Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2015
Abstract
Simple legal jobs (such as document coding) are prime candidates for legal automation. More complex tasks cannot be routinized. So far, the debate on the likely scope and intensity of legal automation has focused on the degree to which legal tasks are simple or complex. Just as important to the legal profession, however, is the degree of regulation or deregulation likely in the future.
Situations involving conflicting rights, unique fact patterns, and open-ended laws will remain excessively difficult to automate for an extended period of time. Deregulation, however, may effectively strip many persons of their rights, rendering once-hard cases simple. Similarly, disputes that now seem easy, because one party is so clearly in the right, may be rendered hard to automate by new rules that give now disadvantaged parties new rights. By explaining how each of these reversals could arise, this Essay combines technical and sociological analyses of the future of legal automation. We conclude that the future of artificial intelligence in law is more open ended than most commentators suggest.
Publication Citation
63 UCLA Law Review Discourse 26 (2015).
Disciplines
Law and Philosophy | Law and Society | Legal History | Legal Profession | Science and Technology Law
Digital Commons Citation
63 UCLA Law Review Discourse 26 (2015).
Included in
Law and Philosophy Commons, Law and Society Commons, Legal History Commons, Legal Profession Commons, Science and Technology Law Commons