and Artificial Intelligence, International Journal of Computer’
(IJC) (2017) 27 (1), 55, 68. <https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229656008.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
15
Daniel Ben-Ari, Yael Frish, Adam Lazovski, Uriel Eldan, & et al, ‘Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of
Law: An Analysis and Proof of Concept Experiment’ (2017) 23 (2) Rich. J. L. & Tech. 3, 53
<http://jolt.richmond.edu/index.php/volume23_issue2_greenbaum/> accessed 06 July 2021
16
Richard E. Susskind, Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Law, (1990) 5 (1) the Denning Law Journal
105, 116 <http://bjll.org/index.php/dlj/article/view/196> accessed 06 July 2021
17
Catalina Goanta, Gijs van Dijck, Gerasimos Spanakis, Back to the Future: Waves of Legal Scholarship on
Artificial Intelligence, Forthcoming in Sofia Ranchordás and Yaniv Roznai, Time, Law and Change (Oxford,
Hart Publishing, 2019)
18
Paul Hellyer, Assessing the Influence of Computer-Assisted Legal Research: A Study of California Supreme
Court Opinions (2005) <https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/libpubs/5> accessed 06 July 2021
19
Katherine Medianik, ‘Artificially Intelligent Lawyers Updating the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in
accordance with the Technological Era’ (2018) 39 Cardozo Law Review 1498, 1530
<http://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MEDIANIK.39.4.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
20
Stephen Miller, ‘For Future Reference, a Pioneer in Online Reading’ (2012) WALL ST. J.
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203721704577157211501855648> accessed 06 July 2021

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Westlaw.21 Currently, LexisNexis had 15,000 databases and over 9 million subscribers
worldwide and Westlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and
legal professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia with more than
40,000 databases of legal information.22

Then, machine intelligence, which is already extraordinarily advanced in discovery, was put
to use. Electronic discovery, also known as ‘e-discovery’, is the “process by which computers
search a database for keywords that lawyers agree are marks of relevance.” Courts and the
U.S. Department of Justice have already approved predictive coding as a tool for discovery.
Specifically, the United States District Court, S.D. New York in Moore v. Publicis Groupe
held that computer-assisted review could now be considered “judicially-approved for use” in
appropriate cases.23

Scholars also predict that AI will soon be able to draft legal briefs and memoranda by
collaborating up with legal research programs and will be able to conduct predictive analytics
to predict case outcomes by relying on data patterns.24 Besides, machine intelligence is
continuing to revolutionize the use of legal forms by tailoring various forms to meet
individual situations.25

At present, AI is becoming a hot topic in the legal world.26 As stated by Mr. Andrew Arruda,
the Director of Ross Intelligence, ROSS, the world’s first AI lawyer, built on IBM’s
cognitive computer ‘Watson’, was designed to read and understand natural language,
postulate hypotheses when asked questions, conduct legal research, and write thorough legal
memoranda, along with references and citations. Essentially, ROSS uses algorithms to mimic
the human brain’s learning, analytical, and decision-making processes.27

21
Hellyer, Paul, ‘Assessing the Influence of Computer-Assisted Legal Research: A Study of California Supreme
Court Opinions’ (2005) Library Staff Publications 5 <https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/libpubs/5> accessed 06
July 2021
22
John O. McGinnis and Russell G. Pearce ‘The Great Disruption: How Machine Intelligence Will Transform
the Role of Lawyers in the Delivery of Legal Services’, (2014) 82 Fordham Law Review 3041
<https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol82/iss6/16> accessed 06 July 2021
23
Moore vs Publics Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182 182 (S.D.N.Y. 2012)
24
Ibid, John O. McGinnis and Russell G. Pearce supra note 22
25
Mary Ann Neary & Sherry Xin Chen, ‘Artificial Intelligence: Legal Research and Law Librarians’ (2017)
AALL SPECTRUM 16, 20 <https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/lsfp/1073/> accessed 06 July 2021
26
Hannah Augur, ‘AI Is the Future of Law - And Lawyers Know It’, (2016) Dataconomy
<http://www.dataconomy.com/ai-future-law-lawyers-know> accessed 06 July 2021
27
Andrew Arruda, ‘Artificial Intelligence Systems and the Law’ (2016) Peer To Peer Mag. 38, 39
<http://epubs.iltanet.org/i/696855-summer-2016/37> accessed 06 July 2021

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Accordingly, the legal field is currently intrigued by the addition of AI technology in the
workplace, and rightfully so. Older lawyers have never imagined such technological
advancement and young lawyers are undoubtedly attracted to it. With this mindset, not only
will the use of cutting-edge AI technology lure lawyers to firms, it will lure clients in as
well.28

Regarding AI research, from 1960 until early 2018, nearly 340,000 patent families and more
than 1.6 million scientific papers related to AI were published. The number of patent
applications filed annually in the AI field grew by a factor of 6.5 between 2011 and 2017. AI
is also a major topic in scientific literature, with 1,636,649 papers published up to mid-
2018.29

Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to conclude that, in the last 25 years, due to the advent of
technology every aspect of legal practice (such as legal education, hiring, client acquisition,
communication, and maintenance, court docketing, and judicial workflow; and discovery
production) has changed. 30

On the other hand, from 2012–2018 increased availability of data, connectedness, and
computational power allowed for breakthroughs in machine learning, mainly in neural
networks and deep learning, heralding a new era of increased funding and optimism for
innovation in the entire field of AI in general and in legal tech startups in particular.31 For
example in the UK, the UK Digital Strategy published in March 2017 allocated millions of
pounds in funding for UK universities to develop AI technologies.32

Finally, the release of Apple’s ‘Siri’ in 2011, the defeat of the two human champions by
IBM’s ‘Watson’ at the TV quiz named ‘Jeopardy’ in 2011, the autonomous navigation of
Google’s driverless cars in 2012, and the defeat of the world champion (Mr. Lee Sedol) by

28
Sterling Miller, ‘Ten Things: Artificial Intelligence-What Every Legal Department Really Needs to Know’
(2017) 1 <https://sterlingmiller2014.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/> accessed 06 July 2021
29
WIPO ‘Technology Trends 2019 Artificial Intelligence’, 39
30
Alyson Carrel, ‘Legal Intelligence Through Artificial Intelligence Requires Emotional Intelligence: A New
Competency Model for the 21st Century Legal Professional’ (2019) 35 (4) Georgia State U. L. Rev. 1153, 1183
<https://readingroom.law.gsu.edu/gsulr/vol35/iss4/4> accessed 06 July 2021
31
Daniel Ben-Ari & et al, supra note 15, 3, 53
32
The OECD, ‘Artificial Intelligence in Society’ (2019) OECD Publishing 36, 47
<https://doi.org/10.1787/eedfee77-en> accessed 06 July 2021

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Google’s ‘AlphaGo’ in the complicated board game of ‘Go’ in 2016 were typical milestones
in the recent development of AI.33

2. Definition of Artificial Intelligence

An AI system, as explained by the OECD’s AI Experts Group (AIGO), is a system based on

algorithms and self-learning guided by machine learning and deep learning, which can
perform certain human cognitive capabilities by interacting with the environment through
sensors, processing information, and adopting decisions and taking actions, with a certain
degree of autonomy. 34

To discern the true meaning of AI stated above, it is necessary to define its constituent
elements, which are, an algorithm, machine learning, and deep learning.

