Slashdot Mirror
Taking the Lawyers Out of the Loop
An Associated Press story carried by the Christian Science Monitor suggests that expert systems can already replace lawyers in a great many disputes (especially low-level ones, where the disputants don't need or don't want to see each other), and the realm of legal expertise that can be embodied in silicon will only grow. The article spends most of its time on Modria, a company whose software is being used in Ohio to "resolve disputes over tax assessments and keep them out of court, and a New York-based arbitration association has deployed it to settle medical claims arising from certain types of car crashes," but mentions a few others as well. Modria's software has also been used to negotiate hundreds of divorces in the Netherlands, including ones with areas of dispute: "If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
if ( $the_wife) then
give($goldmine)
if ( the_husband) then
give($theshaft)
Oliver Goodenough, director of the Center for Legal Innovation at Vermont Law School
Next!
I can see how this will be gamed in the USA already.
Insurance company a uses form 1b to estimate general damages based on the poorest region of the country for estimated damages in nyc, does so legally and with no recourse possible because of a bidding arbitration eula.
Murica!
So if it would have cost $120,000 to litigate, the software company will lease you the code for an $80,000 per-dispute fee.
Somehow, I think the bloodsucking will simply change parasites.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The first thing we do, let's replace all the lawyers.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I find that hard to believe. I have had 4 legal experiences in my time.
1) a divorce - (family law)
2) a labor dispute over a layoff - (labor law)
3) a private investment - (securities law)
4) A copyright filing - (intellectual property law)
In every case, there were some areas that could have been algorithmic, but in many dimensions on each one there were things that came about from advice from the attorney on how to position myself and under what laws I could make a case, which has a lot to do with language parsing and the definitions of the words used and their context. Unless this was paired with something like Watson which can determine meaning from context, I don't see this as being anything more than a paralegal replacement, but not a lawyer replacement.
The right wing loonies in Florida have pushed through a law that causes all kinds of nightmares for everyone involved. If you have a wreck you must ask for transport to a hospital claiming that you are hurt. If you do not leave the scene in an ambulance your lifetime limit on all injuries from that wreck is $600. That means if you bump you head just a bit and do not go by ambulance and go blind or become wheelchair bound for life due to brain swelling you still can not collect one red cent over $600. So victims, hospitals, tax payers and lawyers all get into the fray and everyone looses except the bad driver who caused the wreck in the first place. And he may never even get a traffic ticket. For decades we have had auto insurance medical policies that offer ten or twenty thousand maximum for bodily injury. Obviously that is absurd. We do see people who will face better than thirty million dollars in medical losses alone not to mention loss of earnings and being in pain in intensive care nursing homes for life. Yet real medical liability insurance is considered too expensive and in fact would take 99% of people off the roads as drivers.
"If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
That's not exactly taking lawyers out of the loop, is it? To my mind, that's insinuating yet another thing that can go wrong.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Dear Moderator,
Let me first state that you were well within your "rights" to moderate my above comment down. You, of course, are free to do what you feel is best. That said, I somewhat pity you, and at the same time it makes me wonder if you represent modern humanity as a whole. I'm not upset that you moderated me down -- I have karma to burn, and a silly number doesn't concern me in the slightest. What I am slightly dismayed about is that you thought the comment required down-moderation in the first place. To find humour in the most unlikely of places is what makes life fun. Life without humour is a lonely road to travel -- you'll just have to trust me on that one.
Perhaps you are young and have not learned to laugh at yourself yet, I don't know. But quite honestly once you learn to laugh at yourself you will find that you'll enjoy life much more. You (probably) only have one life, so make the best of it. Don't be so serious. Once you can laugh at yourself you will be able to find humour and enjoyment in the most trivial of things in a way that is not offensive to the others who may be affected. If they cannot see the good-natured and lighter side of things then their life might be pretty uninteresting as well. Laugh. Laugh at the mundane. Laugh at people's "seriousness". Laugh at living. Laugh for no reason at all. Have fun, because at the end of the day if you haven't had fun then you have led a life with less joy than I choose to live mine.
