The What of Legal AI

AI is often used in a vague and all-encompassing sense. It seems to be this magical technology that can solve all problems. This is far from the truth. AI can help to solve some problems but for someone who isn’t familiar with AI, it’s not entirely clear what AI can and can’t do.

The Actions of Legal AI

AI is usually used to train a model to perform a specific task. This aspect is the What of Legal AI. The What of Legal AI describes what action the AI will perform. Within Legal AI there are a small number of relevant actions that AI can perform.

1. ⛏ Extract
2. 🔗 Compare
3. 🗂 Organise
4. 🏷 Label
5. 🔎 Find
6. ✍️ Draft
7. 📝 Summarise
8. 📈 Forecast

⛏ Extract

Extract involves using AI to extract key pieces of information from a passage of text. A typical use case involves using AI to extract key fields such as the parties and termination date from a contract.

🔗 Compare

Compare involves using AI to compare two passages of texts to spot any differences between them. These passages of text could be sentences, clauses of even entire documents. A typical use case involves using AI to compare a drafted clause against a playbook standard to identify any risky deviation.

🗂 Organise

Organise involves using AI to organise a collection of texts (clauses or documents) so that similar texts are identified and grouped together. A typical use case involves using AI to organise documents during discovery so related documents are grouped together.

🏷 Label

Label involves using AI to provide a label to a passage of text. This passage of text could be a sentence, clause or document. A typical use case involves using AI to label a document by its document type or a clause by its clause type. Or, labelling a document against a pre-defined taxonomy.

🔎 Find

Find involves using AI to find relevant texts among a large collection of text using a query. A typical use case involves using AI to find the most relevant cases during legal research.

✍️ Draft

Draft involves using AI to draft and generate text. A typical use case involves using AI to draft a clause in a contract.

📝 Summarise

Summarise involves using AI to create a summary from a text. A typical use case involves using AI to summarise a case judgment into a headnote.

📈 Forecast

Forecast involves using AI to forecast a numeric quantity. A typical use case involves using AI to forecast billing or spend for a matter.

Applying the What of Legal AI

The What of Legal AI provides a way to understand what AI can do through simple actions. Rather than speaking in unclear terms and using AI in a broad vague sense, it’s more useful to speak in terms of the desired and practical action AI should perform.