Still in law school? Artificial intelligence begins to take over legal work - The College Fix

For those thinking of law school, keep in mind that technology may revolutionize the profession before you earn that J.D. In the research-driven, labor-intensive legal profession, the age-old question of man vs. machine is being answered as some law firms have begun to use an "artificially intelligent attorney" to research and hash out legal issues – a trend that legal minds predict will displace some human lawyers. Called ROSS, the robot lawyer uses IBM's cognitive computer program Watson to learn from experience to gain speed when answering legal questions, according to its creators. It can read through the entire body of law to return a cited answer, monitor the law to recognize other court decisions that could affect the case at hand, and even glean conclusions from more than one billion legal documents per second, they add. Its creation comes on the heels of a 2014 analysis that predicted artificial intelligence will cause "structural collapse" of law firms by 2030. As for the robo-lawyer, one law professor said the technology will displace some workers.