Artificial intelligence

AI will change the legal profession, just not how you are expecting. Fernando Garcia is looking forward to the day when he can get his hands on Beagle, an automated contract analysis system powered by artificial intelligence that reads contracts in seconds, highlights key information visually with easy-to-read graphs and charts and gets "smarter" with each reviewed contract. Also on his bucket list is an offering by yet another Canadian legal tech startup, Blue J Legal, that also uses AI to scan legal documents, case files and decisions to predict how courts will rule in tax decisions. At a time when the majority of in-house counsel are under intense pressure to shave costs and run a lean team, such powerful tools are a godsend. "There's always that pressure to do more with less, so when a tool comes along that can provide more efficiency, more risk mitigation and can let you do your job better and focus on providing value added, it is a strategic advantage," notes Garcia, general counsel, government affairs and corporate secretary with Nissan Canada Inc. "It's going to fundamentally change our job." This fundamental change has been a long time coming. Nearly two decades ago, the former justice of the High Court of Australia, Michael Kirby, remarked with uncanny prescience in a speech before the Bombay High Court in Mumbai that "it would be a bold observer" who would deny the possibility of artificial intelligence to "enhance" lawyering and judicial-making.