Artificial Intelligence + the Future of Law
Few disruptive technologies have had as rapid an impact on how people work and live as artificial intelligence. From OpenAI's ChatGPT to Google's TensorFlow machine learning platform, AI tools are transforming tasks from
the routine to the extraordinarily complex, in every industry sector.
As with any rapidly evolving technology of this magnitude, legal issues – including privacy and data security, information governance, intellectual property, compliance, labor and employment, contractual, and risk management concerns – are rife in the implementation of AI tools, requiring legal counsel who understand both the technologies and how to mitigate the evolving legal challenges. Federal and state legislators and regulators are increasingly active in proposing laws and regulations – and in some cases launching investigations and litigation - aimed at a wide range of AI use cases.
AI also is changing the practice of law itself. AI tools are used every day to more efficiently conduct research, analyze contracts and other documents, conduct discovery, and more. Generative AI is poised to significantly escalate the positive impact of AI on the practice of law. The expanding use of AI in the practice of law also raises questions and concerns, from whether attorneys are required to disclose the use of AI tools to protecting confidentiality and accounting for bias in the algorithms.
Troutman Pepper is on the leading edge of these issues. Our attorneys advise clients every day on the legal implications and risks presented by AI use cases, from privacy and intellectual property advice to counseling on the wave of legislative and regulatory compliance initiatives underway. The firm also has long been at the forefront of using new technologies, including AI, for data analytics, process improvements, and automation, including through our nationally recognized eMerge subsidiary. Our attorneys, legal technologists, data scientists, and engineers have developed, tested, and piloted custom AI solutions, being careful to ensure that every use case is thoroughly vetted for legal and business risks before implementing them with clients or our attorneys. Examples include the eMerge team's participation with Relativity, the leading eDiscovery and legal search platform that has been invested in AI tools for a decade, and our Innovation Solutions team's development of a cloud-based ChatGPT-4 capability to support firm-approved AI use cases. We also have formed partnerships with others in the AI space, including with CaseText and its GPT-4 application CoCounsel, and we will continue to welcome new opportunities to expand – with appropriate care and due diligence – the use of AI in our firm and in the profession of law.
We know developments will continue at a rapid pace – and we are committed to staying on top of them (and leading some developments ourselves). We will share what we learn on this page, from our latest insights on legal issues in the use of AI to news about our implementation of new tools and technologies.