The use of AI in legal tech

I asked ChatGPT: “How does AI impact the use of legal technology?”

This was the reply:

QUOTE

AI significantly impacts the use of legal technology in several transformative ways, improving efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility in legal services. Here's a breakdown of the key areas where AI influences legal tech:

1. Legal Research and Information Retrieval

• Before AI: Lawyers spent hours manually searching through case law, statutes, and legal precedents.
• With AI: Tools like LexisNexis, Westlaw Edge, and Casetext (CoCounsel) use AI to:
  • Speed up legal research by identifying relevant cases, statutes, and commentary.
  • Use natural language processing (NLP) to understand the intent behind queries.
  • Suggest related cases or highlight precedents.

2. Contract Analysis and Review

• AI tools can:
  • Automatically extract key clauses (e.g., termination dates, payment terms).
  • Flag unusual or risky provisions.
  • Compare contracts against a company’s standards or benchmarks.

Examples: Kira Systems, LawGeex, Luminance.

3. Litigation Prediction and Analytics

• AI can analyze historical court data and predict:
  • Case outcomes.
  • Judge or opposing counsel tendencies.
  • Average case duration or settlement amounts.
• Tools: Premonition, Ravel Law, Lex Machina.

4. Document Automation

• AI can help automate the creation of:
  • Contracts, NDAs, wills, and legal forms.
  • This reduces repetitive work and human error.
• Tools: DocuSign CLM, Contract Express, HotDocs.

5. E-Discovery

• AI helps filter through massive volumes of electronic evidence in litigation (emails, messages, files).
• Technologies like predictive coding and machine learning identify relevant documents much faster than manual review.

6. Legal Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

• AI chatbots can:
  • Answer basic legal questions.
  • Guide users through legal procedures.
  • Provide access to justice for people who can’t afford a lawyer.

Examples: DoNotPay, Hello Divorce, LawDroid.

7. Compliance and Risk Management

• AI systems can monitor regulatory updates and alert companies about:
  • Changes in laws.
  • Compliance risks.
• Useful in industries with high regulatory burdens like finance, healthcare, and data protection (e.g., GDPR tools).

8. Natural Language Understanding for Case Review

• AI models like GPT-4 can read and interpret legal text, summarize arguments, and assist in writing briefs or memos.

Important for junior lawyers or in-house counsel looking to improve turnaround time.

Challenges and Considerations

• Bias & Fairness: AI trained on biased legal data can perpetuate discrimination.
• Privacy & Confidentiality: Sensitive legal data must be protected.
• Regulation: Ethical use of AI in law is still evolving.
• Adoption: Resistance from traditional law firms, lack of digital infrastructure in courts.

Summary

UNQUOTE

Now what does this response mean to English and Welsh Notaries?  Well the most obvious thing to me are the Americanisms: The use of ‘z’ in spellings and multiple references to US based services. This would mean that the answers provided wouldn’t necessarily be suitable for UK based services. When asked about the difference between the UK and the US, most of the response was geared towards the stricter privacy laws in the UK. This is a key consideration. With many AI platforms, what you enter becomes publicly available and is used to create better answers for future users.  Notaries can’t use AI in this regard. If I wanted to use AI to draft an affidavit for me. I couldn’t use the particulars of the person, or in deed the statements that they wanted to affirm, it could only be used to set the format. Most Notaries will have a precedent bank, and those that are members of the Notaries Society have access to one.

I asked ChatGTP: “How can UK legal tech and the use of AI assist UK notaries?” to which the response summarised “AI and legal tech won’t replace UK notaries — but they can significantly enhance their efficiency, compliance, and service delivery, particularly as client expectations modernise and international business grows.”

I think that this is the area that we need to focus on, to assist not to replace. When using AI we need to make sure that the data is kept in platform, the appropriate security systems are in place and integrity is maintained.

For me, redacted machine translations, identity, PEP and sanctions checks and automated workflows are really helpful in assisting notaries and other lawyers in their day to day jobs.  What the field need to remember is that client data protection is key, we must inadvertently divulge or allow data to be accessed that can cause harm etc. We must maintain the high standards of our industry. As we work ever closer to a more digitised work environment across all sectors, ensuring that information is clear, concise and correct is all very important, not just to the people we meet, but to those that rely on the information we provide.