4 Ways Machine Learning Enhances Your CLM and Other Legal Operations (And Why It’s Only Part of the Picture)

Posted on February 15, 2024 in Blogs, Contract Analysis Services

Each new technology has offered opportunities and obstacles for the legal profession, whether it’s the introduction of online legal databases and filings or automated case management. Rather than shy away from new frontiers, adaptable legal professionals have embraced innovation to give them an edge in regulatory compliance, M&A activity, contract management, and more. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are no different—though the pitfalls feel steeper.

In less than a year, ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms have exploded in popularity, making some fear their jobs will become obsolete in the transition. Though artificial intelligence and machine learning can augment attorney performance, these tools are only part of the picture.

Case in point, unsupervised AI has fabricated case citations and AI use cases that have not incorporated legal perspectives have edged close to intellectual property infringement. Humans still matter. With that said, AI can enhance the accuracy, compliance, and profitability of attorneys’ actions.

Contract Review and Analysis

The insights contained within legal agreements have historically been overlooked. Traditional contract review is tedious, requiring attorneys to pour through dense contract legalese in the hopes of finding useful gems. Though organizations recognize that contract data can reduce legal costs, they don’t often have the peoplepower to muscle through the review process. Machine learning and AI are changing that.

Our own contract analysis services combine the power of sophisticated algorithms with high-quality legal teams to validate generated insights. Corporations and law firms still obtain actionable observations in a fraction of the time – but with the knowledge that legal experts have verified the work of the machines. The result is fast and accurate observations businesses can use while maintaining their compliance.

Contract Generation

With the variety of boilerplate contracts out there, it’s not necessary to have your attorneys draft them from scratch. Moreover, they only really need to review the accuracy, enforceability, and legality of agreement drafts.

Providing the right legal training data to machine learning algorithms can accelerate the overall contract generation process. The formulaic nature of most contracts means legal machine learning tools can acclimatize themselves to the structure and content of contracts without too many hiccups. Moreso, the technology can even emulate an attorney’s drafting style and appetite for risk – if algorithms have a large enough sample size to pull from.

Better still, AI-fueled contract generation can yield new agreements with fewer careless errors. Though the technology can make mistakes of its own, attorneys can catch these and coach programs to overcome shortcomings in their drafting process, complying with regulations and statutes.

Contract Management Workflows

Beyond contract generation, there are opportunities for machine learning to contribute to the overall contract lifecycle management. For example, as contracts grow in complexity and regulatory obligations increase, machine learning allows attorneys to monitor and verify commitments in a scalable way, notifying the in-house team when critical data-driven triggers and events are approaching.

Plus, during audits or reviews of massive amounts of documents (e.g. eDiscovery relevancy reviews), AI trained on your contract database can help to pinpoint relevant documents for attorney review teams to evaluate.

Legal Chatbots

Chat bots have been around for a while, but they’ve had significant limitations. At their best, they were built around robust decision trees that could answer questions directly or lead to essential resources. At their worst, they were on par with Microsoft’s Clippy, eager to give assistance but not all that helpful. The next generation of machine-learning-powered tools is surpassing everything that came before it.

The old chatbot standby of customer service is growing more sophisticated as machine learning evolves. We’re seeing the ability of these programs to answer legal questions, provide updates on client cases, and even process payments through secure portals.

On the internal side, legal chatbots are empowering attorneys to be at their most productive. Attorneys are increasingly using these tools to process high volumes of data collection, technical requirement gathering, or legal cases. As a result, attorneys can focus on analytical problem solving and creative thinking to serve more billable clients or handle a wider array of internal challenges.

Remembering ML Is Only One Pillar

Though there is a wealth of advantages that AI can provide, we still need humans involved in these processes. The sanctions brought against the New York attorneys who inadvertently submitted six fake, ChatGPT-generated case citations in a legal brief are a sign that these technologies need human review. The good news is the right alternative legal solutions partner can mitigate these types of risk by finding the right blend of technology and legal expertise, especially when it comes to contract review and analysis.

Working with a partner like Legalpeople can ensure businesses can unlock the power of AI while creating guardrails with U.S. based legal professionals to perform cost-effective, high-quality contract reviews. Ultimately, you can reach the peak of your desired performance and avoid the pitfalls along the way.