However, as of the current state of research, there appears to be a significant gap in exploratory and experimental studies specifically addressing the capabilities of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) in the context of determination and discovery of legal issues. Such studies would be instrumental in understanding how these advanced AI technologies manage the intricate task of accurately classifying and pinpointing legal matters, a domain traditionally reliant on the deep, contextual, and specialised knowledge of human legal experts. To address the identified gap in the research landscape, this study proposes an experimental and exploratory analysis of the performance of LLMs in the legal domain. The research aims to evaluate the capabilities of LLMs contrasting their performance against human legal practitioners on high volume real-world legal tasks. These types of high volume legal tasks are frequently outsourced or pushed to less experienced lawyers, and given the rapid advancements made by LLMs, raises the question of whether LLMs have achieved a level of legal comprehension that is comparable to the quality, accuracy and efficiency of Junior Lawyers or outsourced legal practitioners on such tasks.

It's no secret that the legal field is a competitive environment. Junior lawyers are undeterred by (and perhaps even attracted to) the cutthroat nature of the business, and one-upping the competitor is necessary to get a job in the legal field. Firms turn to the latest and greatest tech development to compete with each other and "keep up with the [legal] Joneses." In 2019 alone, investments in B2B legal tech soared past $1 billion. Still, some legal professionals fear that cutting-edge technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), will eliminate the role of junior lawyers in the future. It's clear to many, however, that law firms must incorporate new legal tech developments in order to attract top talent, remain a top competitor, and mold their junior lawyers to be better than the next.

Your life is about to be significantly changed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), whether you want it to be or not. Every once in while, something happens that tosses a huge rock into the pond of human affairs. Such rocks include things like the discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, written language, movable type, the telegraph, computers, and the Internet. These kinds of massive disturbances produce pronounced, remarkable, unexpected changes, and radically alter human life. Artificial Intelligence is just such a rock, and will produce exactly those kinds of disturbances. We're not prepared for the tsunami that AI is going to throw at us. AI has been the technology of the future since the 1960s, but one that always seemed just over the horizon, and never arrived.

FinTech (financial technology) is a term that many of us are familiar with. It is an area now receiving billions of pounds in investment, seeing new start-ups every week and that even has its own awards event. While lawyers may traditionally be late to the game to integrate technology, things are now rapidly changing across the profession. LegalTech has become a talking point across not just the legal world but across the entire media. Forbes, the Financial Times, and even the Royal Society have all commented on it in the past few months, with articles and reports exploring the future of artificial intelligence in law. LegalTech is many different things.

Its traditional aversion to risk has meant the legal profession has not been in the vanguard of new technology. But it is seen as ripe for disruption -- a view that is based not least on pressure from tech-savvy corporate clients questioning the size of their legal bills and wanting to reduce risk. As more law firms become familiar with terms such as machine learning and data mining, they are creating tech-focused jobs like "head of research and development" or hiring coders or artificial intelligence (AI) experts. Change is being driven not only by demand from clients but also by competition from accounting firms, which have begun to offer legal services and to use technology to do routine work. "Lawtech" start-ups, often set up by ex-lawyers and so-called because they use technology to streamline or automate routine aspects of legal work, are a threat too.