You know what else is funny? I've just given you another comment to moderate down! LOL
IAAL and a programmer. Let me start by saying: people have been promising expert systems to resolve a "great many disputes" for almost as long as there's been personal computers. And in some cases, those systems exist, but not in the form of legal expert systems, but negotiated transaction expert systems like you see in financial trading and the like. If the goal is always an equitable resolution of shared information, then computers can do it. Divorce between amicable partners would seem to be a prime example.
But that's not the reason people usually use lawyers in transactions. It's for all the other things that can possibly go wrong, including failure to share all the information (e.g., untrusted parties), not wanting "equitable" divisions, interpretation, etc.
If all the world just did the right thing, there'd be no need for lawyers.
What could go wrong?
I'm waiting with bated breath for the announcement of the launch date of the first rocket ship full of lawyers to the sun.
Not.
In the mean time, were can I find a reputable telephone sanitizer?
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
Can we get some H1b lawyers to lower the cost of the rest?
Landru.
A: A good start!
if is_patent_dispute(case) {
if regex(case.claims, "\(.*software.*\)|\(.*internet.*\)") or find_prior_art() != null or !working_prototype_exists() {
invalidate_patent()
}
}
"If they reach a resolution, they can print up divorce papers that are then reviewed by an attorney to make sure neither side is giving away too much before they are filed in court."
There has to be some reason for the lawyers to add on a huge fee
I don't know if you wanna trust the safety of my divorce proceedings to some... silicon diode...
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
... "Digitize all the lawyers."
This made me think: maybe laws should explicitly be written to facilitate dispute resolution by algorithm. Not only would it speed the process, but presumably apps could be written to tell you before you act in the first place whether there might be problems.
If you think 1,000 taxi medallion holders causing strife over Uber is bad, wait until the lawyers start marching in protest against Modria. The zombie apocalypse will be a children's ballet recital in comparison.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Lawyer jokes aside, this is a field that has expensive training, accreditation requirements (Bar Exam), and even for some folks allows you to have a title (I have a lawyer friend that tacked on Esq. to his name). The fact that they can be replaced even for a decent subset of their job doesn't make me feel happy for long term employment hopes.
Illegal in 3,2,1..
Haha, this really just moves billing into microseconds and extra charges for overly complex subroutines, like having more than one plaintiff
public bool DoesSide1Win(Side side1, Side side2)
{
int totalCashSide1 = side1.GetTotalAvailableCash();
int totalCashSide2 = side2.GetTotalAvailableCash();
return totalCashSide1 > totalCashSide2;
}
I actually feel bad for lawyers/law students. Yes, yes, cue the lawyer jokes, but what's happening to law is a perfect example of what's coming for basically all white collar work in the future. Hopefully I'll be retired or dead before it fully takes over. It's also a preview of what's happening in IT, accelerated significantly, so it should be taken as a cautionary tale.
It used to be that even doing an OK job in law school and passing the bar was an absolutely guaranteed ticket to permanent employment at the very least, and firm partner/country club lifestyle at the top end. From what I've read, the American Bar Association has done exactly what is being done in IT in the last 20 years:
- Increased the supply of new grads by accrediting more and more law schools.
- Decreased the equilibrium price of legal services by allowing offshoring of routine tasks as well as expert systems like the article is talking about. Apparently you needed to pay a full lawyer salary previously to have case documents reviewed for discovery, etc. Now new law grads are doing this job for Starbucks wages.
- Encouraging more and more people to get into the lucrative field of law, failing to mention the lack of opportunities.
Sound familiar? Tech executives complaining about a labor shortage fund extra educational programs, they offshore work, and they have the H1-B to fall back on.
