The End of Lawyers? Humans vs. Machines?
The question mark in the title makes it clear that this is not about the end of lawyers, but about their future.
Jörn Lipkow, Corporate Counsel at Carl Zeiss AG
Published in: DiALOG - DAS MAGAZIN FÜR ENTERPRISE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT | 2016
So, will machines ultimately prevail over humans? Or is it less a matter of competition and more about effective collaboration? I am not writing here about future developments, but about the current advance of technologies that perform standardized processes faster and with higher quality than humans—particularly in the field of legal work.
Software that can "automatically" perform tasks in the legal field previously handled by lawyers or administrative staff is already a reality. This applies not only to software systems that support and manage entire workflows—from contract drafting and file management to contract lifecycle management—but also to systems capable of analyzing, categorizing, and organizing vast amounts of data according to predefined criteria, doing so faster, more reliably, and more cost-effectively than humans ever could.
One example is the Berlin-based start-up Leverton, which offers software used by, among others, the investment company Union Investment to manage real estate portfolios. The software reads and analyzes contracts using cognitive intelligence. When a portfolio manager needs specific information, there is no longer any need to read the entire contract. Instead, the software identifies and displays the relevant sections. Rather than manually reviewing hundreds of pages of contracts, the manager can use Leverton's software to locate the provisions governing liability, regardless of the language in which the contract was written.
The software can also extract the analyzed content in a structured format so that it can be transferred into other systems, such as SAP. This supports the ongoing administration of contracts by automatically displaying key date-related information within the system. Software of this kind can also be used during the due diligence process.
Especially in the age of digitalisation, the fear of the ‘transparent person’ is omnipresent.
One step further is IBM Watson. IBM Watson is a cognitive computing system that learns through interaction and provides evidence-based answers. Watson has gained particular traction in the healthcare sector. Two major hospitals—Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, and Metropolitan Health in Cape Town, South Africa—use Watson to analyze patient records and support cancer research. Deakin University in Australia is using IBM Watson to optimize its information systems for students, while the Australian wealth manager ANZ employs Watson to help its financial advisors provide better investment recommendations.
Answering the question of whether such systems could one day replace legal professionals or lawyers requires first defining what constitutes the value of legal services, particularly from the client's perspective. Professor Dr. Benno Heussen once described the added value of legal work as follows: "We transform knowledge and experience into added value for our clients." This comes very close to what clients actually expect. It encompasses at least three elements: knowledge, experience acquired through numerous practical cases, and, ultimately, a communicative element—the ability to understand what a client truly needs in a given situation and to deliver the right advice.
While computers can already provide knowledge more effectively than humans, and the combination of knowledge with learned experience appears to be technically achievable, it remains difficult to imagine—at least today—that a computer could make decisions or act with genuine empathy. Technological progress may therefore not replace legal professionals, but it can support and complement their work. As Thomas Watson Jr. put it: "Our machines should be nothing more than tools for extending the powers of the human beings who use them."
The challenge for legal professionals is therefore to identify and cultivate those capabilities that cannot be replaced by advanced technologies, lower-cost labor enabled by automation and standardized processes, or non-lawyers using online self-service tools. In this respect, emerging technologies offer an opportunity: they can free lawyers from routine administrative tasks, legal research, and the generation of standard contracts—activities that often consume valuable time—and allow them to focus on what truly distinguishes them as professionals.
Many of the necessary tools and technological capabilities already exist. The key challenge is the willingness to adopt and use them. Those who embrace these developments will be far better positioned to succeed in the future.
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