R&D

I made the mistake earlier today of searching “law and ai” on Google. Instead of getting hits of law and artificial intelligence sites, I mostly got hits that referred to sites discussing Jude Law’s role in the Steven Spielberg moving, AI. Well, my search string wasn’t that well-formed because, after modifying the search to read “law and artificial intelligence,” I got a number of hits relevant to my intended topic – hits that included sites dealing with academic conferences on the subject, as well as even a journal, published by Kluwer, devoted to artificial intelligence and the law.

But what I couldn’t find, not surprisingly, was any reference to a law firm’s role in artificial intelligence as applied to the law. Now, AI, after the over-blown promises of its earliest enthusiasts in the mid-50’s, has by and large proved to be a disappointment when it comes to its role in fields like the law (in fact, when it comes to its role in most fields of any kind whatsoever). Sure, there are aspects of legal knowledge that the expert systems of today can manage, and there are patterns common to rather standards sets of facts or to bodies of case law that neural networks could probably be trained to recognize. But to really get a hold in the law, much general artificial intelligence research remains to be carried out and, more importantly, research into AI’s specific application to the law must be carried out as well. Which leads me to my question: Why don’t the largest US law firms have R&D departments devoted, if not to exotica like AI, then to the development of other, lesser challenges such as the better automation of so many of the routine processes that lawyers, senior and junior alike, must content with still.

Law firm R&D? Preposterous you say! Law firms are in the business of practicing law, not carrying out blue-sky activities like research and development. But isn’t it really all a matter of return on investment and should that R&D come up with cost-saving, quality-bettering process improvements; well, who’s to say the return won’t warrant the investment. Our English cousins appear to have stolen a march on us here State-side when it comes to the sort of investment in R&D that I speak of here. And look at the budgets for R&D that the large consulting and accounting firms have.

But, if there’s one theme that will persist in this blog, it’s that an enterprising, far-sighted and rich large US firm will catch on (or “get it,” as it were) and see the positive ROI that lurks in devoting resources to automation R&D. Either that, or when the bars to those self-same consulting firms and accounting firms’ practice of full-fledged law come falling down, the R&D effort won’t be the law firms’ alone to exploit.

Comments

[Ron Friedmann]

Interesting comments. A couple of notes:

1. I cannot provide citations, but I've read somewhere that the major acounting firms spend 5 to 7% of revenue on training; law firms spend perhaps 1%. Not the same as R&D, but for a prof. services organization, it gives you some sense of scale.

2. Having spent 3 years working for Jnana Technologies (http://www.jnana.com), I would argue that AI can be successfully applied to law. I helped several law firms and departments do so. To be sure, there is more work to be done, but a lot can be done today. The big challenge, I think, is the business model, not the technology. (For more on this, see my articles and white papers on this question at http://www.prismlegal.com/index.php?option=content&task=category&id=76&Itemid=55)

[Tom Collins]

I don't know if one of us should be worried, but check out my blog post from the same day: http://knowledgeaforethought.blogs.com/

[Charles Soule]

AI not useful in any field? Perhaps it's not as useful as HAL 9000 quite yet, but AI is applied extremely well in various automated voice-response systems, video games, training simulators for both military and domestic applications, on-board guidance systems in cars and other vehicles, hell, even the auto-complete and auto-correct functions in Word could be considered a rudimentary form of AI. And of course, there's the Roomba.

We don't have killer robots yet (only a matter of time, hopefully) but AI's coming along pretty well. We'll get there, I'm sure.

[Anon]

Some firms are automating... My firm is highly automated. Our secretaries can't function at other law firms due to the highly automated docketging/document assembly we have. We continue to innovate. I have four developers on my staff. I'd say we're the R&D staff at my firm. We're currently focusing on workflow. I work for a large national firm.

[Term paper]

Interesting Read That Law firms are in the business of practicing law, not carrying out blue-sky activities like research and development.

[chris]

All I can see in my mind is Hall from the movie............