Artificial Intelligence and the Law: The Future of Legal Practice (Part 2)

Introduction 

In the inaugural edition of this piece we defined artificial intelligence, explored how it works, discussed its various forms, its introduction into legal practice and rounded it out with an overview of the Nigerian Legal practice and its main features. This will lead off today’s edition, followed by a discussion of artificial intelligence in our legal practice, concluding with public concern about the implications and risks associated with legal practice. Enjoy.

Key Aspects of the Nigerian Legal Practice

Nigeria operates a federal system of government with both federal and state laws. Our legal system is influenced by a combination of the English common law, principles of equity, customary law, Islamic law, and various statutes. The Constitution of Nigeria is the supreme law of the land. Any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution is a nullity.

The legal profession in Nigeria is regulated by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Body of Benchers. The NBA is the umbrella association for all Lawyers in Nigeria, and it sets professional standards and promotes legal education and ethics. The Body of Benchers is responsible for the formal call to the Bar of persons seeking to become legal practitioners, as well as the disciplining of erring Lawyers. Also, the Body also makes regulations towards upholding the core values of the legal profession. It ensures the harmonious relationship between the Bar and the Bench.

To become a lawyer in Nigeria, one typically needs to complete a law degree at a recognised university, followed by a one-year law school program. The Nigerian Law School provides this programme and conducts the Bar Part I and Bar Part II examinations, which are required for legal practice. Upon completion of the one-year law school program, the student will be called to the Bar. What follows next is enrolment at the Supreme Court. Thus, under Section 2 of the Legal Practitioners Act, a legal practitioner is someone whose name is on the role.

Lawyers in Nigeria can practice in various areas, including litigation, corporate and commercial law, real estate, family law, criminal law, and more. Some Lawyers have specialised in maritime law, intellectual property law, and oil and gas law, etc. Given the prominence of ICT, many people are specialising in communication and technology.

It is important to note that the legal procedure in Nigeria includes the court system, which consists of various levels of courts, from the Magistrates’ Courts to the Supreme Court. The hierarchy of the courts includes the Federal and State High Courts, the National Industrial Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.

Artificial Intelligence in Nigerian Legal Practice

There is a rising acceptance of AI by legal practitioners worldwide. However, Nigeria seems to be falling behind in comparison to its developed counterparts. Globally, law firms have started preparing themselves for the future of the legal industry by embracing cutting-edge technology. To do so, they already have begun incorporating AI software, including ROSS intelligence, TAR tool, Kira Systems and Leverton, to streamline tasks that would otherwise be done manually. Notably, law firms like Allen & Overy (through Fuse), Dentons (via Nextlaw labs) and Thomas Reuters (with their elite offerings) are making substantial investments in Legal Tech. These investments aim to implement automated work allocation, predictive data modelling, automated matter management, and expertise identification within their operations.

Exciting developments in Legal AI and technology are expected to unfold in the coming years. Deloitte’s projection indicates that by 2036, more than 100,000 legal tasks will be automated. A comprehensive analysis of over 700 professions, including the legal field, by Carl Benedict Frey and Michael Osborne revealed that the legal profession is soon to undergo computerisation sooner than other sectors like, pharmacy, counselling, teaching and engineering among others. AI is on the brink of triggering a global transformation that will disrupt traditional legal practices. A shift appears to be in progress exemplified by the landmark case of Lola v Skadden (Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, No. 14-3845 (2d Cir. 2015), which held that tasks that could as well be handled by machines are not engagements in law practice (Lola v Skadden and the Automation of the Legal Profession, Yale Journal of Law and Technology). The implication of this ruling paves the way for machines to handle tasks once deemed “exclusive” to lawyers. While this judgment has yet to establish itself as a compelling precedent in many jurisdictions, it is on its path to becoming a worldwide phenomenon in the near future with the Nigerian legal system likely to follow suit when it does.

 Notwithstanding the increasing global embrace of AI among legal professionals, the situation in the Nigerian jurisdiction is quite the opposite. The Nigerian legal industry exhibits a certain level of reluctance towards accepting technological advancements. The primary cause for this attitude among many Lawyers is the perceived ‘challenge’ that innovation presents to the traditional and esteemed nature of the legal profession. For example, Nigerian law firms maintain the traditional brick-and-mortar model to support their billing model. Nigeria’s leading commercial law firms incorporate a conventional practice of law, a partnership model. On top of the pyramid are the partners who share the profits and debt liability of the law firm. However, the emergence of AI will threaten this system, which they need for survival. The incursion of AI into the legal profession might be a catalyst for the legal gig economy, which will increase the competitiveness of legal services. 