Accordingly, an ‘algorithm’ is a finite sequence of automated procedures (instructions, rules,

or actions) executed systematically at a much higher speed to solve a given class of
problems.35 Hence, an algorithm-driven system constitutes a structured process to provide a
solution to any instance of a recurrent problem. It is via the implementation of algorithm-
driven systems that it is possible to automate a variety of decisions, tasks, or processes such
as data classifying, searching, scoring, ordering, ranking, selecting, and filtering.36 The very
purpose of an algorithm is programming through instructions with the view that such
instruction-based programming will entail predictability, as the outcomes are essentially the
expected results of the pre-conditions, the decision criteria, and the algorithm design.37

The other main component of AI is ‘Machine learning’. It refers to the parsing of data to
learn, predict, and adopt a decision based on a set of variables. 38 Machine learning is so
revolutionary because programs using this process learn how to give the proper outputs, i.e.,
correctly accomplish their tasks (or become better), with limited or no instruction as to how

33
WIPO Technology Trends, ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (2019) 19; OECD (2019), 20; See ‘Go the Movie” on
YouTube, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y>; Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse, ‘The
Future Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Humans and Human Rights’ (2019) 33 (2) Ethics & International
Affairs 141, 158 <https://www.hks.harvard.edu/publications/future-impact-artificial-intelligence> accd. 06/2021
34
The OECD 2019, supra note 32
35
Whittlestone J., Nyrup R., Alexandrova A., & et al., ‘Ethical and societal implications of algorithms, data, and
artificial intelligence: a roadmap for research’ (2019) London: Nuffield Foundation 1, 59
<https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/sites/default/files/files/Ethicalpdf> accessed 06 July 2021
36
Teresa Rodrıguez de las Heras Ballell, ‘Legal Challenges of Artificial Intelligence: Modeling the Disruptive
Features of Emerging Technologies and Assessing their possible Legal Impact’ (2019) 24 University of Florida
L. Rev. 302, 314 <https://academic-oup-com.eres.qnl.qa/ulr/article-abstract/24/2/302/5526861> accesd. 06/2021
37
Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse, supra note 33
38
Zoubin Ghahramani, ‘Probabilistic Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence’ (2015) 521 Nature 452, 459
<https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14541> accessed 06 July 2021

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they should accomplish the specific task. These programs use ‘iteration’, a process of
repetitively feeding data into an algorithm to improve their outputs. Over time, these
programs can make their judgments based on previous data from similar but not identical
tasks.39

On the other hand, ‘deep learning’ is a technique within machine learning tools that aims to
enable example-based learning of machines and autonomous systems.40 Instead of instructing
the system with a set of pre-determined instructions, deep learning provides a model for the
machine to evaluate examples and infer patterns for the solving of future problems. It is from
the harmonious application of the stated components that AI will be capable of processing a
given instruction and provide a required outcome.41

Accordingly, AI is viewed as an artificial system that performs tasks under varying, but
predictable circumstances and without significant human oversight. Such systems could also
learn from their experiences while improving their performances (for the future) and might
even solve tasks requiring human-like perception, cognition, planning, learning,
communication, or physical actions.42

On the other hand, given its elusive nature, different professionals have defined AI differently
from different perspectives. This made it difficult to coin a universally agreeable definition of
AI. For example, from the perspective of what it is made up of, AI can be portrayed as a
system that includes both hardware and software components, which may refer to a robot, a
program running on a single computer, a program run on networked computers, or any other
set of components that hosts an AI.43

From the viewpoint of legal recognition, AI is most often considered as work resulting from
intellectual activity that can be protected by intellectual property law as software44 through

39
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, ‘Artificial Intelligence: Application Today and Implications Tomorrow’ (2017)
16 Duke Law & Technology Review 85, 99 <https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dltr/vol16/iss1/3> acesd. 06/2021
40
Jeff Hawkins, ‘What Intelligent Machines Need to Learn from the Neocortex’ (2017) IEEE Spectrum 1
<https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/what-intelligent-machines> accessed 06 July 2021
41
Peter Yeoh, ‘Artificial Intelligence: Accelerator or Panacea for Financial Crime?’ (2019) 26 (2) Journal of
Financial Crime 634, 646 <https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle> accessed 06 July 2021
42
Hoadley and Lucas, ‘Artificial Intelligence and National Security’ (2019) Congressional Research Service 1
<https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R45178.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
43
Alzbeta Krausova, supra note 14, 55-68
44
Lincoln Tsang, Daniel A. K., Jacqueline Mulryne & et al, ‘The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Medical
Innovation in the European Union and United States’ (2017) 29 (8) The Intellectual Property & Technology
Law Journal 1, 8 <https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/publications/2017/08/> accessed 06 July 2021

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copyright.45 Under certain conditions, AI can also be protected by a software patent.46 The
law also accords protection to AI systems that are inseparably incorporated into physical
devices such as robots by considering them as products.47

From the perspective of its end purpose, AI can be defined as the process of simulating
human intelligence through machine processes.48 In this regard, the end goal is to create
artificially intelligent machines, often in the form of robots that can perform traditionally
human tasks better and more efficiently than humans ever could.49

Accordingly, experts in the field of AI classify such artificially intelligent machines into two
major types: the first is General AI that refers to an extremely complex machine (algorithm or
set of algorithms) that think like people across multifaceted problem domains and have the
ability to reason generally, which is the goal for the future (currently hypothetical).50

The second is called Narrow (applied/ specialized) AI that refers to systems designed to
execute specific tasks or a single function, and will never rival the cognitive depth of a
human being.51 Good examples are playing ‘chess’ or ‘Go’, or diagnosing an illness. Narrow
AI is already functional in various aspects of human life often with greater accuracy and
efficiency than human beings.52 It should be noted that these two approaches to AI rely on
machine learning, which is the process of teaching a program to learn from user-fed data to

45
M. D. Goldberg, D. O. Carson, ‘Copyright Protection for Artificial Intelligence Systems’ (1991) 39 (1)
Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 57, 75
<http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/jocoso39> accessed 06 July 2021
46
E. J. Schaal, ‘Infringing a Fantasy: Future Obstacles Arise for the United States Patent Office and Software
Manufacturers Utilizing Artificial Intelligence’ (2004) 11 (1) Villanova Sports & Entertainment Law Journal
173, 202 <https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article> accessed 06 July 2021
47
K. Alhelt, ‘The Applicability of the EU Product Liability Directive to Software’ (2001) 34(2) Comparative
and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 188, 209 Available:
<http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/ciminsfri34> accessed 06 July 2021
48
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, supra note 39
49
Kris Hammond, ‘What is Artificial Intelligence?’ (2015) Computer World 1
<https://www.computerworld.com/article/2906336/> accessed 06 July 2021
50
Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse, supra note 33, General AI is often referred to as “super intelligence”
Google’s ‘Deep-Mind’ and ‘Google Brain’, along with other initiatives at other major tech companies, are
pushing AI towards ‘super-intelligence’.
51
OECD, ‘OECD Digital Economy Outlook’ (2017) OECD Publishing, Paris 1
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264276284-en> accessed 06 July 2021
52
‘Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Profession’ (2018) The Law Society of England and Wales, Horizon
Scanning Report 1 <https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/support-services/research-trends/horizon-scanning/artificial-
intelligence/, Examples of Narrow AI systems are Google’s Self Driving Cars, IBM’s ‘Watson’, Apple’s ‘Siri’,
‘Google Assistant’ or Amazon’s ‘Alexa’, AI-powered ‘chatbot doctor’, ‘Melody’, developed by Chinese search
giant Baidu, & Google’s AlphaGo etc.

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respond to completely new data in the future, without the need to program a specific set of
instructions for every possible data point.53

From the perspective of its artificial nature, AI can be defined as a non-biological

autonomous entity. However, the term autonomous in this definition should be taken as the
ability of AI to process data by itself and by no means prohibits any situation in which human
and AI experts are working alongside one another (also called co-robotics).54

On the other hand, the notion AI is made up of two words “Artificial” which implies a good
made by people, often as a copy of something natural, and “Intelligence” which may refer to:
“the ability to learn and understand or to deal with new or trying situations”, or “the skilled
use of reason”, or “the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to
think abstractly as measured by objective criteria”.55

Accordingly, AI is an artificially developed intelligence, created as an alternative to humans,

or a crafted machine with embedded learning and analysis capabilities, mastered to comply
with real-life situations and to perform, as much as accurately possible, the tasks and works
once done by men.56

Simply put, AI is that activity devoted to making machines intelligent, and intelligence is that
quality that enables an entity to function appropriately and with foresight in its environment.
As famously stated by, the British mathematician Alan Turing, one of the pioneers in the
field of AI “a computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into
believing that it was human”.57

However, it should be noted that AI is not intelligent in the sense that it does not know what
it is doing, or why it is doing it. An AI system is not really ‘reasoning’ or ‘thinking’ but is

53
Sean Semmler and Zeeve Rose, supra note 39
54
Thomas Julius Buocz ‘Artificial Intelligence in Court Legitimacy Problems of AI Assistance in the Judiciary’
(2018) 2 (1) 1, Retskraft-Copenhagen Journal of Legal Studies 41, 59
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59db92336f4ca35190c650a5/.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
55
Maxi Scherer, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Legal Decision-Making: The Wide Open Study on the Example of
International Arbitration’ (2019) Queen Mary University of London, School of Law Legal Studies Research
Paper No. 318 1, 33 <https://ssrn.com/abstract=3392669> accessed 06 July 2021
56
Maxim Dobrinoiu, ‘The Influence of Artificial Intelligence on Criminal Liability, Challenges of the
Knowledge Society’ (2019) 140 Criminal Law, Lex ET Scientia Int’l J. 48, 52
<http://cks.univnt.ro/download/cks_2019_articles%252F1_criminal_law%252FCKS.pdf> accesd. 06 July 2021
57
‘16 Artificial Intelligence projects from Deloitte: Practical cases of applied AI Unleash the power of AI for
your organization’ (2018) Deloitte Netherlands 5, 37
<https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/nl/Documents/.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021

