Atificial intelligence (AI),the simulation of human intelligence in machines is changing the face of the legal industry islaw firms globally are ap prehensive but changes are already in motion and there is no escape,says dr anton Ravindran.

1. AI set to change the face of legal industry
L E G A L T E C H
B Y KUEK SER KWANG ZHE
Artificial intelligence (AI),
the simulation of human intelligence
in machines, is changing the face of the
legal industry.Law firms globally are ap-
prehensive about what lies ahead for the
industry but changes are already in mo-
tion and there is no escape,says Dr Anton
Ravindran.
Anton is the CEO of SmartLaw,a start-
up based in Singapore that utilises AI to
assist lawyers in their work.Its online ser-
vices help lawyers scan through thousands
of pages of documents and answer their
law-related questions in seconds. It also
helps them predict sentencing outcomes,
and extract legal precedents and verdicts
almost instantly for criminal offence,con-
tested divorce and medical negligence.
“It means legal work that requires an
army of legal associates and hundreds of
hours of study can now be done in sec-
onds,” Anton points out.
Such a thing may sound impossible,
but it isn’t, he says. “Lawyers who are
sceptical about it can try out our system.
We can demonstrate how quickly it can
scan documents and answer their ques-
tions.All these services are already there;
they are no longer conceptual.”
SmartLaw may be the first start-up in
Southeast Asia to provide such solutions
to the legal industry.But there are sever-
al other frontrunners globally,especially
in the US.
Forinstance,RossIntelligencehelpslaw
firms conduct legal research by leveraging
IBM’s Watson,a question-answering sys-
tem that can understand natural language.
A testimony posted on its website claims
that its solution helped a legal firm save
75% to 80% in terms of time taken for legal
research while another testimony claimed
that Ross Intelligence’s online platform
functioned like a “first-year associate do-
ing topflight legal research”.
JPMorgan Chase & Co developed a pro-
gramme called Central Intelligence (COIN)
to automate the work of its law firms us-
ing AI. The programme helps interpret
commercial loan agreements and is said
to accomplish 360,000 hours of work in
seconds.
Anton says a few law firms in Singa-
pore have subscribed to SmartLaw’s plat-
form.The start-up is also in discussions
with the Singapore Academy of Law, a
promotion and development agency for
the country’s legal industry, about some
other initiatives.
SmartLaw is aiming to provide its ser-
vices to the Malaysian legal industry by
this year. In fact, its services would have
already been available locally if not for
the Covid-19 pandemic that restricted in-
dividuals from travelling overseas since
early this year,says Anton.
“I have close contacts in Malaysia.And
we would have been in Malaysia already
if not for the Covid-19 pandemic.I would
rather meet our potential clients face to
face instead of online as legal services are
quite a complicated matter.
“However,I’m going to talk to them via
Zoom by mid-October if there is still no
progress.Our aim is to make legal services
available online to anyone, anywhere, at
anytime,” he says.
LAW FIRMS APPREHENSIVE
ABOUT AI DESPITE OBVIOUS
BENEFITS
The benefits for the legal industryin adopt-
ing advanced technology,includingAI,are
apparent.It saves them time and money
by speeding up their research,saysAnton.
“Law firms spend most of their time
conducting legal research, which is the
groundwork,insteadofdraftingdocuments
or mounting a defence.With AI, they no
longer need to spend an enormous amount
of time on it,” he explains.
When hundreds of hours of legal re-
search are cut to seconds, it also means
that law firms can afford to take on more
legal and hire fewer people.
“Lawyers can also spend their time on
more important matters and specialise
in areas in which they are interested,”
Anton notes.
The cost of adopting AI services pro-
vided by the likes of SmartLaw is afforda-
ble for law firms of various sizes,he adds.
Without divulging its pricing, Anton
says users can pay for modules (whether
it is the eDiscovery or prediction mod-
ule) or pay per use.They can also opt for
monthly or annual subscriptions for one
of those modules or both.
“We will localise and adjust our pricing
when we offer services in other countries.”
However,law firms are slow in adopt-
ing AI technology as they are worried
about its impact on the legal industry.
This is because innovations like these
could significantly reduce billable hours,
and thereby, their income. It could also
mean that legal associates,the ones who
are usually tasked with conducting this
research,become redundant.
However,Anton says,legal firms need
to face facts and not hide from technolog-
ical advancement.And even if they bury
their heads in the sand,it is only a matter
of time before the industry is disrupted.
Change will happen,whether they like it
or not so it is better if they remain in the
know and ahead of the curve.
But it’s not all bleak.Anton points out
that while repetitive or mundane tasks
will be taken over by technology,new jobs
will be created.
“For instance,lawfirmswill need to hire
legal engineers who can help them to un-
derstand and adopt technology.There is a
fear thatAI will replace people.While this
may be true in some cases,it also creates
new jobs that could reduce costs,generate
higher ROI (return on investments) and
reduce human errors at work,” he says.
By making legal services cheaper,tech-
nology will also democratise the legal
industry by making it more affordable to
the man in the street,he adds.
“Justice will be democratised. Legal
services today are expensive and the or-
dinary people might not have access to
good lawyers.However,justice shouldn’t
mean the more you pay, the better [rep-
resentation] you get.
How
SmartLaw
works
Dr Anton Ravindran, CEO of
SmartLaw, says the start-
up utilises advanced natural
language (ANLP) processing
to develop its artificial
intelligence (AI) platform.
Unlike a keyword search
with no intelligence involved,
its ANLP-enabled platform
is intelligent enough to
understand the questions
posed by end users (lawyers)
in simple English and search
its entire database, which
contains tens of thousands
of previous judgments and
verdicts.
It will then extract the
relevant documents, or
judgments and verdicts,
and rank them in the order
of relevance to answer the
questions, he says.
“This will eliminate
the grunt work of legal
research which is very time-
consuming and costly,” he
points out.
The platform also has an
additional function where a
lawyer can scan hundreds of
pages of documents and key
in a legal question in simple
English. The platform will
then read those documents
in seconds and respond to
the question, says Anton.
“Technology has democratised many
industries. The legal industry is one of
the last frontiers,” he says.
As start-ups like SmartLaw offer their
services online,it also makes legal services
more accessible to the masses as they can
engage these services directly through an
online platform.
“For instance,a person can use our pre-
diction module,at a fraction of the cost,to
seek an opinion onwhether to sue another
person.He or she does not need to go from
law firm to law firm to seek an opinion.
“Or, depending on the gravity of the
matter,a person can use the online plat-
form for a first opinion and engage other
lawyers for a second or third opinion,”
he says.
“Law firms spend most
of their time conducting
legal research, which is
the groundwork, instead
of drafting documents
or mounting a defence.
Because of AI, they no
longer need to spend an
enormous amount of time
on it.”
Anton
DE20
OCTOBER19
2020