By Laura Aghwana

Introduction

Legal practice in Nigeria prior to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) was surrounded with so much difficulty, which more often than not, discouraged and scared legal practitioners from law practice. However, AI which is highly promoted by the information age that the world has evolved into has introduced a better world for the legal profession, where law can be better sustained and practiced more efficiently by aiding legal tasks, research, etc. In this article, analysis will be made on how AI has come to save and sustain the practice of law, with positive transformations.

What then is AI?

AI was coined by John McCarthy in 19562 and it is an intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans, which performs cognitive functions done by humans; such as problem solving, research, etc. It refers to computer software and systems that don’t just do tasks they’ve been programmed for in advance, they actually learn as they go, improving their performance through feedback. Some examples of AI include; LawPavilion, Casetext(CARA), 5 Kira Software, 6etc.

The Role of AI in the legal Profession

AI through several designed computer software, performs advantageous roles in the legal profession, thereby making law more efficient and effective. These roles include but not limited to the following:

AI Performs Legal Tasks Faster and Aids Productivity

Legal Practitioners perform multiple legal tasks, including drafting of contracts, court processes and other documents which would ordinarily take so much working hours. With AI, such monotonous tasks can be performed more quickly, as it helps to extract relevant data, manage documents and use them to prepare necessary documents in a shorter time. Avaneesh stated that Computer systems can analyze more information, more thoroughly than humans can, in a tiny fraction of time. Kira software for instance can automatically review and extract relevant data from legal documents very quickly. LawPavillion as well, is very fast with providing relevant cases and principles for legal assignments.

The speed which AI renders will go a long way in promoting more creativity and enhancing productivity in the legal practice in Nigeria, as it will enable legal practitioners to handle so many tasks in little time and also help them focus on other areas where AI may have limited functions.

Relating this to the present covid-19 pandemic that has brought a paradigm shift in the legal profession, where so many lawyers are already scared of carrying out assignments physically because of the fast spread of the virus, AI is the best means to perform legal tasks and still aid faster productivity, considering social distancing.

AI Makes Legal Due Diligence Easier

Legal due diligence is an important function in legal practice. For a lawyer to perform legal due diligence effectively, he would need to diligently pay attention to details and possess the ability to think creatively.9 Hence, in conducting due diligence, a lawyer needs to ensure he obtains relevant details and show competence required to carry out his client’s instructions as required of him by legal ethics. It can however be burdensome to conduct due diligence, as it requires a lot of attention to look into every detail, no matter how minute.

Thankfully, AI simplifies tedious tasks associated with legal due diligence and uncovers background information, as well as quickly confirming facts and figures. AI carries out due diligence with ease, especially those data-intensive tasks which would ordinarily stress and bore humans, who are naturally wired to feel same. A good example of such AI is TIMI, which is a chatbot that converses with lawyers and helps to tackle legal tasks. Another is Leverton which manages documents and compiles leases in real estate transactions.

Stores More Information in a More Durable Way

The internet and some computer software have been designed in such a way that they can store billions of information without losing them, excerpt such information was deleted from the site it was uploaded. It has been stated that AI has the ability to store years’ worth of legal data. Legalpedia, lawPavillion etc, can keep a record of legal documents for years, which can be referred to by lawyers at any time. This is in contrast with the human memory that has certain limitations to what it can store and remember and may not keep exact record of information without losing some details with time. AI therefore, provides the best means of securing legal information.

AI Aids Research and Accessibility of law

Legal research is one very important role which AI plays; it does this through automated searches of a universe of case laws and statutes. A computer search engine can go through over a million pages of legal documents in a split second, finding exact pages, principles and cases etc, needed for the preparation and completion of a legal task.16 Good examples are LawPavillion, legalpedia, and Ross Intelligence.

No doubt, the research abilities of AI save lawyers from the mundane task of reading through a plethora of books in search of a piece of information that might just be hidden within the lines of a paragraph.