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following a set of pre-programmed computational steps (expert systems) or mathematically

analyzing a huge amount of data to infer a probability (machine learning).58

As adequately emphasized by Steven Pinker, AI does not have intentionality or a real

attitude, but only sets tasks and goals; unlike humans, it does not make real judgments based
on principles, rules, priorities, or values.59

In 1956, Professor John McCarthy, at a conference held in Dartmouth College, New

Hampshire, USA was credited with introducing the term ‘AI’ as: ‘the science and engineering
of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs.60 Since then AI is
portrayed as a machine that behaves in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were
so behaving.61

Similarly, in 1968 Marvin Minsky, one of the founders of AI, described AI as the science of
making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by man. In this sense, AI
is pursued at least for two reasons: to understand the workings of human intelligence and to
create useful computer programs and computers that can perform intelligently. 62 Therefore,
AI can be broadly characterized as intelligence by machines and software.63

Similarly, AI can be practically defined as the theory and development of computer systems
that can perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception,
speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.64 Thus, it is quite
evident from the above definitions that human intelligence is taken as a benchmark to
measure AI.

Similarly, Richard Susskind, a prominent expert in AI, defined AI as a field of study

concerned with the design, development, and implementation of computer systems that can
perform tasks and solve problems of a sort for which human intelligence is normally thought

58
Michael Legg and Felicity Bell, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Legal Profession: A Primer’ The Law Society
of University of New South Wales: The Future of Law and Innovation in the Profession’ (2017) 2, 24
<https://www.allenshub.unsw.edu.au/sites/20Primer.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
59
Steven Pinker, Enlightment Now, the Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Penguines Book
Limited Publishers, 2018) 35
60
Nachshon Sean Goltz & Giulia Dondoli (2019) ‘A Note on Science, Legal Research and Artificial
Intelligence, Information & Communications Technology Law’ (2019) 28 (3) 239, 251
<https://doi.org/10.1080/13600834.2019.1644065> accessed 06 July 2021
61
Maxi Scherer, supra note 55, 1, 33
62
Edwina L. Rissland, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Law: Stepping Stones to a Model of Legal Reasoning’ 99 (8)
Yale Law Journal 1957, 1981 <https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol99/iss8/4/> accessed 06 July 2021
63
Ibid, Daniel Ben-Ari & et al, supra note 15, 35-36
64
David Schatsky, Craig Muraskin, and Ragu Gurumurthy, ‘Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: What
Business Leaders Need to Know about Cognitive Technologies’ (Report, Deloitte University Press, 2014) 3

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to be required.65 So AI as a field of science and technology is employed where processes are

used to carry out tasks, i.e. the processes that mimic, imitate, or simulate intelligence.66

AI may also be defined by reference to the tasks it performs (such as visual perception,
speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages) and the processes
used to perform tasks: expert systems, machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, neural
networks) and so on.67

In general, AI is an umbrella term that refers to teaching a machine how to do a task that was
thought to be human.68 That is why, in its January 2018 book, ‘The Future Computed’
Microsoft defined AI as “a set of technologies that enable computers to perceive, learn,
reason and assist in decision-making to solve problems in ways that are similar to what
people do.”69

When it comes to AI in the legal profession, it can be conventionally defined as programing

computer technologies (such as machine learning, natural language processing, speech
recognition, legal robotics, planning, natural image understanding, rule-based expert system,
neural networks, logic programming, artificial vision, machine learning, and neural networks)
to process, analyze and finalize various legal tasks historically performed by lawyers.70

In summary, AI collectively covers a range of technologies from simple software to sentient

robots, and everything in between and unavoidably includes both algorithms and data.71

65
Richard E. Susskind, ‘Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Law’ (1990) 5 (1) The Denning Law Journal
105, 116 <http://bjll.org/index.php/dlj/article/view/196> accessed 06 July 2021
66
Tania Sourdin, ‘Judge V Robot? Artificial Intelligence and Judicial Decision Making’ (2018) 41 (4) UNSW
Law Journal 1114, 1133 <http://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/article/> accessed 06 July 2021
67
Michael Legg and Felicity Bell, supra note 58, 2, 24
68
Andrew Arruda, ‘An Ethical Obligation to Use Artificial Intelligence: An Examination of the Use of Artificial
Intelligence in Law and the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility’ (2017) 40 (3) American Journal of
Trial Advocacy 443, 459 <https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
69
Microsoft, The Future Computed Artificial Intelligence and its role in society (Microsoft Corporation 2018) 1,
139 <https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2018/01/17> accessed 06 July 2021
70
Jyoti Dabass & B. S. Dabass, ‘Scope of Artificial Intelligence in Law’ (2018) 1, 9
<https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5162/30d30d972.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
71
Kevin D. Ashley, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law Practice in the Digital Age
(Cambridge University Press 2017) 1, 426

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3. Definition and Conceptual Analysis of Legal Research

3.1 Definition of Legal Research

Legal research can be defined differently from different perspectives. The term is composed
of two words, ‘Legal’ and ‘Research’. Accordingly, the term ‘research’ refers to any
gathering of data, information, and facts for the advancement of knowledge.72 Similarly,
research can be defined as a studious inquiry or examination; especially investigation or
experimentation aimed at the discovery and interpretation of facts, revision of accepted
theories or laws in the light of new facts, or practical application of such new or revised
theories or laws.73 Therefore, research is the act of searching into a matter closely and
carefully, inquiry directed to the discovery of truth and in particular, the trained scientific
investigation of the principles and facts of any subject, based on an original and first-hand
study of authorities or experiment.74

On the other hand, research can also be portrayed as a process of steps used to collect and
analyze information to increase an understanding of a topic or an issue.75 Research refers to
the process of identification of a problem, the ascertainment of the relevant facts, their logical
ordering and classification, the use of logic (science) to interpret the collected and classified
facts, and the assertion of conclusions premised on and supported by the collected
information.76 In this sense, research is a creative and systematic work undertaken to increase
the stock of knowledge and to devise new applications of available (existing) knowledge.77

It is logical to conclude from the above definitions that ‘research’ is the careful, diligent,
exhaustive, and systematic (scientific) investigation (search/pursuit) of a specific subject
matter (knowledge) to know (discovering) the truth and making an original contribution in
the existing stock (body) of knowledge.

72
Nachshon S. Goltz & Giulia Dondoli, supra note 60
73
The Encyclopedia Britannica 16th Edition (2016)
74
Ibid
75
Michael Salter and Julie Mason, Writing Law Dissertations, an Introduction and Guide to the Conduct of
Legal Research (Pearson Longman Publishers 2007) 1, 245
76
John W. Creswell, Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and
Qualitative Research (4th ed, Pearson 2012) 1, 56
77
Frascati Manual 2015: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental
Development, The Measurement of Scientific, Technological and Innovation Activities, (OECD Publishing
2015) 43, 195 < https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264239012-en.> accessed 06 July 2021

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On the other hand, legal research can be defined as a systematic finding or ascertaining of the
law on the identified problem or in the given area as well as an inquiry into law to solve a
particular problem or making advancement in the science of law.78

Accordingly, in a rough sense, legal research can be described as the process by which
lawyers identify (find), read (retrieve), interpret (analyze and synthesize) the content of the
law, and explain the law to their clients or to judges or to support legal decision making.79
Therefore, legal research is an important part of being a lawyer, and that is why it is believed
that the clients are indeed paying a price for the quality of legal research undertaken by
lawyers on a particular problem.80

However, it should be emphasized that as far as they can access the law and have the required
knowledge, non-lawyers can also do legal research, whether to resolve a private dispute,
understand and work with a legal professional, or assist in their own academic or professional
development and so on.81

Legal research also includes the process of identifying the pertinent facts and legal issues
related to a particular problem, finding and using relevant secondary sources, finding and
using governing (appropriate and up to date) primary sources (law) and case law, analyzing
the law as it relates to the legal issues and the facts of the case (application) and
communicating the findings of the inquiry and analysis.82

On the other hand, the fact that the scope of the law is vast and its nature is ever-changing,
and it is different from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, has made it impossible for anyone to know
all the law about every topic and from every jurisdiction.83 In turn, these facts made legal
research indispensable for lawyers to be able to stay abreast of the continual changes in the
law while making proper (relevant) representations of the law to courts as it relates to their
clients’ cases. Accordingly, legal research is the process by which lawyers find the law, cut

