What are AI Legal Writing Generators?
The realm of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal industry is constantly evolving. Interest in AI continues to grow, and it now permeates nearly every corner of the legal industry. AI can now be found at work in firm management, process automation, data and knowledge management, billing, docketing, analytics, BTI, and more. But one of the areas in which it has arguably had the most profound impact has been in legal writing, through the emergence of AI legal writing generators.
As their name suggests, AI legal writing generators are artificial intelligence programs and applications that generate legal documents. As a class of technology, they can include everything from simple solutions that mimic Word or Google Docs templates to advanced, sophisticated solutions that generate highly sophisticated documents using natural language processing, cognitive automated writing technologies, machine learning, predictive analytics, and other AI capabilities .
For instance, there are AI legal writing generators for automating repetitive contracts and clauses, narrowing clauses, generating comments, and making legal writing more efficient. AI can also take on a number of other specific functions such as drafting pleadings and correspondence and processing legal citations. In addition, as more advanced AI technologies continue to be built, other characteristics will be integrated into AI legal writing generators including the ability to identify potential legal issues, incorporate relevant laws, organize information more effectively, maintain legal and technical accuracy, and advise upon multiple perspectives and legal interpretations.
By leveraging the above capabilities, AI legal writing generators can provide substantial efficiencies for antirepetitive legal writing, significantly improve upon the quality of legal writing, and help firms better allocate and utilize their limited resources.
Advantages of Incorporating AI for Legal Writing
The benefits of using AI legal writing generators are numerous. First and foremost, they save time. The speed with which these programs can draft documents is significantly faster than even the most efficient human writers, which means that lawyers can perform the act of writing itself at a much faster pace. This leads to cost efficiencies, as more documents can be generated in the same timeframe. Additionally, because much of the drafting process can be automated, human lawyers spend less time on low-level tasks, providing them with more free hours to focus on billable work. Further, AI-based legal writing generators boost quality and provide for greater consistency across documents. A well-trained AI can draft more quickly and with more accuracy than a new lawyer or paralegal. This means less lag time between drafting and getting an accurate final copy out of the door, which means greater efficiency in the legal workflow. Moreover, because they are constantly analyzing and keeping up with new legal research, AI-based legal writing generators are also more consistent in their use of legal cites and updates than even the most diligent human writers or editors.
Well-Known AI Legal Writing Tools
There are several AI legal writing generators that stand out in the market today. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most popular ones and see how they stack up against each other.
Casetext’s CoCounsel is an AI legal assistant designed specifically for attorneys. CoCounsel is integrated into Casetext’s existing legal research platform and offers a suite of tools for legal writing, including legal briefs, memos, and motions. The tool uses advanced algorithms to analyze the text and produce tailored documents based on the specific needs of the user.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT is an open-source AI model that can be used for a variety of tasks, including legal writing. It is designed to be flexible and adaptable to different use cases, and it offers a wide range of features for legal writing, such as generating legal opinions, drafting contracts, and producing summaries of legal texts. ChatGPT is highly customizable, allowing users to fine-tune the AI model to their specific needs.
LexisNexis’s Lex Machina is another API designed to assist attorneys in legal research and writing. The tool analyzes millions of legal cases to provide insights and recommendations for legal writing. It uses natural language processing to understand legal texts and offers suggestions for improving the clarity and accuracy of legal writing.
LegalMation is an AI-powered platform that specializes in automating legal writing tasks such as drafting complaints, discovery requests, and responses. The tool uses machine learning to identify legal patterns and precedents, which it then uses to generate legal documents. LegalMation is aimed at large law firms and corporate legal departments that handle a high volume of legal writing tasks.
These AI legal writing generators differ in their focus and approach to legal writing. Casetext’s CoCounsel and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are more general-purpose tools that can be used for a wide range of legal writing tasks. In contrast, LegalMation is tailored to specific tasks such as drafting legal complaints and motions. Which tool is best for a law firm will depend on the specific needs of the firm and the types of legal writing tasks that they need assistance with.
Common Obstacles and Restrictions
Despite the promising advantages of using AI legal writing generators, potential challenges and limitations exist. First, the technology is not foolproof. While advancements in machine learning and natural language processing have made AI tools like chatbots and text-to-speech systems more effective, they still face issues such as the inability to maintain consistency in tone and formatting and a lack of contextual understanding. The technology is not perfect. And yet we humans often have blind faith in the technology. We need to be aware that this is a work in progress. We need to use this technology as an aide to hang onto the relevancy of our profession.
Second, the level of accuracy of AI tools is a concern. Artificial intelligence, especially under its current state of development, is unable to understand the law’s nuances. Thus, it has its share of errors. Yet we often trust it blindly and Realtors can afford to act on semantics? Think about the inevitable claims coming your way as Lawyers see that the AI has made errors (which the Lawyer will be held accountable for).
Third, it requires human supervision. This is the big one. No one can blame AI when there are errors, but we still have a need for Lawyers to supervise this process. Lawyers are usually responsible for all steps taken towards completing a project. These processes, particularly those that involve the law, are too intricate to place the responsibility of overseeing them entirely in the hands of computer-generated programs.
