The use of natural language processing technologies in the legal profession

With the evolution of artificial intelligence systems, data analysis, and natural language processing, lawyers have access to new technologies to simplify their work and improve the efficiency and accuracy of their activities.

Lawyers have always had a tremendous amount of work to manage, ranging from drafting documents to researching legal precedents. Natural language processing technologies can simplify and partially automate these processes, saving time and avoiding errors.

For example, text analysis software can analyze large amounts of legal documents to identify important information, such as law citations or specific terms. These tools can help lawyers create more accurate and comprehensive documents, avoiding the omission of important information.

Moreover, text analysis can also be used for legal research. Legal search engines like LexisNexis or Westlaw have long been using natural language processing technologies to help lawyers find relevant legal sources quickly and efficiently.

Natural language processing technologies can also be used to create chatbots for automated and immediate customer assistance. These tools can be particularly useful for small law firms that may not have enough staff to handle a large volume of information requests.

Predictive analysis is another technology that is having a significant impact on the legal profession. This technology relies on the analysis of large amounts of data to identify patterns and trends. In the legal field, predictive analysis can be used to forecast case outcomes and assess the likelihood of winning or losing a particular lawsuit. This can help lawyers make informed decisions about legal strategies and focus their resources on the most promising cases.

Furthermore, predictive analysis can also be used to identify potential legal violations. For example, a company can use predictive analysis to detect potential fraud or legal violations within its operations. This way, the company can intervene promptly to prevent or manage risks.

However, the use of natural language processing technologies in the legal profession also raises ethical and legal issues. For instance, the use of algorithms to analyze client data can raise concerns about privacy and information security. Additionally, predictive analysis may be subject to errors and biases, which can affect legal decisions and case outcomes.

Therefore, it is important for lawyers to ensure that the use of natural language processing technologies is ethical, transparent, and respects clients’ rights. Law firms should also implement information security policies to protect client data.

Here are some examples of artificial intelligence and natural language processing applications in the legal field:

– Ross Intelligence: A legal research platform that uses AI to help lawyers find relevant and meaningful legal information.

– Kira Systems: Contract analysis software that utilizes AI to extract information from legal documents and contracts.

– DoNotPay: A chatbot that assists people in challenging traffic fines and finding alternative ways to resolve legal issues efficiently.

– Casetext: A legal research platform that uses AI to suggest the most relevant case law based on user research.

– Judicata: A legal research platform that employs AI to analyze judges’ decisions and evaluate their performance.

– Everlaw: Legal document management software that uses AI to enable faster and more accurate search of legal documents.

– Legal Robot: A platform that uses AI to analyze contracts and provide information on legal compliance.

These are just a few examples of AI and natural language processing applications in the legal field. Many other applications are being developed and utilized, and their usage is expected to continue to grow over time.

In conclusion, natural language processing technologies are changing how lawyers work and manage their cases. Text analysis, natural language processing, and predictive analysis can help lawyers save time and improve the efficiency and accuracy of legal activities. However, the use of these technologies also raises ethical and legal considerations that must be responsibly addressed. Ultimately, the adoption of natural language processing technologies in the legal profession can enhance the quality of work performed by lawyers and the legal services provided to clients.

–ChatGpt 4 stop–

So far, I have used ChatGPT to write this article, and the result seems quite good, don’t you think? The question that arises now is: will I use ChatGPT in my professional activities? The answer is yes, I will use this technology, but with great caution because I consider it particularly dangerous.

ChatGPT is a stochastic parrot, as brilliantly pointed out in the article “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots”. The study, authored by the former co-leaders of Google’s Ethical AI team, Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, along with linguists from the University of Washington, Emily Bender and Angelina McMillan-Major, led to the dismissal of the former two by the technology company.

The “stochastic parrots” referred to in the title are the so-called large language models, statistical language models that learn from large text databases. With this expression, the authors aim to emphasize that these systems have no understanding of the meaning of the words or expressions they generate because they are not built to have it (and at the current state of the art, they couldn’t), but rather, they identify recurring verbal patterns in the data and “parrot” them (see Chiara Sabelli’s article on Scienzainrete.it).

The fact that these systems have no understanding of the meaning of words necessarily requires careful and meticulous supervision by a human being with a reasonable degree of expertise and knowledge in the subject matter of the automatic language processing. Only humans, in interaction with the machine, are capable of attributing meaning to the stochastic output created by the automatic natural language processing system and, if necessary, taking appropriate action in case of errors, inaccuracies, or completely invented content.

ChatGPT needs guidance and, to produce satisfactory results, it needs to be fed with relevant data on the topic it is expected to process. It requires numerous attempts, and sometimes, given the time required for this training process, it may not justify its use.

However, with a bit of method and a lot of patience, ChatGPT can contribute to creating fairly satisfactory results, such as this article.

In conclusion, after playing around with ChatGPT for a while, I can say that it is certainly foolish to simply copy and paste the output of any stochastic parrot (quote). This is especially true when dealing with the preparation of legal documents and acts, as it could result in harm to the lawyer’s client and subsequent professional liability. However, it would be equally foolish to see these tools solely as a threat. Therefore, it is essential to observe and experiment in order to understand and then use them with awareness.

More to come, to be continued….