78
Dawn Watkins and Mandy Burton (edrs), Research Methods in Law (2nd ed., Routledge Publisher 2018) 7
79
S. N. Jain, ‘Legal Research and Methodology’ (1972) 14 (4) Journal of the Indian Law Institute 487, 500
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/43950155>; Terry Hutchinson and Nigel Duncan, ‘Defining and Describing What
We Do: Doctrinal Legal Research’ (2012) 17 (1) Deakin Law Review 83, 119
<https://doi.org/10.21153/dlr2012vol17no1art70> accessed 06 July 2021
80
Stephen Elias, Legal Research How to Find & Understand the Law (15th ed., Nolo Publishers 2009)
81
Stephanie Delaney, Electronic Legal Research an Integrated Approach (2nd ed., Delmar Cengage Learning
2009)
82
Edward A. Nolfi, Basic Legal Research for Paralegals, (2nd ed., Mcgrow Hill Iriwin Publishers 2008)
83
Amy E. Sloan, Basic Legal Research, Tools and Strategies (7th ed., Wolters Kluwer Publishers 2018)

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through it, and make effective arguments or solve legal problems. Therefore, lawyers that do
not have the required skills of legal research are generally deemed incompetent.84

3.2 Legal Research by Whom?

Generally, anyone who is fit, curious, and interested to know something about the law and its
operational facets could do legal research. So, legal research may be undertaken by a
professional from another discipline (non-lawyers), a lawyer, paralegals, a law clerk, a law
librarian, private investigators, law enforcement officials, writers, authors, and insurance
company’s employees, and other institutions.85

However, as a vast profession with complex and technical requirements of knowledge, skill,
and experience, legal research is usually undertaken by persons with the required level of
knowledge and skills in the law. These include Legislators, Judges, Lawyers, and Legal
Academia (law professors and students).86

The above groups may undertake legal research for different reasons. For example, legislators
do not legislate at random or simply because they are authorized to enact laws. Legislative
enactments are made in response to some social purpose. Legislators have to decide the areas
that are susceptible to legislative treatment. They have also to decide as to whether the
proposed legislative measure improves the state of things or the existing social practice.
Therefore, before legislation, all the required research shall be made by the legislature on the
particular issues subjected to the legislation.87

Similarly, a judge, who acts as an adjudicator has to find the most relevant rules and
principles of law from statutes, case laws, and the argument of the parties and apply them to
the dispute brought before him. So a judge is expected to find the principles of law and to
decide their applicability to the dispute. Such an exercise requires him or her to research the
applicable rule and legal principles. Judges are also expected to give a reasoned decision on

84
Carol M. Bast and Margie Hawkins, Foundations of Legal Research and Writing ( 4th ed., Delmar, Cengage
Learning 2010) 47
85
Valerie J. Atkinson Brown, Legal Research via the Internet, (West Thomson Publishers 2001) 1, 96
86
Frederick C Hicks, Materials and Methods of Legal Research (1942, Reprint 1959) 23, 31
87
John C. Wahlke and Heinz Eulau (eds), Legislative Behavior-A Reader in Theory and Research (Free Press of
Glencoe 1959) 413 <https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:54:y:1960:i:02> accessed 06 July 2021

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how they use a ‘rule’ and arrive at a particular decision. It is via the underway of pertinent
research, logical deduction, and legal reasoning that a Judge injects ‘life’ into ‘law’.88

Practicing lawyers are the other groups that undertake legal research daily and as an exercise
of their occupation. Research is an intuitive aspect of legal work. 89 Legal research skills have
been identified as a core skill for lawyers. Good legal research skills are a necessary step in
attaining the ability to think like a lawyer and achieving valid legal reasoning outcomes.90

Practicing lawyers, as a professional, have to advise their clients and plead cases on their
behalf in the court of law. They are also required to give legal opinions and advice on issues
referred to them by clients. Therefore, it is as part of the requirement of the office and
profession that lawyers need to undertake systematic research for ‘finding’ the law and
thereby provide a solution to legal problems.91

By far, legal academicians are the ones that have a predominant association with legal
research. For example, law professors are required by their universities to undertake legal
research as a part of their professional commitment.92 In addition, law students must
undertake various types of researches in fulfillment of their law degree. Therefore, strong
legal research and writing skills are fundamental tools of legal scholarship.93 Doing legal
research is an integral part of everyday teaching in academic institutions. Professors need to
study the law and update themselves with relevant knowledge daily to serve as reliable
sources of knowledge to their students. In addition, various intellectual challenges, academic
reputation, and requirements of academic ranks and degrees are various reinforcements for
academia to engage in legal research.94

88
Douglas W. Vick, ‘Interdisciplinary and the Discipline of Law’ (2004) 31 (2) Journal of Law and Society 163,
193 <https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2004.00286.x> accessed 06 July 2021
89
Ibid
90
Dawn Watkins and Mandy Burton (edrs), Research Methods in Law, (2nd edn., Routledge Publisher 2018) 8, 9
91
S. N. Jain, supra note 79, 487, 488
92
Sarah Valentine, ‘Legal Research as a Fundamental Skill: A Lifeboat for Students and Law Schools, (2010)
39 (2) University of Baltimore Law 173, 226 <http://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/ublr/vol39/iss2/3> accessed 06
July 2021
93
J. C. Thomas, ‘A Modest Programme for the Improvement of Law Teaching’ (1978) 9(4) Victoria University
of Wellington Law Review 405, 426 <https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handles> accessed 06 July 2021
94
T. Hutchinson, Researching and Writing in Law (2nd edn., Pyrmont, NSW: Lawbook Co., 2006) 7

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4. The Impacts of AI on Research in the Legal Profession

4.1 The Positive Impacts of AI on Research in the Legal Profession

Legal research in particular and the legal profession in general, are not immune from
disruption by AI. Susskind has successfully predicted in 2013 that AI technologies will bring
radical change in the legal profession in the next ten years.95 Susskind further argued that it is
simply inconceivable that information technology will radically alter all corners of the
economy and society and yet somehow legal work will be exempt from any change.96

Previously, because lawyers are highly trained and skilled professionals who identify the
legal issues, gather the relevant facts and determine the likely outcome of a court decision to
adjudicate a dispute by exercising judgment, using their experience and intuition, to assess
the merits of a case to determine the best way to proceed, it was generally believed that
lawyerly tasks could only be performed by highly-skilled professionals.97 However, recent
developments in AI have challenged the traditional conceptions and proved that legal practice
is not immune from AI. As a result, AI has and will cause a great disruption in legal research
in particular and legal practice in general.98

Accordingly, recent developments in AI, such as natural-language processing and machine

learning have challenged the traditional conceptions of human lawyer expertise. Various
complex tasks that used to require human effort have been automated in ways that reduce
cost and offer greater accuracy and precision, which is a good indicator that legal practice is
not immune from these technological advances. That is why machine intelligence will cause a
great disruption in the market for legal services regarding discovery, legal search, document
generation, brief generation, and prediction of case outcomes.99

In this regard, AI provides celerity, simplicity, and effectiveness in solving a multitude of

legal problems by researchers. More automation reduces transaction costs dramatically,

95
Richard Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (2nd edn., Oxford University Press
2013)
96
Ibid
97
Benjamin Alarie, Anthony Niblett, and Albert Yoon, (2017) ‘How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect the
Practice of Law’ 1, 15 <http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3066816> accessed 06 July 2021
98
John O. McGinnis and Russell G. Pearce, supra note 22
99
Ibid

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which enables the provision in reasonable conditions of services that were unprofitable,
unaffordable, or unfeasible in other circumstances.100

AI can also perform automated tasks and adopt mass decisions efficiently. The use of AI is
critical in legal research in terms of efficiency in searching, classifying, filtering, rating, and
ranking issues, facts, ideas, laws, and so on.101

On the other hand, AI combined with computer systems is also capable of many other
impressive feats that make the undertaking of legal research very easy. Such as recognizing
and pointing out spelling errors and finding bad writing, and suggesting the rewriting of bad
sentences.102

Moreover, the weak version of AI is already serving as a large improvement on existing legal
research tools such as Lexis and Westlaw, to assemble an array of relevant cases, suggest
similarities and differences, and sketch arguments and counterarguments. On the strong
version, however, in the future, AI will help lawyers or even judges, to engage in legal
reasoning in researching the most relevant cases or laws to solve particular legal problems.103

