The legal profession has “an obligation to our new generation of lawyers” to evaluate how AI technology can best optimise legal processes, stated Professor Richard Susskind in an event jointly hosted by the Forum of Insurance Lawyers (FOIL) and Canadian Defence Lawyers.
“The Use of Generative AI by Defence Lawyers – Capability and Culpability”, chaired by Heather Sanderson (president of Canadian Defence Lawyers) on 5 October 2023, set out what the future of law may look like as AI technology evolves and has a greater impact on the legal sector.
The event hosted talks from Richard Susskind, IT adviser and professor at the University of Oxford, Gresham College and Strathclyde University, and Maura R. Grossman, professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, and Adjunct Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, both in Ontario.
Susskind argued that “generative AI is a new and early chapter in the long-running story of AI”, amidst the continual growth of neural network technology. With the performance of these technologies doubling every 3.5 months, Susskind predicted that courts will be driven by technology we don’t yet know about currently by the year 2030.
Increased access to justice and asynchronous hearings were two of the potential developments outlined by Susskind which he predicts will be implemented into the profession soon, with the latter will potentially becoming commonplace for low-value dispute resolution.
In terms of the AI technology rolling in for lawyers’ client solutions, software which can use the facts provided to assess the probability of a case being successful is not outside the realms of reality. Susskind argues that this could change the legal landscape to the point where there is “no loyalty to the current legal method”.
Grossman went on to outline how the evolving use of AI technology in the legal sector will not come without teething pains, arguing how AI-generated evidence could make proceedings more expensive due to a rise in disputes over the validity of evidence, for example. She warned how, as a product of this, “juries may become more cynical” over presented evidence, which in turn may damage the justice process.
Alongside this, Grossman also called for caution over the use of historical data by AI algorithms, which may lead to biases which do not represent the sentiments of a continually changing society.