The majority of American lawyers seem to think artificial intelligence (AI) is much less of a threat to them than some reports might suggest.
Specifically, 53% of a sample recently polled think AI will create more opportunity within their profession, while another 40% say it will help them.
Plus, over one in three of those responding also say AI will enable them to spend more time on higher level, strategic work and create cost efficiencies (28%), with the benefits of AI including more data and analytics that will help create new legal innovations while code-based tasks like document review will be more efficiently completed (17%).
Apart from eDiscovery, lawyers told pollsters they believe contract drafting and management will be the most impacted legal task affected by AI, followed by litigation analysis, risk assessment and the use of computational models predicting case outcomes.
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However, it’s not all a rose garden: just under a third think that loss of jobs will be the biggest negative impact of AI on the industry – and almost the same ratio, 28%, believe AI will create less opportunity for entry-level legal specialists.
The survey was conducted among 105 legal professionals from in-house law departments, law firms and government affiliated entities by a eDiscovery, document review and legal consulting services specialist called Consilio at the Legalweek conference at the end of January.
“Artificial intelligence is slowly integrating itself into every aspect of our lives and the legal industry is no exception,” says the company’s MD, Amy Hinzmann.
“The results of this survey confirm the legal industry is preparing for, and excited, about how AI will impact their jobs [as] improved processes, like those already seen in eDiscovery, will help speed up once tedious processes and give legal professionals time to focus more on the strategic aspects of their roles.”