One of the country's biggest law firms has become the first to publicly announce that it has "hired" a robot lawyer to assist with bankruptcy cases. The robot, called ROSS, has been marketed as "the world's first artificially intelligent attorney." ROSS has joined the ranks of law firm BakerHostetler, which employs about 50 human lawyers just in its bankruptcy practice. The AI machine, powered by IBM's Watson technology, will serve as a legal researcher for the firm. It will be responsible for sifting through thousands of legal documents to bolster the firm's cases.

After graduating with a law degree from the University of Saskatchewan, Andrew identified a problem amid the legal hierarchy – by experiencing it first-hand. "I worked at a small law firm to pay my way through university and law school. When I started out I did a lot of the grunt work that senior lawyers don't do. Legal research takes about 30% of a lawyer's time. Currently legal research works by inputting keywords to search a massive databases of cases – you type in a query and get thousands of results, which a lawyer has to trawl through to pick out key meanings. I was doing that, and I can tell you that it's a mess and takes a long time".

One of the country's biggest law firms has become the first to publicly announce that it has "hired" a robot lawyer to assist with bankruptcy cases. The robot, called ROSS, has been marketed as "the world's first artificially intelligent attorney." ROSS has joined the ranks of law firm BakerHostetler, which employs about 50 human lawyers just in its bankruptcy practice. The AI machine, powered by IBM's Watson technology, will serve as a legal researcher for the firm. It will be responsible for sifting through thousands of legal documents to bolster the firm's cases.