The signs are clear, Nigerian Lawyers and law firms must evolve. For top-tier law firms, it is essential to reassess their business models to survive the imminent AI revolution. With the emergence of virtual law firms like Infusion Lawyers and the growing adoption of AI-powered legal tech solutions by new law firms, many leading conservative big law firms will have to change their traditional organisation model to a more agile structure. Ordinarily, these conventional leading law firms might have been hesitant to adopt AI-driven solutions, but the competition from the Big Four (KPMG, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and PWC), legal startups, and boutique law firms specialising in tailored legal practices is undeniable. 

Although the penetration of AI into the Nigerian legal practice may appear slow, it has made gradual inroads into Nigerian law firms. About 10 years ago, A Nigerian Company (Grace Infotech Limited) revolutionised law reporting and legal research in Nigeria when they launched Nigeria’s first Legal AI application – Law Pavilion Electronic Report (LPELR), (law-pavilion-launches-electronic-report/Accessed 3rd November, 2023). LEPLR provides easy access to research materials and thousands of reported Nigeria appellate court decisions as far back as 1950s. This AI has made legal research and reference easier and faster, and boasts of reducing problems associated with the judicial process by about 60 percent (ibid). Then in 2016, the Law Pavilion launched its first legal analytic software named Law Pavilion Prime (ibid). 

In 2018, the company also launched TIMI, Nigeria’s first legal assistant. It operates as a chatbot that works like a consultant programmed to walk the user through Civil Procedure Rules of Nigeria courts. Also, there are other AI-driven applications like Judy Legal which has a database of all cases in Nigeria and Ghana, functioning like a personalised search engine, similar to Google allowing users to save their search results. Albeit minor developments, they are commendable milestones as AI steadily gains ground in the Nigerian legal system.

People’s Concern

Given the massive investment in the development of AI, there are concerns that some versions of AI might become self-aware. Some have attributed this self-awareness to mean transcendence. In March, 2023, The Economic Times published an opinion titled, “Self-aware robots that rebel against human creators; not restricted to sci-fi”, written by Narayani Ganesh. The writer reported that in July, 2022, Columbia University researchers engineered a robot that was enabled to recognise its own body without any assistance from humans. The writer noted that there are those who are alarmed at this minute form of self-awareness in robots, for they fear that this could pave the way for AI taking over humankind. He concluded, however, that such fears are unfounded, as they are a long way off from becoming self-aware enough to have self-will and volition. 

In relation to the subject matter under consideration, AI offers legal practitioners and paralegals professional’s tools to streamline processes, enhance research capabilities, and provide more efficient and cost-effective services to clients. Lawpavilion (Primsol), for instance, has enhanced research capabilities. The number of hours spent searching for cases in physical libraries has been reduced drastically since the advent of Law Pavilion in Nigeria. Some websites have chatbots designed to replace a repetitive task that a human would otherwise have to perform. These bots can interact with humans.  The implication of this for legal practitioners or those aspiring to be legal practitioners is that if you do not improve in your work by learning new skills or developing yourselves, computers will soon replace you. 

Since the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, legal practice has become easier. Lawyers and paralegals use it to generate ideas. ChatGPT is arguably the most well-known of current generative AI applications. It can draft briefs, letters, contracts, create art, or doctor images, etc., within seconds. It can do the unimaginable. 

AI is rapidly being applied to all major sectors of the economy and society, including medicine, finance, national defence, transportation, manufacturing, the media, arts and entertainment, and social relationships, to name just some. Many of these applications will create new legal issues for Lawyers, such as the liability issues of autonomous cars, the legality of lethal autonomous weapons, financial bots that may violate antitrust laws, and the safety of medical robots. These are also ethical and regulatory concerns that need to be addressed. This article delves into the multifaceted relationship between AI and the law, outlining the current applications of AI in the legal field and the future implications for legal practice. (To be continued)

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool. The choice about how it gets deployed, is ours”. -Oren Etzioni