Introduction
Undeniably, technology has revolutionized the business world, rapidly changing and expanding in every field imaginable. When it comes to the legal industry, technological innovation is no exception.
However, much of the discussion around the use of technology in the legal industry focuses on the battle between humans (lawyers) and machines (robots). On January 20, 2016, The Telegraph titled: “Doctors and Lawyers could be replaced by Robots”. This article claims that lawyers and other white collar workers face being left on the scrapheap as advances in artificial intelligence (AI) trigger “terrifying changes” in the jobs market. According to this article, jobs commonly perceived as smart will be replaced byM.-M. Bues (*) • E. Matthaei
LEVERTON GmbH, Mauerstr. 79, 10117 Berlin, Germany e-mail: micha.bues@lvn.com; emilio.matthaei@lvn.com
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K. Jacob et al. (eds.), Liquid Legal, Management for Professionals, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45868-7_7 computers which will automate many tasks. Such claims have become increasingly popular in the last years. Richard and Daniel Susskind, for instance, argue that “increasingly capable machines, autonomously or with non-specialist users, will take on many of the tasks that are currently the realm of the professions” (Richard & Daniel Susskind, The Future of the Professions, 2015, 231). Other authors predict that “once we have fully artificial intelligence enhanced programs [...], there will be no need for lawyers, aside from the highly specialized and expensive large-law- firm variety” (Paul Lippe & Daniel Martin Katz, 10 Predictions about how IBM’s Watson will impact the Legal Profession, 2014). A recent study by the Bucerius Law School and The Boston Consultiong Group titled “How LegalTech Will Change the Business of Law” suggests that LegalTech solutions could perform as much as 30-50 % of tasks carried out by junior lawyers today.
These developments challenge the common idea that lawyering is inherently a human activity and that lawyers are immune to the changes sparked off by the digital revolution. Today, it is almost common wisdom that computers will change the way law is practised and how lawyers work. The use of technology in the legal practice will have far-reaching effects. Hardly anybody will doubt that. However, it would be too easy—as many articles do—to just vaguely assume that lawyers will be somehow replaced by computers or robots using AI. Some commenters rightly demand to “cut the hysteria surrounding AI in law” (Ryan McClead). AI is not “magic” and it does not change by waving a magic wand.
Therefore, this article will try to give a nuanced and careful analysis as to how technology will change the way lawyers perform their work. In doing so, this article seeks to explain what LegalTech is, and it will engage, as far as possible here, with technical details. While these details may be difficult to understand or even uninteresting to lay readers, they are crucial to understand the kinds of lawyering tasks computers can and cannot perform (at the moment).
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