Technology Has Enabled The Evolution Of The Disputes Lawyers Practice But Will It Spark A Revolution?

• Published date: 15 June 2021
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Technology, Arbitration & Dispute Resolution, New Technology
• Law Firm: Keidan Harrison
• Author: Mr Luke Tucker Harrison

When I entered the profession nearly 20 years ago if you'd have told me that you could run a document-heavy commercial dispute to trial without using a printer in anger, I would have looked at you with scepticism, but I would have been inspired. My colleagues, who had by that time been in practice for 20 years, would have look at you as if you had just arrived from another planet.

Therein lies the problem with the legal sector's slowness to adopt technology. Experienced practitioners have tried and tested approaches to resolving disputes that work, and introducing new technology carries with it risk and uncertainty. For every frontier, however, that has ever been conquered there was always a pioneer who pushed the boundaries. Thankfully, a handful of technologists and practitioners have pushed the boundaries and we are now seeing the adoption of certain technologies, once seen as trailblazing, as the norm.

The Difficulties in Datamining Disputes

The last decade has seen an acceleration in disputes tech but for some the profession just hasn't quite yet been ready. In October 2020 Artificial Lawyer¹ reported that CourtQuant, the litigation prediction pioneer, had ceased to trade. Co-founder Jozef Maruscak cited the conservative nature of the legal sector as one of the reasons for its failure.

CourtQuant was not alone in its attempts to harness big data and AI to predict the outcome of litigation. Its claims to predict the outcome of litigation were perhaps difficult for most lawyers or their clients to put their trust in. Other providers of litigation analytics such as Gavelytics and Solomonics take a more conservative approach to the claims they make. Both combine big data analytics with human input. They provide a dashboard view on both quantitative and qualitative data arising from previous court decisions to supplement the nuanced advice provided by practitioners. Practitioners can make use of statistical data when choosing, for example, appropriate Counsel for a case or how to deploy certain arguments before certain judges. The statistical information is supported by the ability of lawyers to drill down into the qualitative material from which they can substitute their own judgment. Neither tools currently can predict the outcome of a dispute, but they do give lawyers a better chance of doing so.

The prospect of AI-based advice and letters of claim is, however, not entirely science fiction. Canadian based MyOpenCourt uses AI to analyse authorities and...