Apparently, there are still insanely lucrative law jobs out there. Big corporate firms start their associates at $160K a year in New York, plus bonus. If you stay on that track, you will never want for money again -- you'll be well into the luxury lifestyle forever. BUT - there's a catch. You have to go to one of the top 14 law schools in the country, preferably Harvard/Yale/Stanford, graduate in the very top of your class, and do activities like law review on top of all that. Otherwise, you might as well not even go to law school, because you'll never make back your investment. There are tons of pissed off law grads in this boat -- I would be too if I were told there would be guaranteed riches at the end of the rainbow and wasted 3 years of my life plus bar exam preparation time.
Right now, the only professions that are safe are medicine and pharmacy. Mostly this is due to a very strong lobbying group (AMA) and the regulations/licensure surrounding the profession. I think it's definitely time to license the engineering/design side of IT and make the operations side a trade with all the protections that entails. I know I'd be a lot more comfortable if new entrants into the IT field went through an actual apprenticeship as opposed to a Ruby on Rails coder bootcamp or MCSE certification mill. Plus, having the actual engineers/architects licensed would bring personal liability into the picture and result in higher quality work overall. Time for the profession to grow up and get out of Mom's basement, so to speak.
I would very much rather take the loop out of the lawyer.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
If you outsource or automate farming, nobody cares except the displaced farmers.
If you outsource or automate factory work, nobody cares except the displaced factory workers.
If you outsource coders nobody cares except the displaced coders.
If you outsource or automate lawyers, all hell breaks lose because they have the power to stop it by erecting legal barriers and suing.
This country was founded by lawyers for lawyers.
Table-ized A.I.
I have two friends that have law degrees. They are both stay-at-home parents doing occasional work on the side now. Neither ever made more than $80K. There are NO jobs out there for lawyers.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Ah, it's lovely to hear such a wonderful tale right before bed. Attorneys have dug their own graves. Don't believe me? Just ask anyone who has had to deal with an attorney in the last ten years. And they all were displaced by H1Bs happily ever after. Don't you love a happy ending to a story?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
But if we removed lawyers from the Chicago Loop, there would only be software developers, investment bankers, and parking garage owners! Oh, and media companies...
The "expert system" is just a much more involved contract that happens to be written in code. That "code" is great, so long as both parties understand exactly the terms of the code that they are agreeing to. If both parties do not have an equally good understanding of the code, then the expert system is just another unfair one sided contract foisted on people by businesses with the aid of their programmers.
Lawyers being lawyers will just either buy a law the prohibits this (in direct or indirect ways) or just sue anyways. Remember that much of what's in the congressional chambers are lawyers.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
What the fuck is even doing being on slashdot ?
"Papers... then reviews by an attorney..."
So much for taking lawyers out of the loop.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Mediators are often lay people, so nothing much has changed. All this is doing is providing a mediation framework, not replacing the plethora of red-tape that attorneys have created to assure their "usefulness".
P.S. IAAL.
I'm a lawyer, and I breathe a sigh of relief whenever I hear about the automation of the drearier aspects of my profession. Nobody goes to law school to fill out forms and file the same document 10,000 times, but that's what most attorneys end up doing. I can't wait for routine bankruptcy work to be fully automated, for example. Much legal work is just cleaning up messes, and like other janitorial work, we are quickly making robots to do it for us.
IAAL. I do mostly commercial litigation. Most lawyers do either mostly or entirely transactional work - negotiating agreements, drafting documents, that sort of thing. Usually when a client comes to me it is because one of the transactional lawyers stuffed up, or because the client thought they did not need a lawyer for transactional work. If you think all of this can be automated, I am sure I will be seeing you soon. Basically, you can fork out some money on a good transactional lawyer up front, or you can come to me and fork out a truckload of money later. Additionally, in nearly all of the litigation I do, there is at least one issue where the past cases do not quite cover the point. Then the lawyers have to figure out what the rule is for the particular facts. It is very rarely just a simple case of applying known rules to simple facts. That is without even getting to questions of proof and whether the witnesses will be believed, which is hard for a machine to assess.