AI is also a very useful tool for law and legal science in general. By applying knowledge to
find a solution to legal problems, AI applications are assisting in legal reasoning. AI
provides tools and techniques developed to solve specific problems in law in general. Legal
science recognizes the usefulness of AI for legal reasoning and research. Legal reasoning is a
general concept that refers to a process of forming and providing a justifiable answer to a
particular legal question.104

For example, by searching databases of legal texts and identifying which cases are relevant to
the respective ongoing judicial proceedings.105 AI tools significantly simplify legal research
in the judiciary, as they can filter out irrelevant information. Besides, some AI expert systems
can autonomously reason and provide specific answers by themselves to legal problems.106

Moreover, different AI applications are used in numerous contexts relevant to research in the
legal profession. For example, legal reasoning is used to formalize legislation to identify
100
Teresa Rodrıguez, supra note 36, 302-314
101
Cass R. Sunstein, ‘Of Artifical Intelligence and Legal Reasoning’ (2001) Uni. Chicago Public Law & Legal
Theory Working Papers No. 18, 1, 10 < http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12795544> acced. 06/2021
102
Ibid
103
Ibid
104
Alzbeta Krausova, supra note 14, 55, 68
105
Ibid
106
Cass R. Sunstein, supra note 101, 29, 35

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ambiguities in the legal text and support the drafting of legislation or to model legal
precedents.107

Besides, not a few numbers of technologies assist lawyers in the due course of legal research,
such as in identifying problematic clauses in contracts or planning a winning strategy in
intellectual property lawsuits. For instance, another area of application for AI in the legal
field is online dispute resolution, which is destined to solve disagreements between parties
that entered into a contract via an electronic platform.108

The ability of AI to analyze vast amounts of data is also used, for example, in digital
forensics. AI is also used for predictions, such as for determining which crime scenes will
offer the best opportunity of recovering a forensic sample.109

Likewise, in human rights law practice and research, AI has offered an improved ability to
monitor and document war crimes and human rights abuses. AI in the 21st century has
ushered in the golden age of surveillance by states, corporations, and non-state actors. Human
rights groups, news organizations, and open-source investigators such as ‘Bellingcat’ and the
‘Syrian Archive’ access massive amounts of open-source data generated by billions of sensor
platforms in the hands and pockets of people around the globe, which is very useful in human
rights law research to fight war crimes.110

AI has also transformed another field important to human rights investigations, which is
Forensic Anthropology. It has played a significant role in human rights abuse documentation
since the 1980s, involving the examination of bones and other physical evidence to
reconstruct the circumstances of death. In recent years, DNA sequencing has introduced a
much greater degree of scientific accuracy and efficiency in forensic investigations.111

Moreover, in the future, AI is presumed to assist judges in the due course of adjudication.112
As eloquently described by Chief Justice John Roberts of the Supreme Court of the United
States, in 2017, AI is assisting with courtroom fact-finding and decision-making, which is

107
M. Sergot, T. Cory, P. Hammond, & et al., ‘Formalization of British Nationality Act’ (1986) 2 Yearbook of
Law Computers and Technology 40, 52 <http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.> accessed 06 July 2021
108
D. Ben-Ari & et al., supra note 15, 2, 55
109
Faye Mitchell, ‘The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Digital Forensics: An Introduction’ (2010) 7 Digital
Evidence and Electronic Signature Law Review, 35, 41<http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals>
110
Steven Livingston and Mathias Risse, supra note 33, 141, 158
111
Ibid
112
Perel M. and Elkin-Koren N., ‘Black Box Tinkering: Beyond Disclosure in Algorithmic Enforcement’ (2017)
69 (1) Florida Law Review, 181, 221 http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle accessed 06 July 2021

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putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things.113 Moreover, the
Chief Justice when asked whether he could foresee a day when AI would assist with
courtroom fact-finding or judicial decision-making affirmed that ‘It’s a day that’s here,’ and
AI is putting a significant strain on how the judiciary goes about doing things.’114

Courts are also utilizing AI in making judicial decisions. Courts in the USA utilize advanced
algorithms to assist in pretrial detainment of the accused. For example, the ‘Public Safety
Assessment tool is utilized in 29 American jurisdictions to determine the risk associated with
defendants.115

On the other hand, acquiring legal representation to take and defend a case in court differs in
various countries and can be a tedious, lengthy and costly process. Robots are also providing
the possibility to have a positive impact in several aspects of the processes of the judicial
system, as automation outperforms humans and increases productivity. 116 Therefore, AI will
have a positive impact in shortening the judicial process via automation and increased
productivity.117 Studies show that the utilization of AI in courts could result in up to a 13%
decline in lawyers’ hours that would enable more rapid processing of cases in courts.118

Moreover, Legal AI is helping attorneys to become more efficient in research and serve a
wider range of clients on a broader range of issues. If anything, legal AI is allowing lawyers
to perform more work, with less effort, and more money. Accordingly, the only lawyers with
anything to fear are those who refuse to embrace change for AI has the potential to break into
almost every aspect of legal practice.119

Moreover, AI is influencing legal research and practice by making lawyers more efficient in
their job, automating legal services, and updating the law itself. AI is challenging traditional
legal concepts by forcing the law to adapt to new developments in technology. Concurrently,
the law will be shaping developments in AI by imposing new standards, guidelines, as well as

113
Thomas Julius Buocz, supra note 54
114
Ibid
115
Taylor B. Schaefer, ‘The Ethical Implications of Artificial Intelligence in the Law’ (2019) 55 (11) Gonzaga
University Law Review 217, 236 <https://gonzagalawreview.com/article/11470> accessed 06 July 2021
116
J. Manyika, M. Chui, M. Miremadi, J. Bughin, & et al (2017), ‘A Future that Works: Automation,
Employment, and Productivity’, Technical report, McKinsey Global Institute
<http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/digital-disruption/> accessed 06 July 2021
117
Ibid
118
Dana Remus and Frank Levy, ‘Can Robots Be Lawyers? Computers, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law’
(2016) 1, 77 <http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2701092> accessed 06 July 2021
119
Staci Zaretsky, ‘Trendspotting?Major U.K. Client Refuses To Pay Junior Big law Attorneys’ (2017) Above
the Law 1 <https://abovethelaw.com/2017/03/trendspotting> accessed 06 July 2021

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limitations on developments in various AI application domains.120 In this regard, for example,

AI is influencing the traditional big firm model where associates work for 2,300 hours a
year.121

Currently, most of the work of associates is geared towards legal research and due diligence
that is highly amenable to be assisted by AI tools, which made modern lawyers more
effective than the traditional approach.122 That is why emerging legal tech companies allow
these associates to use AI capabilities to identify legal authorities relevant to particular
questions, which made them more effective than the traditional, labor-intensive approach
utilized by most big firms today. Accordingly, researches show that law firms that use AI
tools: (1) have better information retrieval quality, (2) are intuitive to use requiring little
training, and (3) will drastically cut working hours. This enabled firms to abstain from hiring
many associates and spend less time on research, which freed associates for other substantive
activities by automating legal grunt work.123

Currently, due to the advent of AI support, firms will no longer need to hire many associates
to sift through contracts and conduct legal research. The use of AI tools is helping to
maximize the efficiency of each research project, forcing firms to either cut down on hiring
or put their associates to better use. Furthermore, with legal grunt work becoming automated,
associates will be free to engage in more substantive work at earlier stages in their careers.124

Similarly, it is evident that the Big Law Firm model will disappear soon due to developments
in legal AI. This is because AI will create universal access to services that previously could
only be accomplished by teams of highly educated attorneys. 125 Moreover, with the advent of
more efficient research tools, smaller firms are competing with larger firms in providing
cheaper services. Such competition could force larger firms to restructure their business
model that charged clients exorbitant prices.126

On the contrary, there is also a possibility that big firms, with their resources and profit
margins, have more chances to gain access to this disruptive technology at an earlier stage

120
David Houlihan, ‘Ross Intelligence: Artificial Intelligence in Legal Research’ (2017) Blue Hill Research
<http://bluehillresearch.com/ross-intelligence-and-artificial-intelligence> accessed 06 July 2021
121
Ibid
122
Ibid
123
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, supra note 39
124
Ibid
125
Ibid
126
Ibid

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than smaller firms do, which enables them to attract new clients while retaining their old
clientele, which will be discouraging for smaller firms to join the market.127

Hence, the use of AI in legal research and practice is inevitable due to its competitive,
comparative, and differential advantages. AI tools allow law firms to reduce the labor hours
required for research and spend more time on high-value legal matters, which enables the
firm to produce cheaper services while attracting more customers thereby creating a
competitive advantage. The use of AI tools is also enabling firms to attract both curious
clients and top-talent lawyers.128

