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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)
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?
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.
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.
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.
Insurance companies already flaunt the "algorithm" and try to weasel out of paying claims when they really should. An expert system really isn't going to change this. Nor will it alleviate the problem that you need a specialist in order to deal with these people and put the fear of god into them.
That is why you hire a lawyer. They're like a techno mage. They know what secret words to use.
It's not just for litigation issues either. Simple government paperwork often requires not just any random lawyer but one that's more competent than average AND specializes in the agency you need to deal with.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.