Finally, there are legal complexities and compliance issues. It is critiqued that artificial intelligence introduction into the legal sector threatens attorneys as the legal professional has some boundaries on its legal work contents that are needed as the legal work does set a precedent. As for compliance issues, there are existing concerns with confidentiality issues and data protection as AI must access private information on its machine to synthesize legal writing. AI is dependent on its algorithms and the data that exists within it. However, that data is not immune from breaches and is at risk of being taken into criminal hands if not for proper preventative measures.
The Future of AI and Legal Writing
We can certainly expect to see substantial movement in the AI space for legal writing, as we have already for general legal research. The changes to legal research have already made many in-house counsel question the need for outside counsel updates, billable or not, when they can get quality content themselves using these programs. I suspect the same fate will come to legal writing and urged research.
There are many possible emerging technologies that will, or have the potential to change the way we use AI to write. There are programs that will help you to research and find precedent, then draft a motion based on the precedent in a very short amount of time. Using a program like this to get around the basic legal writing need in some situations will allow valuable time to be used for more complex writing , like client briefs and interesting articles. There are already programs that will let you update the writing style of whatever you wrote to an another author’s if you somehow need to write in someone else’s tone.
A talking interface would be the next big thing for legal writing. The future could be entirely voice-driven, with lawyers directing the document through speech rather than typing, similar to a very advanced version of dictation software. The next step after that would be for the voice-driven interface to learn the lawyer’s voice and writing style and simply consult with the lawyer about what they want, and spit out a product.
Again, a lot of false positives are to be expected as we work out the kinks in the technology. Ultimately, though, as we try to partner with AI and AI gets better and better to help us do our actual work, we can spend more time doing higher-level work.
Ethics of Legal Writing AI
When it comes to ethical considerations, AI legal writing generators don’t have to be a divisive issue. As we’ve talked about before on the blog, using AI legal writing generators in your legal practice is completely ethical. In fact, ethical legal writing is in the DNA of the LexisNexis® AI platform.
When it comes to general ethical considerations around the use of AI in the legal writing space, there are several things to consider, particularly in regard to data privacy, bias in AI algorithms, and how the use of AI may alter job roles.
Data Privacy
It’s critical that AI legal writing generators such as Lexis+™ AI are fully compliant with data protection laws. In accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), data security and transparency are of utmost concern for the development and release of these tools.
Bias
AI systems and legal writing generators may be dismissed out of hand because of allegations of bias, which may be present in many existing systems but are not there in products such as Lexis+ AI. Early examples of biased AI cite facial recognition systems that were biased against women of color, and recruitment algorithms that were biased against female job applicants, because they were trained solely on data that contained characteristics of white male employees. Therefore, the systems perpetuated the gender and racial bias that is prevalent in most societies. The same problems can occur with text-based materials if the data sets used to train the AI are not carefully monitored for bias. Again, some systems are designed exclusively to anticipate African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and will flag text written by and for these users that they don’t understand (and is grammatically correct). Lexis+ AI was trained on a large and diverse dataset that included many white men and women, as well as men and women of color. This wasn’t an exercise in social equity, however. It was a necessary step to ensure that the AI models being built did not have an implicit bias and would therefore treat every user equally. Bias detection mechanisms are also built into the product itself.
Impact on Legal Jobs
AI holds a lot of potential to create efficiencies for law firms and other legal service providers, whether they are using it for legal writing generation or other applications, such as contract and document review. It means that lawyers can spend less time doing low-level work and more time on high-level work. This, however, may sound the alarm bells in some industries because big data and AI are taking away jobs from humans. The legal profession is already experiencing hiring freezes and layoffs. So what is the reality? Is AI going to wipe out the legal profession? Or does it just mean that jobs will be different going forward? It’s likely that the truth is somewhere in the middle. AI technologies and tools such as legal writing generators will not remove jobs altogether, but they will alter the roles of legal writers, allowing them to focus on more strategic work.
Integrating AI in Your Legal Practice
Implementing AI in Your Legal Practice
By utilizing an AI legal writing generator, you can save valuable time. Instructions on how to use the tool are below: Step 1: Select a theme & generate general content The first step to harnessing the power of this AI legal writing generator is selecting the theme of the content. The AI legal writing generator is able to generate text on a multitude of topics, such as business law, criminal law, functional foods, and commercial transactions. After selecting a theme, the AI legal writing generator will instantly create content reflecting the selected topic. Step 2: Add data & enhance the content After creating a piece of legal writing , the text can be improved with information related to a specific legal question. This information will help to develop the content further and will expound upon the initial topic of the text. Lawyers are able to refine the topic of the created content, making the text more specific to their area of practice. Step 3: Save your content Once the content has been generated, lawyers have the option of saving their files for future review and use. Files that are saved are conveniently stored on the website for future access. This ensures that the content can be repurposed and reused as many times as desired.
