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Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

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Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#11
post #3

This might be a way to help overburdened court appointed defense attorneys better represent their clients (as well as speed up the overburdened judicial system).

I hope I see the day when computers can actually represent people in court.

I hope I can see the day when the justice system is run completely by benevolent AI. Legislative too, for that matter, and at least partially the executive functions of government as well, while we're at it, including law enforcement.

Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#13
post #8

This sort of device is only applicable for very specific areas of "law". It may work for generalized law questions, retrieval of known legal principals, or even for electronic discovery (data mining) but once you get beyond law school there is a human element. I would like to see a machine come up with a novel means of describing a realworld legal situation. Ask him to determine whether John Stewart's use of media fr…

Its not meant to replace humans. Its meant to reduce the amount of tedious research work they need to do. If you reduce the vast tedium of researching stuff in Westlaw/LexisNexis, you can spend more time on your research memo. You can do more actual analysis work. Thus firms can reduce the number of associates they need on staff, because the associates won't be wasting time on wrangling research results. Yes, you sti…

Perhaps, if you are the 1% of lawyers who are associates at big law firms doing appellate-level research. They basically the same job as law students do in LRW class, pulling hundreds of quasi-relevant caselaw from a massive database. That side of things has, in recent years, been outsourced overseas.

See companies like http://www.legalsupportglobal.com/

Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#14
post #3

This might be a way to help overburdened court appointed defense attorneys better represent their clients (as well as speed up the overburdened judicial system).

Public defenders don't do much research. Remember that the vast majority of criminal cases will not see trial, or often even a courtroom.

Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#16
post #7

This is a good 80/20 solution. 80% of the value of the attorney for (less than) 20% of the effort/cost.

I tend to agree, but I can't find details on how it works. Quickly reading the site I had the impression that

- its for attorneys only

- it won't be entirely free, as published are promised compensation for their "premium content"

Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope I see the day when computers can actually represent people in court.

I hope I can see the day when the justice system is run completely by benevolent AI. Legislative too, for that matter, and at least partially the executive functions of government as well, while we're at it, including law enforcement.

Welcome to The Matrix, Neo.

Re: Ross: Attorney built on top of IBM's Watson

#19

Wow! If this actually works, firms can reduce the number of junior associates needed on litigation cases.

They already are. Law dropped in 2008 recession and hasn't recovered. Law school applicants are down 1/3 or something like that, and it's causing much stir [1].

[1] http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalwhiteboard/2014/10/wha...

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