{"id":9,"date":"2009-05-17T23:29:51","date_gmt":"2009-05-18T03:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/2009\/05\/17\/more-on-those-robots\/"},"modified":"2009-05-17T23:45:33","modified_gmt":"2009-05-18T03:45:33","slug":"more-on-those-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/2009\/05\/17\/more-on-those-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"More on those robots"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to offer a bit of an explanation of my chosen first title. The robots-vs.-lawyers moniker was a somewhat tongue in cheek reference to the intro given to my interview of Richard Susskind available on Radio Berkman<\/a>.
\nNevertheless, robot lawyers are making news.
\nSouth African law firm Buys Inc. plans to offer a trio of \u201crobot lawyers\u201d to answer client questions. Perhaps disappointingly, they\u2019re not actually robots but actually an anthropomorphic addition to the GUI for a system to answer client questions, presumably greatly increasing firm efficiency and profitability. I tried to track this one down further, but only got as far as a very brief online article<\/a>.. (In fairness, the definition of \u201crobot\u201d might vary in South Africa. What Americans call \u201ctraffic lights\u201d are called \u201ctraffic robots\u201d in South African English.)
\nAnother South African company is marketing a product Jnana<\/a> (from a Hindi word meaning \u201cknowledge\u201d). Doesn\u2019t use the word \u201crobot\u201d but promises to help build \u201cvirtual lawyers.\u201d From what I understand, this program can help companies build their own systems for compliance and other legal needs. A company you know of might be using Jnana for its own internal issues, even though you or I can\u2019t access the system with our own questions.
\nAn American company is also marketing something it calls \u201cRobot Lawyer<\/a>,\u201d although this appears to be software meant to increase the productivity of real lawyers.
\nThe robot terminology is, unfortunately, a distraction. Like the term \u201cartificial intelligence\u201d it is wrapped in pop-culture images of R2D2 and Dr. Who that obscure the real thing. The important fact is that computer programs are performing jobs previously thought to require a level of sophistication available only from humans.
\nAs Richard Susskind points out, lawyers still have a job to do designing all these systems. Until these software systems can become self-replicating, some lawyers will still have jobs building these things.<\/p>\n

Not all is lost, lawyers
\nLawyers in the United States can at least temporarily feel much more secure in their jobs than their colleagues elsewhere. Note the proliferation of non-U.S. innovation in the technology of law field.
\nLawyers in the United States have been quite good at guarding their turf. This history runs at least as far back as Quicken Family Lawyer\u2019s experience in Texas<\/a> and Norman Dacey\u2019s \u201cHow to Avoid Probate<\/a>.\u201d and surely much earlier.
\nMore recently, in 2007, an online \u201cbankruptcy engine\u201d was held to be engaged in the unlicensed practice of law<\/a> . It seems inevitable that the system involved would have raised concern sooner or later; on a line reserved for the preparer\u2019s signature, the software printed \u201cnot applicable.\u201d On another line designated for disclosing any fee paid for the preparation, the system wrote, \u201cRealizing that this document is signed under penalty of perjury, I declare that I prepared my own bankruptcy by myself using a computer and that I was not assisted by an attorney, paralegal or bankruptcy preparer\u2026\u201d No mention was made of the fee paid for the service.
\nPresumably the debtor would have had no problem if he had hired a law firm that used a similar program internally and had a human sign off on the filings.
\nThe debtor in the case above paid $219 for six months of access to the \u201cZilnet Bankruptcy Engine.\u201d It\u2019s tempting to laugh at such not-quite-ready-for-prime time efforts, but when one considers that the cost could be eaten up in the first hour of work with a lawyer, is it such a bad thing for a web-based \u201cbankruptcy engine\u201d to be so cheaply available? In many cases might this be better than no lawyer at all?
\nWhat about insurance? Wouldn\u2019t a subscription based software service coupled with insurance be just as good as a much more expensive lawyer? Imagine if the system cost twice as much, but was \u201cbacked by (insert reputable insurance company here) to insure you up to (choose level of coverage for corresponding premium) dollars for any loss caused by the system\u2019s error.\u201d
\nThen the lawyers could still make money on the back end, sorting out litigation brought by dissatisfied customers. Sooner or later someone would get it right, and the cost of insuring the error-free system would trend toward zero.
\nThe pattern could repeat itself through other areas of law. Those who still need fancy \u201chuman\u201d services could of course still get them from old-fashioned non-robot lawyers.<\/p>\n

– Brock Rutter<\/p>\n

Brock Rutter is trained as a lawyer and is a research assistant to Prof. Oliver
\nGoodenough at the Berkman Center.\u00a0 His interests include technology driven law practice,\u00a0 coming changes to the legal profession, and evolving corporate and transactional law in the digital age.\u00a0 In other endeavors, he is currently programming A2J interview modules to assist pro se litigants in Vermont.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d like to offer a bit of an explanation of my chosen first title. The robots-vs.-lawyers moniker was a somewhat tongue in cheek reference to the intro given to my interview of Richard Susskind available on Radio Berkman. Nevertheless, robot lawyers are making news. South African law firm Buys Inc. plans to offer a trio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9\/revisions\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/lawlab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}