Author: МИНЧЕВА ДАРЬЯ АЛЕКСАНДРОВНА | MINCHEVA DARYA
Introduction
For a long time, the legal profession has been in demand and necessary for society. Without the participation of a lawyer, not a single court session, the drafting of a contract, a will and many other procedures that everyone has come across in one way or another or will come across in life. However, currently this type of activity is in danger of extinction due to the active introduction of information technology and artificial intelligence.
In 2014, specialists from the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo compiled an atlas of new professions. After 2020, experts attributed two legal specialties at once to the number of obsolete intellectual professions, namely the specialty of a legal adviser and a notary. The obsolescence of the legal adviser's specialty is associated with the opportunity to get answers to legal questions of interest on online legal information portals, find the necessary documents in databases, and compile various legal documents using existing constructors. The loss of the value of the notary profession is explained by the fact that electronic signatures have long been in use, which seems quite problematic to forge, and therefore there is no need to establish the authenticity of the signature and authenticity of a contract or other document, as well as the existence of a large number of online resources that verify solvency, non-conviction, legal capacity and other functions that are inherent to the notary.
A similar trend is observed not only in the above-mentioned legal specialties. More and more functions of a lawyer are delegated to artificial assistants, ranging from information retrieval to drafting contracts, which explains the concern of specialists about the "extinction" of the existing profession. The use of artificial intelligence and information technologies in any intellectual activity is an ambiguous phenomenon and requires detailed study, which this scientific article will be devoted to.
The main product of the analysis of the labor market and the impact of information technology on it was the compilation of a list of legal professions that artificial intelligence cannot replace, which was the main purpose of forecasting.
The tasks were identified as:
- identification of the areas of the legal profession in which the strongest influence of artificial intelligence is observed;
-comparison of the pros and cons of using artificial intelligence in the work of a lawyer;
- search for possible ways to solve the issue of the "extinction" of individual legal professions.
The main part
Technological progress does not stand still, new technologies are being invented and improved every year, and their introduction into society is happening faster and faster. Currently, it is impossible to imagine a modern person without a smartphone, which is capable of performing many different functions. Of course, the achievements of technology have not spared the specialists of the legal profession. Now the help of technical devices is not only in finding the necessary general legal information, but also literally in fulfilling the professional tasks assigned to the lawyer. The functions and responsibilities of a modern lawyer are literally delegated to artificial intelligence. In this regard, it is proposed to identify a number of areas of legal activity on which artificial intelligence has the greatest impact.
After analyzing the existing electronic tools, we have identified three areas that are most affected by artificial intelligence. Among them:
- Drafting of legal documents. It would seem that in order to competently draw up a purchase and sale agreement, a prenuptial agreement, a will or other types of contracts, a lawyer should study most branches of the national legal system, get acquainted with the features of each of them and not miss a single important detail that could radically change the essence of the contract. However, with the introduction of artificial intelligence and other programs into the work of a lawyer, the need to apply the above skills disappears. Currently, there are special document designers posted on legal information portals such as ConsultantPlus, Garant and others, the principle of which is to fill in empty fields with missing personal information. In fact, in order to draw up a legal document, you do not need to be a lawyer. A similar situation is observed not only in the Russian Federation, but also in most European countries. For example, in the USA there is a company LegalZoom, which is based on drafting wills and trust management agreements. Similar foreign programs include Kiiac, LawDepot, Hotdocs and others. And Fenwick & West from Silicon Valley has created a program that generates not a single document, but a package of documents necessary for the user at once. Of course, such programs reduce the time lawyers spend doing the same type of work, but this is also the main problem with the introduction of such technologies. Their use leads to the devaluation of labor and, as a result, the loss of lawyers' labor functions.
- Search for judicial precedents and a selection of judicial acts. In order to create a competent legal position for writing a statement of claim, a lawyer needs to study court decisions on similar categories of cases. The first steps to simplify this task were taken in the mid-1960s by the Ohio Bar Association, when they created the first electronic search system for court decisions. Subsequently, more advanced programs such as Westlaw and Lexis appeared on the basis of the newly created system. At the moment, the Westlaw program is available in more than 60 countries around the world. There are also similar programs in the Russian Federation, including the SudAkt website, ConsultantPlus and others. Despite the fact that existing services simplify the work of a lawyer at times, at the same time they automate the process of performing professional functions and, thereby, make specialists in this field more and more replaceable.
- Search for information on the circumstances of the case. Currently, this task is delegated to an entire system called the "database". The search for various information on a particular case is almost completely automated.
Foreign researchers D.O. McGinnis and R.J. Pierce in their article "The Great Subversion: how artificial intelligence is changing the role of lawyers in the provision of legal services" indicate another area that is subject to the increased impact of artificial intelligence, namely legal analytics. As an example, they cite the model of decision-making by the U.S. Supreme Court, based on past decisions. We assume that such a service will not be popular in modern domestic realities, since the basis of the Russian legal system is not a precedent, but a normative legal act and, although judges take into account established judicial practice when making decisions, they are still not rigidly bound by it.