Studies further suggest that the adoption of AI tools in legal research provides significant
advantages. For example, in 2017, ‘Blue Hill Research’ prepared a Report on AI in legal
research that participated in a research panel of 16 lawyers and compared the impact of
traditional legal research tools with the use of ROSS.129 The results suggested a significant
reduction in research time of 30.3% and a 42.9% increase in retrieving relevant authorities.130

On the other hand, even on an individual level, AI is enabling lawyers to do more work at a
given time, which has increased their efficiency. With the ability to work efficiently, lawyers
are less tethered to work in large firms and still can perform capably. Efficiency will also
empower lawyers to broaden their areas of specialization. At present, lawyers are using AI
tools to maintain areas of expertise and develop new ones.131

On the other hand, due to the fierce competition and cheap services brought by the advent of
AI clients are becoming less willing to pay big prices for legal research. Clients are starting to
demand fixed fees for work that was traditionally billed by the hour, which is forcing firms to
lower their prices.132

Additionally, with the increased availability of AI tools, client expectations could change in
that they become less willing to pay six-figure bills for legal research by lawyers. Currently,
Clients are starting to demand fixed fees for work that was traditionally billed by the hour and

127
Ibid
128
Katherine Medianik, ‘Artificially Intelligent Lawyers Updating the Model Rules of Professional Conduct in
Accordance with the Technological Era’ 39 Cardozo Law Review, 1498, 1530
<http://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MEDIANIK.39.4.pdf> accessed 06 July 2021
129
Andrew Arruda & Matt Scherer, ‘Artificial Intelligence: Will it Replace Lawyers? ROSS Intelligence and
Artificial Intelligence in Legal Research’ (2017) Blue Hill Benchmark Report Number A0280 2, 10
130
Ibid
131
Albert H. Yoon, ‘Cognitive Computing and the Future of the Legal Profession’ (2016) 66 University of
Toronto Law Journal 456, 471 <http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/UTLJ.4005> accessed 06 July 2021
132
Staci Zaretsky, supra note 119

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it is also common for clients to demand that associate work not be included in their bill.
Clients are beginning to expect more value for their money. As a result, with these changing
client expectations, firms must lower their prices and adapt, or otherwise, they will lose huge
amounts of business.133

On the other hand, AI also increased the availability of legal services to consumers without
hiring an attorney. AI by taking over some lawyer activities has enhanced access to justice
and enabling mass-scale representation. For example, in April 2016, the ‘DoNotPay’ robot
had helped people overturn 160,000 of 250,000 parking tickets. Since its launch, this robot
scored a success rate of 64 % appealing over $ 4 million.134

Similarly, AI has also significantly transformed the ability to store and access legal
information and it creates full access to legal information, which is a core skill of legal
research by lawyers. It has extensively transformed how laws were maintained, learned, and
researched from analog (codified and published) to digital (soft copy).135 It has transformed
how laws are maintained, learned, and researched from analog to digital with the advent of
computer-assisted legal research in the 1970s.136

Moreover, AI also created the possibility to access all the needed legal information from
anywhere in the world.137 Due to the advent of AI, lawyers today can conduct most of their
legal research online.138

Accordingly, lawyers today conduct most of their legal research online via assistance from
data providers such as Westlaw, Lexis, or Bloomberg or publicly available resources such as
Justia (United States) or CanLII (Canada) or general search engines such as Google. Updated
sources of the law, such as judicial opinions, court decisions, legislation, regulations are all
available online and can be accessed online from anywhere in the world. This contributed a
great deal to the development of cross-border legal research and the study of the law.139

133
Ibid
134
Samuel Gibbs, ‘Chatbot Lawyer Overturns 160,000 Parking Tickets in London and New York’, (2016) The
Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28> accessed 06 July 2021
135
James A. Sprowl, ‘Computer-Assisted Legal Research: Westlaw and Lexis’ (1976) 62 American Bar
Association Journal 320, 323 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/25727555> accessed 06 July 2021
136
Ibid
137
James L. Hoover, ‘Legal Scholarship and the Electronic Revolution’ (1991) 83 Law Library J. 643
138
Benjamin Alarie & et al., supra note 97, 7
139
Ibid

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Accordingly, Lexis and Westlaw have continued to improve legal research, resulting in more
user-friendly access mechanisms, comprehensive databases, and innovative electronic
research methods.140 For example, currently, LexisNexis had 15,000 databases and over 9
million subscribers worldwide and Westlaw is the primary online legal research service in the
USA, UK, and Australia with more than 40,000 databases of legal information.141

Legal AI also resulted in the advent of computational legal research tools that can be used to
access information with greater speed, lower cost, and higher accuracy. For example, e-
discovery has replaced traditional discovery and made it possible to conduct accurate
discovery with a fraction of the time, expense, and need for lawyers. This made lawyers
spend less percent of their time on basic document review and become more productive.142

Legal AI has also resulted in predictive tools that are vital for legal research in assessing the
merits of a case. The predictive power of AI tools is transforming the way lawyers approach
research in litigation. For lawyers, evaluating how a litigant’s current case maps onto the
existing set of court decisions can present several challenges. For instance, legal issues are
usually shaped by hundreds of judicial decisions (precedents), which will make it
insurmountable for lawyers to evaluate all such decisions in the past. In this regard, AI tools
are helping to overcome the challenge by providing a more objective prediction of the likely
outcome of a particular case.143 For example, look at existing studies that used AI to predict
up to 70 % success rate of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in 2016.144
In addition, AI has been used to predict a Supreme Court Ruling in the USA, which
accurately predicted over 70% of decisions.145

On the other hand, Susskind suggested that, in the future, in addition to forcing lawyers to
take on new roles within the realm of legal practice, AI would result in the creation of new

140
Frank Y., Liu Joel Fishman, Dittakavi N. Rao, and Tsegaye Beru, (2008) Pennsylvania Legal Research
Handbook, ALM Media, LLC
141
John O. McGinnis and Russell G. Pearce, supra note 22; Hannah Augur, ‘AI Is the Future of Law And
Lawyers Know It’, (2016) Dataconomy <http://www.dataconomy.com/ai-future-law-lawyers-know>
142
Daniel Martin Katz, ‘Quantitative Legal Prediction-or-How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Preparing
for the Data-Driven Future of the Legal Services Industry’ (2013) 62 Emory Law Journal 909, 936
<https://ssrn.com/abstract=2187752> accessed 06 July 2021
143
Benjamin Alarie & et al., supra note 97
144
Aletras N, Tsarapatsanis D, Preoţiuc-Pietro & et al., ‘Predicting judicial decisions of the European Court of
Human Rights: a Natural Language Processing perspective’ (2016) 2 Peer Journal of Computer Science
93 <https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.93> accessed 06 July 2021
145
Katz DM., Bommarito MJ. & Blackman J., ‘A General Approach for Predicting the Behaviour of the
Supreme Court of the United States’ (2017) 12 (4) PLoS ONE 1
<https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174698> accessed 06 July2021

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types of jobs for lawyers such as Legal Knowledge Engineer, Legal Technologist, Legal
Process Analyst, and so on.146

Similarly, it is believed that due to the use of AI tools the roles of lawyers will shift rather
than disappear and become more interactive with technology. Hence, there is a consensus that
human guidance combined with the technical acuity of AI could produce highly successful
outcomes in legal practice.147 For example, in the case of e-discovery, though lawyers may
not sift through the documents themselves, they remain indispensable to the e-discovery
process.148

In the future, it is evident that AI will continue to learn and develop and become a commonly
used tool in legal research and practice. It is having considered the future unavoidable impact
of AI that in 2017 the English House of Lords established a selected committee to consider
the economic, legal, and social implications of the advances in AI.149 Similarly, on the
European level, 25 states signed the Declaration of Cooperation on Artificial Intelligence in
2017.150

4.2 Legal AI tools Impacting Research in the Legal Profession

This section discusses the typical examples of AI tools that are currently in use and
influencing research in the legal profession. Accordingly, the following AI tools are typical:

4.2.1 Legal Text Analytics Tools: These AI tools use algorithms to extract meaning from
court decisions or laws.151 Legal text analytics includes (1) Argument mining which is used
for the discovery of arguments from legal archives.152 (2) Legal network diagrams tools that
provide graphic depictions of the relations between legal objects.153 The following are typical
examples of Legal Text Analysis AI tools:

146
Alyson Carrel, ‘Legal Intelligence Through Artificial Intelligence Requires Emotional Intelligence: A New
Competency Model for the 21st Century Legal Professional’ (2019) 35 Ga. St. U. L. Rev.
<https://ssrn.com/abstract=3425333> accessed 06 July2021
147
Eric Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, The Second Machine Age (W. Norton & Company Inc. 2014) 188
148
Richard Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future (Oxford University Press 2013) 111
149
Nancy Namisi Siboe, ‘Herald! The Era of Legal Artificial Intelligence in Legal Practice’ (2019) The Law
Society of Kenya Advocates Magazine (Annual Conference Edition) 1, 20
150
The EU Declaration on Cooperation on Artificial Intelligence (2018); The European Parliament Resolution
on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2015/2103(INL)) (2018/C 252/25) 2017
151
Kevin D Ashley, Artificial Intelligence and Legal Analytics: New Tools for Law Practice in the Digital Age
(Cambridge University Press 2017) 123
152
Tania Sourdin, ‘Justice and Technological Innovation’ (2015) 25 (2) Journal of Judicial Administration 96,
105 <https://goo.gl/hxbXri> accessed 06 July 2021
153
Kevin D Ashley, supra note 151, for a more complete description of these processes and systems

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- ‘Ravel’, in 2017, scanned and made all case laws in the USA accessible in visual maps
with citations.

