Preparing for Artificial Intelligence in the Legal Profession

One of the very hot topics so far in 2017 is artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential disruptive impact on the legal profession. Questions ranging from, "Will AI replace lawyers?" to "Does it make sense to attend law school with the rise of AI?" to "How will AI impact the delivery, cost, and quality of legal services?" IN FACT, THE INTERSECTION OF AI AND THE LAW HAS recently captured the attention of major media outlets including The New York Times ("A.I. is Doing Legal Work. In addition, nowadays you would be hardpressed to attend a legal conference without a session, panel, or presentation on AI. This article reviews the basics of AI, key use cases for AI in the legal profession, some primary AI-related legal issues, and steps that your law firm or in-house legal department may want to take to become AI-ready. In his book "The Fourth Industrial Revolution,"3 Klaus Schwab, executive chairman and founder of The World Economic Forum, begins by briefly reviewing the three earlier industrial revolutions that transformed our society and then devotes the remainder of the book to describing how our world recently entered a whole new era in which we will witness unprecedented major and rapid technological innovations. AI has the potential to be a disruptive force in our "Fourth Industrial Revolution." Like many newer and transformational technologies, there is no uniform definition for AI. An October 2016 report issued by the White House called "Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence" states the following: "Some define AI loosely as a computerized system that exhibits behavior that is commonly thought of as requiring intelligence.