AI: Who should be responsible for advice?
Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a greater impact on legal services than the internet revolution, a roundtable sponsored by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has predicted.
Organised by public services thinktank Reform, the event said the current model of regulation – focused on individuals – may well need to change to accommodate this.
The report of the event, Legal services 2050: the role of AI in a world-leading legal sector, did not name the participants, except that the discussion was introduced by James Clough, chief technology officer at Robin AI, Dr Giulia Gentile, a lecturer at Essex Law School, and SRA chief executive Paul Philip.
“Whilst there may be a time-lag between new capabilities of AI being developed and their ubiquitous use, there was a consensus among participants that is important to consider the implications for the sector operating in a world where almost all text-based work can be completed by AI – albeit potentially with varying performance,” it said.
At the same time, “participants reflected that while the benefits of AI are not yet fully understood, the full set of risks are not yet clear either”.
The development of AI tools meant the range of legal information available online from unregulated sources was likely to increase, “and be used by many as trusted advice”.
Participants agreed that the current scope for regulation “might not cover the full range of ways in which AI could be used in the legal sector”.
There were questions about who should be accountable for applications of AI – the law firm using the system or the company that developed it (if procured externally)? Should individual lawyers have to assure content before using it in legal advice?
And do software companies providing generative AI products directly to consumers have sufficient processes in place to make sure that legal advice provided by their products is appropriate? “There isn’t yet a consensus on how these challenges will be reconciled,” the report said.
The transformative potential of AI depended on how the role of the lawyer was viewed and what law actually was, it went on.
“For instance, if AI processes text from draft contracts and offers advice, does that mean AI is then a lawyer? Or, is the point of legal services is that an accredited professional can engage in lengthy discussions with their clients, and act as a confidant as well as advisor?
“In which case, what impact will generative AI models, powering text-to-speech and creating synthetic images of an interactive legal adviser, have?
“Our expectations of legal advice bundle all these use cases together, but AI may play a very different role in each.”
Regulation could also need to “redefine” expectations of lawyers’ training and ongoing development “as their work becomes more and more intertwined with a rapidly developing new technology”.
Participants said large law firms had to be open to adopting AI in their work, “or risk being displaced as the industry undergoes rapid change”.
The challenge for smaller firms was whether they could capitalise on AI’s potential to transform productivity because of a lack of economies of scales, for example due to in-house capacity, resource and capabilities.
“They are likely to be more reliant on off-the-shelf products, and more dependent on those providers to assume liability for the performance of their systems.”
The benefits for consumers could be significant in providing access to legal advice and also streamlining and reducing the cost of areas where the work is “straightforward and transactional”.
“However, participants also noted that this must be viewed with a cautious lens too, and consumers need to be protected from the potential risks of legal AI, even where they are not yet known.”
The report concluded: “It was agreed that the legal sector will be significantly transformed, and at a faster pace than is commonly expected. It is yet to be seen how the sector can address future challenges and embrace opportunities; but what is clear is that constant engagement and collaboration can help drive forward the best, most adaptive approach to ensure that all involved can reap benefits.
“Regulators, legal firms and technologists will need to work closely together to maintain the public’s trust and confidence in this essential service, which acts as a foundation of our world-leading services sector, and a cornerstone of public life.”
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