- ‘CARA’, outputs or summarizes additional relevant cases to cite in support of legal

arguments.

- ‘Casetext’ and ‘Fastcase’ provide a citation network of relations among cases or

statutes.154

- ‘Luminance’, can model how solicitors think to draw out key findings in a case. The tool
is award-winning and currently deployed by 26 organizations in 12 countries.155

4.2.2 Legal Question and Answer (Advisory) tools: are tools that are used to search large
text collections to answer a user’s legal question. The following are typical examples:

- ‘ROSS’ can accept legal questions and outputs answers, citations, suggested readings, and
updates in order of relevance.156 ‘ROSS’ can also draft legal memorandums.157

- ‘Lexis Answers’, can analyze millions of documents to create a ‘Lexis Answer Card’ with
citation.158

- ‘Watson Debater’, can thoroughly discuss any topic and suggests persuasive arguments and
precedents on legal matters.159

- ‘CCLIPS’ is designed to retrieve relevant cases and statutes from a highly integrated
database containing, the Civil Code of Louisiana.160

4.2.3 Legal Prediction Tools: these are AI tools that can predict the outcomes of a court case
by reference to earlier decisions. The following are typical examples:

154
Mary Ann Neary and Sherry Xin Chen, ‘Artificial Intelligence: Legal Research and Law Librarians’ (2017)
AALL Spectrum 21(5) 16, 20 <http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/lsfp> accessed 06 July 2021
155
Horizon, ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Legal Profession’ (2018) The Law Society of England and
Wales, Report, 6 <Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Legal Profession-Horizon report> accesd. 06 July 2021
156
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, supra note 39, 85, 99 https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dltr/vol16/iss1/3; ROSS
Intelligence, ‘ROSS Intelligence announces partnership with BakerHostetler’ (2016) 1
<http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ross-intelligence-announces> accessed 06 July 2021
157
Andrew Arruda, ‘An Ethical Obligation to Use AI: An Examination of the Use of Artificial Intelligence in
Law and the Model Rules of Professional Responsibility’ (2017) 40 (3) American Journal of Trial Advocacy
443, 458 <https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.> accessed 06 July 2021
158
Taylor B. Schaefer, supra note 115, 222, 234
159
Daniel Ben-Ari & et al, supra note 15
160
Cary G. Debessonet & George R. Cross, ‘Artificial Intelligence Application in the Law: CCLIPS, a
Computer Program That Processes Legal Information’ (1986) < http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.15779/Z382Q13>

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- ‘Scotus’, could correctly forecast 70% of case law outcomes. 161

- ‘Lex Machina’, can predict with 64% accuracy outcomes of intellectual property cases.162

- ‘Motion Kickstarter’, enables attorneys to view granted or denied motions in courts.163

- ‘CaseCruncher Alpha’, is a tool that can predict judicial decisions with high accuracy.164 In
2017, ‘CaseCruncher Alpha’ was in a contest with more than 100 lawyers in London. The
Case Cruncher won by getting an accuracy rate of 86.6%, compared with 66.3% for the
lawyers.165

- ‘Blue J Legal’, can predict how courts would decide legal questions based on a given set of
facts by using machine learning.166

4.2.4 Contract Review and Analysis tools: are AI tools that can acquire knowledge and use
it at the ‘clause level’ to review a document. The following are typical examples:

- ‘LawGeex’, can read and summarize contracts with an average accuracy of 94% saving
up to 80 % of the time.167

- ‘ThoughtRiver’, can scan contracts and presents the information in an online

dashboard.168

- ‘Legal Robot’, can check, analyze, and spot problems in contracts before users sign on
them.169

- ‘Beagle’, is designed for non-professional users who need to review and manage
contracts by themselves.170

161
Michael Mills, ‘Artificial Intelligence in Law: the State of Play’ (2016) 3, 6
162
John R. Allison & et al., ‘Understanding the Realities of Modern Patent Litigation’ (2014) 92 Texas Law
Review 1769, 1773 <http://texaslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AllisonEtAl-92-7.pdf>
163
Ibid
164
Thomas Julius Buocz, supra note 54
165
Nancy Namisi Siboe, supra note 149; Jason Tashea, ‘Artificial Intelligence Software Outperforms Lawyers
(without subject matter expertise) in Matchup’ (2017) ABA Journal; Nikolaos Aletras & et al., ‘Predicting
Judicial Decisions of the European Court of Human Rights: A Natural Language Processing Perspective’ (2016)
2 Peer J Computer Science 92 <https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.93> accessed 06 July 2021
166
Benjamin Alarie & et al., supra note 97, 231, <http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2855977> accesd. 06 July 2021
167
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, supra note 39, 88; M. Simon, A. Lindsay, L. Sosa & P. Comparato ‘Lola v.
Skadden and the Automation of the Legal Profession’ (2018) 20 Yale J.L. & Tech., 234
168
Ibid
169
‘Legal Robot’ (2016) 1<http://www.legalrobot.com> accessed 06 July2021
170
‘How It Helps, BEAGLE’ (2016) <http://beagle.ai/>; M. Simon & et al., supra note 167, 89

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- ‘COIN’, can correctly review and interpret commercial loan agreements cutting down on
attorneys’ hours by approximately 360,000 hours per year.171

- ‘HYPO’, can assist in all aspects of legal research and is found to be not so different from
the performance by actual judges.172

- Other similar tools are ‘Relativity’, ‘Kira Systems’, ‘Modus’, ‘OpenText’, ‘kCura’, and
others.173

4.2.5 E-discovery (Technology Assisted Review) tools: are software that helps legal teams
with document management and review.174 For example, in litigation, e-discovery enables to
automate, review, and analyze large collections of electronic information to identify the
relevant laws.175 TAR has been recognized and used in courts in the USA, England, and
Ireland since 2012.176 Besides, TAR was approved by the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2016,
in Australia, in McConnell Dowell Constructors v Santam, as an accepted method of
conducting a reasonable search.177 Researches show that TAR can yield more accurate results
than an exhaustive manual review with much lower effort.178

There are also adequate studies that show the benefits of e-discovery, which can amount to
saving 70% or more time.179 A recent study shows that most Fortune 1000 companies spend
more than $ 5 million each year on e-Discovery and with 70% of the costs on reviewing
physical documents. Through proper use of AI tools, lawyers can significantly reduce the
costs of document review.180

171
Taylor B. Schaefer, supra note 115, 222, 234
172
Cass R. Sunstein, supra note 101, 29, 35
173
Daniel Ben-Ari & et al, supra note 15, 13, 14
174
Paul Hellyer, ‘Assessing the Influence of Computer-Assisted Legal Research: A Study of California Supreme
Court Opinions’ (2005) <https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/libpubs/5> accessed 06 July 2021
175
Bas Boris Visser, ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Future for Legal Services’ (2017) Clifford Chance, 1, 8
<https://www.cliffordchance.com/briefings/2017/11/AIhtml> accessed 06 July 2021
176
See also Moore vs Publicis Groupe, 287 F.R.D. 182 182 (S.D.N.Y. 2012; Irish Bank Resolution Corporation
Limited v Quinn [2015] IEHC 175; see also, Pyrrho Investments Ltd v MWB Property Ltd [2016] EWHC 256
(Ch).
177
See also, McConnell Dowell Constructors (Aust) Pty Ltd v Santam Ltd and Others (No 1) [2016] VSC 734
(Vickery J) (“McConnell Dowell”)
178
Maura R. Grossman & Gordon V. Cormack, ‘Technology-Assisted Review in E-Discovery Can Be More
Effective and More Efficient Than Exhaustive Manual Review’ (2011), 17(3) Richmond Journal of Law &
Technology 1, 49 <http://scholarship.richmond.edu/jolt/vol17/iss3/5> accessed 06 July 2021
179
Anne Kershaw & Joe Howie, ‘Crash or Soar: Will The Legal Community Accept Predictive Coding?’ (2010)
Law Technology News <https://perma.cc/84KN-4BQD>; Chris Dale, ‘Having The Acuity to Determine
Relevance with Predictive Coding’ (2010) E-Disclosure Information Project <https://perma.cc/727C-CWVT>
accessed 06 July 2021
180
Ibid