Promotes More Accuracy and a Higher Quality Work

Admittedly, AI may be unable to carry out all the human activities which are required of a lawyer; however in all aspects of a lawyer’s work in which AI has gained access, it does it more accurately than a lawyer. Soojung18 stated that a computer can fix and analyze documents for errors and fix gabs between information and inconsistent languages.

Also Andrew Hall19 noted that AI can often help sort out problems with fewer mistakes that are often overlooked by the human eye. Law Pavilion Prime20 for instance, helps to analyze legal documents to verify conflicts in cases and authorities.

Therefore, the ability of AI to rapidly review, correct and confirm documents, makes such document to be more accurate and of a higher quality than what a lawyer would ordinarily have done all by himself.

Aids Legal Prediction and Analysis

AI can sift through legal data to predict to lawyers of their chances of winning or losing a case by providing insights from similar cases, which will help to accurately analyze the present case at hand, to best know the right steps to take.

Relatively, a lawyer can easily know to an extent, the line of argument his opponent is likely to take, this is because precedents on legal principles, judgments and other valuable information are generally stored and made available by AI facilities. All that needs to be done according to Sterling Miller21 is to compare the facts of your case to other cases already decided in court and other legal data in line with your subject matter, to get a predictor of how your case will fare. Examples of such facilities are Casetext, Loom Analytics22 which help to predict win/loss rates by finding previous cases, steps taken on them, judgments and the reasons for such judgments.

Conclusion

With the numerous advantages which AI brings, it is settled that AI creates a sustainable legal practice in Nigeria, especially in this period of covid-19, where AI is needed to triumphantly scale through the test of social distancing and the spread of the virus. Therefore, in addition to the Nigerian AI facilities, foreign facilities like Casetext, Looms, Ross etc, should be engaged and used at their best, to sustain the legal practice in Nigeria. It is also recommended that Nigerian lawyers, who are not well skilled with AI facilities, should acquire the relevant skills required, as it will promote a better legal practice in Nigeria.

Flowing from the above analysis, it can be seen that the highest level of accuracy and efficiency of legal practice in Nigeria will be achieved where lawyers, judges and others in the legal profession, work in tandem with AI.

1 Laura Aghwana is a Legal Practitioner with over 2 year post call experience-presently an Associate at Afe Babalola

& Co- she also gained a good number of professional experience from prominent firms like; Rickey Tarfa SAN & Co and Albert Akpomudjie SAN & Co.

2Chris Smith et.al,‘The History of Artificial Intelligence’, University of Washinton,2006accessed 5 June 2020.

3 Wikipedia, Artificial Intelligence, accessed 5 June,2020.

4 Avaneesh Marwaha, Seven Benefits of Artificial Intelligence,’

2017accessed 5 June

2020.

5 A U.S.A-designed research and legal-prediction software

6 A Toronto-designed Document-review software

7 Avaneesh (Fn 3)

8 Olumide Babalola, ‘Evaluation Study of AI-enabled Legal Research Tools: Lawpavillion Report’,2019

accessed 5,June 2020

9 Edward C Harris, Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law, cited by Douglas Godfrey in

‘Transactional Skills Training; All About Due Diligence,

2009

accessed 5 June 2020

10 Rule 14,15 and 16 of the Rules of Professional Conduct,2007.

11 Emerj; The AI Research and Advisory Company: AI in law and legal Practice-A comprehensive View of 35

Current Applications accessed

5 June 2020.

12 Nigerian’s first AI legal Assistant invented in 2018

13 A German-based software that helps with due diligence

14 Emerj (Fn 10)

15 Law Technology Today, ‘Three Ways Law Firms can Use Artificial Intelligence’, 2019;

accessed 7 June 2020

16 Ibid

17 A U.S.A-designed research software.

18 Soojung, Ross Intelligence;‘The Benefits of Using Artificial Intelligence in Law’,2018;

accessed 7 June 2020.

19 Law Technology Today (Fn 15)

20 Nigerian legal analytics’ Software

21 Sterling Miller at Thomson Reuters; ‘The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence: What Have You Done For Me Lately?’

accessed 8 June 2020

A Canadian data analytics