Many of us have embraced Artificial Intelligence (AI) in our everyday lives, using it to navigate our driving or unlock our phones with facial recognition. AI is here to stay in the legal tech space, but many lawyers have been slow to adopt it. This often stems from myths that AI won't play well with important applications like Microsoft Word, or that it may even replace lawyers altogether.
In this blog post, we explore how AI and powerful contract analytics can help-not hinder-legal professionals.
1. AI reduces manual tasks
AI automates tasks that have historically been done by humans. While this might seem frightening at first, it means AI can act as an extension of your legal team. Imagine the best legal intern ever. That's AI! (Sorry, Brian. You can still take our coffee orders.0
Contract analysis software removes grunt work that has traditionally taken up hours of legals’ precious time, including:
- Sorting through decades of case law and sample legal agreements
- Conducting academic analysis that separates good contracts from bad ones
- Differentiating between valid legal decisions versus ones that were overturned
Allowing AI to take on manual tasks means legal pros gain valuable time back, focus on overall strategy, and even develop their personal brand.
2. AI classifies, automates, and predicts
AI is called "intelligent" for a reason. Using advanced algorithms results in many practical advantages, but three of the most useful include classifying, automating, and predicting.
- Classifying: AI performs many basic legal classifications, like distinguishing between employment contracts and lease agreements. Even when contracts are disorganized or poorly written, AI can make those distinctions.
- Automating: After classifying a set of data, legal-centric AI uses automation to analyze things like key clauses in an agreement and then flags the sections that deviate from your boilerplate language.
- Predicting: This is the final phase that helps anticipate patterns in data. Legal AI has a wide range of prediction capabilities, including identifying document types and their past execution dates and collating variations of Force Majeure clauses.
3. AI helps sharpen your skills
But not because it’s performing you out of your job. AI is a powerful tool, but it has limitations. Legal professionals like you are essential for strategic, creative, and other “human” skills that AI can’t replace. Please note, "creative" in this context does not refer to illegal or unethical legal advice.
The best approach is to grow with AI, leaving cumbersome tasks to contract analytics software so that you can focus on the more nuanced and strategic areas of law and legal work.
Understanding how AI can be a strategic tool for lawyers means better business practices, streamlined contract analytics, and personal career growth. If you're ready to learn more about how AI can improve your contract analysis process, contact LinkSquares today.
