The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On The Indian Legal System

Author-Simran Kapoor, College-Geeta Institute of Law

Introduction

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has appeared as a revolutionary and potentially transformative technology that enhances the ability to transform many industries, including the legal industry. Artificial intelligence is a useful and powerful tool that can completely assist the legal profession. It simplifies the work of legal professionals and improves the overall enhancement of legal procedures. Artificial intelligence can be a turning point for advocates, lawyers, law firms, legal institutions, and justice departments. Several AI-powered tools and machines are driving invention or creation in the legal world, such as CaseIQ, SpotDraft, LegitQuest, Legality, Ross Intelligence, Kira Systems, Casetext, etc.

On the other hand, there is a fear in the minds of legal professionals that artificial intelligence is replacing lawyers in performing their daily routine tasks, and it is adversely affecting the legal profession. But it is not completely true. AI just assists the legal profession, which is helpful in today’s legal world.

Role of Artificial Intelligence in Indian Judiciary

The Indian judiciary is facing barriers and burdens caused by the rise in the number of cases at present. Moreover, there is a developing need for transparency in our legal system. The Indian judiciary has recognized the capability of artificial intelligence as transformative by observing these challenges. Artificial intelligence modifies the Indian judicial system all over the world by studying and reviewing documents, summarizing them, executing various administrative functions, conducting legal research, determining bail and settlement of cases based on predictive analysis, etc.
The importance of artificial intelligence has been emphasized by the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachaud, along with the former Chief Justice of India, Sharad Arvind Bobde. According to them, artificial intelligence could play a vital role in completing the daily routine tasks and activities of the judiciary, which makes the decision-making procedure of the judicial system much easier. They further cited that AI enhances the ability to simplify legal terminology, make court proceedings more accessible to the general public, and help those prudent persons who are not aware of the law, are not capable of understanding the legal procedures, and do not belong to the legal background.
According to Justice L. Nageswara Rao, artificial intelligence would be employed to perform the administrative roles and functions that expedite the process of delivering justice.

Positive Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has the potential to affect the lives of people in a huge range of contexts. Artificial intelligence can improve functioning, reduce the cost of time, reduce the burden of work, create inventive explanations, and give suggestions that can help legal professionals in their legal world. There are mentioned below various positive effects of artificial intelligence on the Indian legal system:

Time-Saving: Fresh legal cases continue to emerge daily, and expeditiously resolving each of these cases poses a substantial challenge that consumes significant time. However, the advent of artificial intelligence has significantly mitigated this challenge and assisted lawyers and judges so that they could save their time.
Minimization of Cost: The use of artificial intelligence helps legal professionals execute their legal duties and tasks toward their clients without paying any cost. This effective approach saves the lawyers money.
Analysis and Making of Contracts: Lawyers can easily interpret, analyze, and create legal contracts with the use of this new technology, and it is really helpful for lawyers to do their work quickly.
Give access to lawyers and clients: Legal data is available to lawyers in vast amounts in the form of old cases that can be helpful for them, and clients can also take advantage of this tool to understand critical legal points and principles in their cases, which gives them access to justice.
Avoid bias: Artificial intelligence helps legal professionals and judges avoid any kind of bias. It helps the judiciary to make fair decisions by promoting impartiality, ensuring that innocent people are not subject to injustice in any circumstance.

Negative Impact of Artificial Intelligence

There are some negative impacts of artificial intelligence on the Indian legal system, which are mentioned below:

Lack of Transparency: When AI works on algorithms, it becomes necessary to identify whether artificial intelligence has made correct decisions or whether the decisions of artificial intelligence adhere to established legal principles or not. Transparency is very essential for maintaining the trust of the public in the Indian legal system, and sometimes there is a lack of transparency in AI algorithms.
Unemployment and replacement of jobs: As we all know, AI can enhance efficiency in legal processes, which creates concern among legal professionals regarding their job security. The job of lawyers is in danger due to the adoption of AI, which may lead to unemployment and take the place of humans.
Implementation challenges: The development of AI within the legal domain is a complex issue. It is necessary to ensure that AI complements the work or efforts of a human being rather than replacing them. There is a need to strike a delicate balance between humans and AI’s work.
Create Bias: The data collected by AI has the potential to create biases in court decisions given by judges at the time of court proceedings, and these biased decisions of judges constitute injustice by which innocent people have suffered. It lacks transparency in the legal environment due to the impartial decisions of judges based on AI.
Ethical concerns and accountability: The vast use of AI in the Indian legal system introduces critical situations and raises questions regarding the transparency of the legal system. There is a lack of trust in the decisions of AI, which can lead to misuse of this new technology, and it can be risky for innocent people or victims who demand justice from the judiciary, nothing else.

Provide future assistance to legal professionals

Artificial intelligence is a magical tool for lawyers and judges because it provides assistance to them without any cost and does not consume too much time. There are the following ways in which AI can provide future assistance to legal professionals:

Conducting legal research: Legal research is an essential and very important skill of lawyers, which is possessed by every lawyer. Many times, lawyers do their legal research to build their case stronger, which is a time-consuming task. AI tools assist the lawyers in this regard and complete the legal research within a stipulated period.
Ethical concerns and accountability: The vast use of AI in the Indian legal system introduces critical situations and raises questions regarding the transparency of the legal system. There is a lack of trust in the decisions of AI, which can lead to misuse of this new technology, and it can be risky for innocent people or victims who demand justice from the judiciary, nothing else.
Document review and contract analysis: The review view of all the legal documents and the analysis of the contracts is also a time-consuming task for lawyers, and as we know, there is a shortage of time for every lawyer to perform these kinds of tasks in a very short period. AI tools can help analyzing legal contracts and collect or obtain all the irrelevant clauses within seconds, which is helpful for legal professionals as well as clients.

Artificial intelligence is not the replacement for a lawyer

It would be inappropriate to assert that AI is a replacement for a lawyer. This statement is completely untrue because AI is just a tool or technology that cannot replace lawyers in any circumstance. AI is a technology that assists lawyers in performing their daily legal tasks in an easier way, such as legal research, analyzing legal contracts, document review, draft pleadings, etc. AI does not have the potential like a human being to solve tasks, make decisions, give judgments, etc.
AI performs their legal tasks only, which is very time-consuming for legal professionals, and it also enhances the capabilities of lawyers, which is very good in today’s legal domain.
AI is a learning machine that can be used to perform legal tasks and to give assistance to lawyers so that they can complete their work more effectively. AI works on the commands given by a human being, and it does not replace the job of anyone, including legal professionals.

Conclusion

Artificial intelligence plays a vital role in the legal industry. AI, as a computer system capable of performing legal tasks and the daily routine legal activities of lawyers, is a time-saving moment for every lawyer, and the impact of time-saving is to reduce the backlog of pending cases in court. This new technological development has changed the legal framework entirely. The legal industry grows day by day with the help of artificial intelligence, and without this technology, it is difficult for lawyers to complete their work within a stipulated period. With the help of AI systems, lawyers can effectively complete their tasks.
With the help of AI, legal research is done within seconds, which is a very time-consuming task for lawyers, but AI makes it easier by just clicking a button. AI is a very helpful technology for legal professionals. There is a myth that AI is replacing the job of lawyers. It only enhances the work of lawyers and provides facilities or assistance to them in legal research, contract drafting, document review, etc. AI algorithms work only on the commands of human beings, and they do not take the place of humans. AI cannot give any judgment or make any decision like a human being. It’s just assisting legal professionals and doing all the work of humans, including lawyers, but that does not mean that AI will replace legal professionals.
Therefore, these technological advancements have shaped the legal landscape and provided efficiency in the legal sector.