Legal Process Outsourcing

Artificial intelligence in legal process outsourcing

The legal industry is fabled for accepting changes at a glacial pace. The lack of technical knowledge and expertise as well as the fear of job losses have fuelled the reluctance to adopt automation in the legal industry. Studies show that more than 80% of law firms fear that technology will replace human resources such as lawyers and paralegals.

However, artificial intelligence (AI) has benefitted both people and processes in every sector, and the legal services industry is no exception. The impact of AI on the legal profession is expected to be huge in managing the entire legal process efficiently. The legal AI software market size is anticipated to grow from $317 million in 2019 to $1,236 million by 2024, at a CAGR of 31.3%.


The need for AI in the legal sector

Implementing AI and AI-related business models is set to transform the legal sector in areas such as:

  • Software equipped with AI capabilities, such as lawyer bots, will automate lower-level repetitive manual tasks so that attorneys can focus on other complex jobs.
  • AI in the legal sector will reduce operational costs and increase speed, efficiency, productivity, and accuracy. According to a research conducted by one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, AI has the power to automate up to 25% of a lawyer’s time.
  • Intelligent machines will help gather and analyse data to predict the outcome of litigations.
  • An AI-led approach will save time, enabling lawyers to serve more clients and prioritise cases.
  • While automation seems to threaten jobs, research shows otherwise. AI will generate new jobs and skill sets in the legal field such as legal engineers, legal data scientists and architects, legal strategy consultants, etc.
  • Automation in the legal firms will help achieve faster response times and more accurate responses to the client.
  • Clients now demand transparency in billings of the legal counsel. AI technology helps analyse legal bills, enhance transparency with the clients, and increase efficiency, which will result in law firms gaining more business.

Use of AI in legal services

Apart from transparent e-billing, reducing human error, and paper costs, there are many areas in law where AI is proving to be useful. AI can penetrate the periphery of the manually burdened legal industry through processes like:

  • eDiscovery:

    Document review using eDiscovery lifecycle sorts relevant topics, terms, and other important criteria, which will save up to 70%  time and prevent errors in NDAs, wills, trusts, and other legal documents.
  • Contract lifecycle management:

    Contract review and lifecycle management efficiently organises, tracks, and negotiates contracts. AI helps attorneys collect data, draw conclusions, create future strategies, and discover new insights in the contracts. This can help improve sales, procurement, compliance, and finances.
  • Legal research:

    AI in legal research parses thousands of cases, laws and regulations, and legal opinions.
  • Litigation prediction:

    Statistical analysis of similar cases helps in litigation prediction, achieves fast-track settlement negotiations, and avoids risky cases.
  • Intellectual Property (IP) management:

    AI can help manage tasks related to invention disclosures, docketing, filing applications, valuing IP portfolio, and budgeting.
  • Document searches:

    AI can assist in performing due diligence and data analytics to search documents and extract key points.
  • Compliance and risk management:

    This is helpful in the new era of compliance related to GDPR, CCPA, and other data protection laws.

Challenges of implementing AI in legal processes

Despite the benefits of AI, it is crucial to understand why the legal industry is slow to adopt technological advancements. Let’s look at the underlying reasons:

  • Cybersecurity needs to be addressed with robust systems and secure tech, which most law firms presently lack.
  • Integrating AI into existing systems requires specialists. This ensures that the AI capabilities are top notch and the feedback loop is built to update existing systems continuously.
  • Law firms are challenged in terms of hiring resources such as experts who are proficient in both AI and legal services.
  • Since legal AI is in a growing phase, vendors of legal AI technologies may find it challenging to give numerous case studies to potential new clients.
  • AI systems need to remain updated about the daily changes in the legal regulations to prevent giving any wrong predictions.

However, legal industry trends say that over 80% of senior lawyers deem AI and machine learning (ML) crucial for their success.

How Infosys BPM can help transform legal processes with AI ?

Infosys BPM is a one-stop service provider for all your legal process challenges. With AI and technology solutions, we integrate IT support to legal process management solutions for eDiscovery, contract lifecycle management and legal research services, delivering higher quality and productivity in the legal industry.
Our offerings include:

  • Information management
  • Doc review and production
  • Data and review platform
  • Contract creation and negotiation; execution and approval
  • Outsource legal research and drafting
  • Multi-jurisdiction/risk-assessment surveys and more

Learn more about our areas of expertise.

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