As can be seen from the above examples, the use of artificial intelligence in the work of a lawyer seems to be a rather ambiguous phenomenon. On the one hand, its use greatly simplifies the performance of the labor functions of a modern lawyer, on the other hand, it leads to the atrophy of entire legal professions.
Based on the already available data, it seems feasible to make a forecast of the existence of legal professions, adjusted for closer interaction of mankind with the achievements of science and technology. It can be assumed that those specialists whose activities are related to automated processes, such as drafting contracts and other legal documents, searching for information, etc., will lose their relevance in the labor market, which will lead to a reduction in the number of such specialists. However, specialists who are engaged in narrow branches of law, such as medical, sports, intellectual, etc., as well as in mobile and dynamic industries, such as administrative law, will not lose their relevance. This is because the best performance indicators of artificial intelligence are observed in the most stable and immobile branches of law. In addition, professions that are related to working with citizens will remain relevant due to the fact that this type of activity is characterized by an emotional component that is inherent only to a person. Rosatom representative Ekaterina Solntseva holds a similar opinion and argues that "artificial intelligence has not yet entered the profession of a policeman and judge."Artificial intelligence and technology are imperfect, they are not immune from failures and interference in their work, from errors and shortcomings. In this regard, we assume that in the near future a legal specialty may appear - a lawyer in the field of information technology, specializing in protecting the rights and freedoms of citizens from artificial intelligence errors. It is logical that the issues of competence of such specialists will include disputes between developers of artificial intelligence, between citizens and developers, between citizens whose dispute arose due to the fault of artificial intelligence. The emergence of a dualistic profession combining the specialties of a lawyer and a programmer is not excluded. It seems that the competence of such employees will consist in the maintenance of artificial intelligence and other programs, in supplementing the legal information at their disposal, updating it and building patterns of its correct application, as well as directly maintaining programs. It is natural that the emergence and building of new types of public relations needs clear regulation and entails the emergence of a new branch of law capable of regulating the social processes that have arisen. This process determines the selection of specialists of a narrow focus in a particular branch of law from the general mass of lawyers. It is likely that a new direction of regulation will arise in the already existing digital law, civil and administrative law can be supplemented by norms on artificial intelligence regulating its interaction with citizens and setting the limits of its application. The information technology age determines the need to protect citizens' personal data from leakage and their illegal use. Currently, there is a Blockchain system, which is a digital registry, a data storage system. We assume that specialists in the legal profession may appear in this field.
In the light of forecasting the future of the legal profession, it should be noted that the professions of legal counsel and notary, mentioned above as part of the discussion of the obsolescence of intellectual professions, continue to exist in 2023 and are quite in demand and are unlikely to lose their relevance in the labor market in the next five years.
These data indicate the ambiguity of many conclusions and forecasts in view of the variability of the world and the impermanence of public relations.
In order to assess in more detail the impact of artificial intelligence on the legal profession, let's look at its advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages of introducing it into the legal profession include:
- freeing up time to perform functions that require greater concentration, attentiveness, and communication with citizens who have applied;
- reducing the role of the human factor, and therefore reducing the risk of making mistakes due to fatigue, inattention, and decreased concentration;
- reducing the cost of providing legal services, due to increased competition arising from the degradation of a number of legal specialties and the release of jobs;
- increasing the professionalism of legal personnel due to the fact that the so-called providing specialists will lose their relevance and leave the labor market;
- saving the company's money by reducing the staff.
The disadvantages include:
- an increase in the number of unemployed citizens due to the loss of the need for a person to perform routine and automated tasks;
- the need to control the results of operations performed by artificial intelligence, which is associated with the versatility and uniqueness of the functions performed by a lawyer;
- the need for technical support of electronic systems by a large group of specialists, which must necessarily include a specialist in the legal profession;
- the growth of competition in the professional environment.
Artificial intelligence is developing rapidly. The only possible way of deterrence is the way of legislative regulation of the use of artificial intelligence in legal activities. However, the effectiveness of this method is difficult to prove. This is due to the fact that, firstly, automation of a lawyer's work brings undoubted benefits and has a number of advantages that cannot be disputed; secondly, artificial intelligence has an increasing impact on people's lives and, in a global sense, it is impractical to deny the achievements of science and technology.
Conclusion
Currently, electronic legal services play an important role in the work of a lawyer. Rapidly developing, artificial intelligence will play an increasingly important role in the following areas of the legal profession: drafting legal documents, searching for judicial precedents and a selection of judicial acts, as well as searching for information on the circumstances of the case. However, the use of artificial intelligence cannot be made absolute and it must be remembered that its use carries a number of advantages and disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage of using it is the risk of the death of a number of legal professions, primarily associated with simple search and selection of information, as well as other routine work. It is worth noting that against this background, professions related to interaction with people, work in narrow and rapidly changing fields will become particularly important. Despite such a strong impact of artificial intelligence on the legal profession, there will be no effective mechanism to contain it in the near future.
We are entering an era when humanity literally has to fight with its own inventions, compete with machines. We can only hope that man will be able to tame artificial intelligence and win back his place in the sun.