Legal Technology is referred to the implementation of latest technology such as artificial intelligence, machine learning etc. to augment the capabilities of all stakeholders in the legal sector. There are reportedly 17 lakhs lawyers practicing in India. The number is way too less in comparison to the requirement of our country. Moreover, practicing the profession has been a hard task traditionally without the technology. One principal problem they have been facing is of doing legal research in India for their cases. Also, another data shows that a whopping 2.81 crore cases are pending in the district courts of India. The top reason for such a backlog is the shortage of judges and lawyers in the judicial system. Another primary reason for such a large number of pending cases is the lack of technology implementation in the field of law.
Introduction of technology in the legal space has vibrant future. The young law professionals are dynamic and open to change. They are proactive in getting accustomed to the new system of work. They are learned and tech savvy. They know how to harness new technologies for their benefits. In the present scenario, many legal-tech companies are foraying into online products and services such as online filing services, the online creation of legal documents and contracts, making the client find a lawyer, online legal database companies for legal research and so on. This is just the beginning. The implementation of AI technology may reach new heights in the sector. AI is also aimed at predicting the possible outcome of litigation to help the lawyer in providing an adequate solution to their clients. At times, it has been debated that someday AI technology might replace a lawyer. Supreme court Judge Hon’ble Mr Justice A.K. Sikri has openly stated at the launch event of Legitquest that Artificial Intelligence will be augmenting lawyers’ capabilities but cannot take the place of a lawyer as advocacy is a matter of emotions and human empathy.
Right now, lawyers have a real problem of having a reliable and efficient online legal research portal. Finding relevant Indian case laws and analysing the unstructured supreme court judgements are some prime issues that arise while conducting legal research in India. Leveraging technology in legal research domain has wonderful future. Legitquest has forayed into this realm with using the most updated technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analytics, to solve the major issues mentioned. Legitquest is providing a tool called “iSearch”, a legal search engine, that helps the users find most relevant legal data (all past and recent supreme court judgements) in seconds. Legitquest has a feature called iDRAF which stands for “Decision, Reasoning ,Arguments Findings”, wherein one can find these elements of the case laws wholly segregated with just a click. It is a highly specialised tool which promises to save the valuable legal research time of all lawyers and judges. Legitquest also has a revolutionary feature called iGraphics, with which one would be able to see the treatment of case laws condensed in the form of figures and charts. It summarises the treatment as overruled, distinguished, followed and relied upon case laws.
Even, the government has been supportive in implementing technology for faster judicial deliberations. The Law Commission of India in its report, “Reforms in the Judiciary – Some Suggestions”, has recommended that cases on similar points should be clubbed together using technology and decided at once on a priority basis. It will reduce the arrears. It also suggested creating a legal database which will help in easy disposal of similar cases. Another suggestion was easy availability of judgements which can be provided instantly using technology. This goes to show that there is the realisation of the importance of legal technology and the requirement to incorporate these into our legal framework.
Law is everchanging, but so is technology. The role of legal technology is in assisting the lawyers. The work of a lawyer can never be replaced, but it can always be made more efficient, and that’s precisely what legal tech start-ups aims at providing. With time the number of laws in country increases and so does the complexities of the law. Using technology, we can strive to help lawyers research thoroughly by reducing the search and research time while conducting legal research for their cases.