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4.2.6 Drafting Tools: are AI tools that offer an automated document assembly system. The
following are typical examples:

- ‘Clifford Chance Dr@ft’, allows clients to generate a tailor-made legal document.181 It

saves time and resources, improves the quality of legal documents.182

- Other similar tools are ‘Desktop Lawyer’, ‘Legal Zoom’ and ‘Rocket Lawyer’.183

- In Australia, ‘LegalVision’, ‘LawPath’ and ‘ClickLaw’ offer similar services.184

4.2.7 Citation Tools: These are tools that provide citation format and support in legal
research. For example, ‘KeyCite’ is now a well-established citation system parallel to the
online Shepard’s Citations that provides detailed citations of legal sources.185

4.3 The Negative Impacts of AI on Research in the Legal Profession

Accordingly, studies show that AI cannot read legal texts like lawyers can; applications can
only extract some meaning from legal texts; machine language yields answers but not
explanations; AI cannot usually explain its answers to legal questions; Question and Answer
systems do not understand legal reasoning;186 a tool cannot also reason about how different
circumstances would affect its answers, and the majority of the AI tools also cannot work
with total independence from human support. 187

On the other hand, according to Susskind, several problems and obstacles have been faced
and will continue to confront the development of legal AI such as the lack of knowledge
engineers, the lack of domain experts, the lack of existing methodology to be used by
designers for the development of expert systems in the legal area, the lack of adequate AI
tools, difficulties in quality control of legal AI systems, and the presence of huge concerns on
the legal implications of AI tools.188

181
Ibid
182
Ibid
183
Kathryn D. Betts & Kyle R. Jaep, ‘The Dawn of Fully Automated Contract Drafting: Machine Learning
Breathes New Life into a Decades-Old Promise’ (2017) 15 Duke Law & Technology Review 216, 218
<https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dltr/vol15/iss1/11/> accessed 06 July 2021
184
Michael Legg and Felicity Bell, supra note 58, 14, 20
185
Ibid
186
John Searle, ‘Can Computers Think?’ in David J. Chalmers (ed), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and
Contemporary Readings (Oxford University Press 2002) 669, 671.
187
Keven Ashley, supra note 151
188
Richard E. Susskind, ‘Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems and Law’, (1990) 5 Denning Law Journal 105

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Moreover, AI is also blamed for other disruptive features in the legal profession such as the
problems of complexity, the worrisome increasing autonomy of AI systems over time, the
problem of opacity in decision making of AI systems, and the technological vulnerability of
AI systems because they are highly dependent on collected data, which may be insufficient,
inaccurate, or biased.189 Moreover, the fact that AI systems are exposed to cyber-security
attacks or breaches is a major challenge to the development of legal AI.190

There is also a legitimate concern regarding who is going to be responsible for the mistakes
of AI tools that are just a piece of machinery or a program, the developer or the users.
Therefore, not a few numbers of scholars suggest that the crucial need to regulate and hold
someone accountable shall be treated by the law.191

On the other hand, there are also other major noticed constraints to integrate AI into the legal
profession such as technical constraints, the problem of the complexity of legal reasoning, the
lack of adequate market for legal AI (economic constraints), and the significantly slow
culture of legal practice (cultural constraints) to integrate with AI. 192

Moreover, studies show the likely negative impacts of legal AI technologies on the legal
profession in general such as high rate of unemployment193, insecurities related to data
privacy, ethics, and dishonest use of data, and the unwanted creation of a super-intelligent AI,
which is also called the ‘Singularity problem’.194

On the other hand, there is a justifiable argument that judges should not delegate judgments
or a specific administrative task to an AI assistant and judges need to stay in full control.195
Moreover, AI is in principle deemed incapable of adequately engaging in legal (analogical)
reasoning or evaluative judgments, which is considered a serious challenge to legal AI in the
long term.196 Moreover, the fact that many judgments involve an element of discretion, which
is not the case for computer programs that operate based on the logic of input and output

189
Teresa Rodrıguez de las Heras Ballell, supra note 36
190
Richard E. Susskind, supra note 188
191
Sean Semmler & Zeeve Rose, supra note 39
192
Mark McKamey, ‘Legal Technology: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Law Practice’ (2017) 22
Appeal: Rev. Current L. & L. Reform, 45
<https://journals.uvic.ca/index.php/appeal/article/download/16750/7104> accessed 06 July 2021
193
Taylor B. Schaefer, supra note 115, Deloitte’s research shows that AI would result in the automation of 39%
of the jobs in the legal field in the future.
194
WIPO Technology Trends, (2019) ‘Artificial Intelligence’ 1, 15
195
Thomas Julius Buocz, supra note 54
196
Cass R. Sunstein, supra note 101, 29, 35

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exacerbated the problem of integration of AI with the legal profession.197 Finally, there is also
a convincing argument that AI is not immune from the bias and prejudice of its creators as a
result; it cannot be always trusted to be fair and neutral.198

Conclusion

In this essay, an effort was made to enumerate and discuss the future impacts of AI on legal
research in the legal profession. As some scholars try to portray, the law is neither rocket
science nor entirely repugnant of technology. Hence, legal research in particular and legal
practice, in general, is amenable to and influenced by AI both positively and negatively.
Moreover, it is evident from the study that the positive impacts of AI are far greater than its
negative externalities, which are usually temporary and related to the disruptive effects of
technology on the legal profession.

It should also be emphasized that legal research, which includes multifaceted activities is a
core lawyering skill and an integral part of legal practice. All types of legal professionals
(judges, lawyers, legislators, and academicians) must undertake legal research in due course
of delivering various types of legal services and the quality of their research determines the
quality of the services they provide to clients. As a result, when one tries to assess the impact
of AI on legal research, s/he is also implicitly assessing such an impact on the entirety of
legal practice to which the research is an integral part.

Only some decades ago legal research was an activity that can only be done by lawyers in a
physical library. At present, due to advances in “Weak AI”, many of the activities that
constitute legal research are being done by AI tools with minimal human support, which
resulted in monumental efficiency (in time, energy, resources) in the underway of legal
research and legal grunt work.

At present, there are up to 5000 legal tech startups throughout the world who are automating
some type of legal work, which is a good reminder for tomorrow’s lawyers that they will
need to familiarize themselves with how to research the law using such AI tools in addition to

197
Justice Melissa Perry, ‘iDecide: Administrative Decision-Making in the Digital World’ (2017) 91 Australian
Law Journal, 29, 30 <http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/FedJSchol/2019/3.html> accessed 06 July 2021
198
Mirjana Stankovic, Ravi Gupta, Bertrand A., & et al., ‘Exploring Legal, Ethical and Policy Implications of
Artificial Intelligence’ (2017) Law, Justice, and Development White Paper 1, 15
<https://globalforumljd.com/resources/> accessed 06 July 2021

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possessing a working knowledge of the law. The same holds for law schools that should
consider including legal AI courses into their academic curriculums.

Currently, AI tools can do almost all types of activities related to legal research such as Legal
Text Analytics, Legal Question and Answer (Advisory), Legal Outcome Prediction, Contract
Review, and Due Diligence, E-discovery (Technology Assisted Review), Document Drafting,
Citation Tools, and so on.

In the future, with the advent of Strong AI, which has a massive computational and analytical
capacity of a vast amount of data and brute force of processing, the impact of AI on legal
research will be far greater than mere automation (pre-programmed decision making). With
such a leap in computational capacity and advances in algorithmic reasoning, AI tools are
expected to develop the capability to deliver efficient legal services by autonomously
undertaking legal research that is destined to sort out legal problems that will require human
empathy, judgment, and creativity and thereby satisfy client expectations.

Competing interests

The author declares that there are no competing interests.

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