WRAP-UP OF THE YEAR, TRENDS FOR 2017 AND FUTURE IN THE LEGAL MARKET”

This year was (and still has been) very much busy in the scope of the legal events and I can not remember having seen anything similar in the recent past, but it was also the stage for the boom of technological changes that began to undermine the governance structure of the traditional Brazilian legal market.

I refer to the breakneck growth of the technologies of the so-called “Artificial Intelligence” which, suddenly blossomed like mushrooms that sprout in a moist morning of a dark forest.

For 20 yearsI have been a member of an association which is focused on the study and development of technology for law firms in the USA and just to get an idea, from 2015 to 2016, 35 companies emerged presenting products and services focused on this market with the use of cognitive technologies.

For clearer contextualization, the term “Artificial Intelligence”, in fact, covers a series of technologies and mathematical and statistic algorithms, which allow the machine to “learn” cognitively beyond the yes or no binary and to be able to make decisions based on previous experiences. Below, there  is a slide taken from a presentation of “NeotaLogic”, which very well illustrates this theme:

In addition, there are a dozen of mathematical and statistical algorithms that can be used for the several areas of Law, such as: regression, decision trees, neural networks, “ensemble”, “deeplearning” etc.

All those technologies enable:

1 – The cognitive identification of documents and the extraction of themes that are approached internally not only by means of the words contained but also by means of their semantic meaning.

2 – Classification and automatic distribution of those documents to the professionals who hold know-how that is coherent to its content.

3 – Intelligent Research (again not only by means of words) of the information that is necessary to the elaboration of a new document such as, jurisprudences, doctrines, previous cases, etc.

4 – The automatic elaboration, per se, of the documents based on answers to thematic questions. Example: creation of contracts about specific themes.

5 – Forecast, that is, the statistic analysis of prior judgments and estimate of “gain or loss” of a given thesis in a given Court.

All this is imposing on the entire legal market (offices, legal departments and even judges and Courts) a big change in the way one looks, understands, behaves and mainly manages the legal profession.

In a period that I think will last for a long time where there is a scarcity of financial resources in the market, with the most violent competition and all the companies looking for efficiency and productivity, the adoption of these technologies will allow the beginning of the introduction of these concepts on the well-established legal market.

I am not advocating a “dark”vision of the future of the profession, where the robots will dominate the legal world, but warning the professions of the area to be aware of this trend and to be resilient enough to adapt themselves.

I have always advocated the theory that the lawyers should have a very good capacity for analysis (in order to understand the challenge and all its implication) and also a good capacity for synthesis (where he/she can express the solution of the challenge), and, in the current situation, such professional should more use his/her experience, his/her knowledge, and mainly his/her intellectual capacity and leave the search and analysis job to the machines.

The legal professional of the future, that is already present, will use more the brain and less the hands.

José Paulo Graciotti, is consultant and founding Partner of GRACIOTTI ASSESSORIA EMPRESARIAL, engeneer by Escola Politécnica Universidade de São Paulo, with Financial MBA at FGV and specialized in Knowledge Mnagement by FGV. ILTA Member since 1998 (International Legal Technology Association) and ALA (Association of Legal Administrators), with more than 27 years managing Law Firms in Brazil – www.graciotti.com.br