AI Litigation: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Legal Challenges

Optimizing Research

Any lawyer practicing during the pre-computer era can tell you just how long it took to research. Without digital repositories, the labor of manual research “slowed” all litigation.

“Slowed” is in quotes because that prior pace is only “slow” in retrospect. Given clients’ expectations of the time, litigation’s relatively leisurely pace was of no consequence.

Fast forward to emails—purported bastions of time savings—whose efficiency gains were quickly eclipsed by client expectations, causing a new world of immediate demands and, consequently, fast-paced litigation practices. 

So too have the efficiency gains made by digital research repositories been met with heightened client expectations. Memos once expected next week are now scheduled within the next hour. 

With increasingly capable AI research tools, collecting and filtering research is nearly instantaneous. Will these tools save attorneys’ time? Certainly, but that time may soon be weighted by increased client expectations.

Saving Time

AI litigation tools help law firms save significant time by automating the discovery response process.

Generative AI tools such as Briefpoint make it much faster to construct the vital documents that law firms need to handle discovery efficiently. According to insights, tools such as Briefpoint can reduce the time spent on these documents by as much as 87%.

These types of AI tools don’t just help to save time. They help uphold the standardization of a law firm’s work product so that firms can trust that every document they generate with Briefpoint meets their high-quality expectations.

Generative AI models essentially take care of the time-consuming aspects of document creation. However, law firms can still add their objections and responses, which make sure that they’re still quality documents based on their firm’s gold standards.

Reducing Barriers to Legal Assistance

Artificial intelligence software makes it easier for people who may historically not have had access to legal support to get the help they need. Many instances occur where people are unable to pursue legal avenues because of a lack of capital or know-how. 

AI software has allowed people from these groups to begin pursuing legal damages with a few clicks of a button. For instance, there are tools that instantly generate a personalized lawsuit against robocall companies. 

This aspect of AI litigation is still in development, but it’s expected to grow significantly in the coming years. While broadly positive, the downside could be that courts are overwhelmed by quickly generated lawsuits even when the grounds for the lawsuit are relatively thin. 

Skill Development for Legal Professionals

AI litigation tools are just beginning to infiltrate the legal system, but they’ll be widespread in the coming years. To make the most of these advanced tools, lawyers and law firm workers will need to upskill to learn how to leverage the impact of the software that’s available. As with all industries, AI isn’t designed to take over from law professionals; it’s there to supplement them.

 Legal professionals will need to learn how to select the right tool for the job, use the tools effectively, and generally stay up to date with new developments to stay ahead of the curve and ensure they’re getting the most from these powerful tools. 

Better Decision Making

Though the technology to help lawyers enhance their decision-making processes is still in its infancy, it’s anticipated to become more advanced and widely available in the coming years. 

Lawyers will be able to use these tools to gain valuable insights into a case’s predicted outcome, analyze similar cases from the past, and attain a deeper understanding of the broader context of their case. This will help law firms plan their strategy more effectively and make better, more informed decisions. 

Customer Service

Customer service is paramount in all industries, especially in the legal field, where customers have a more significant emotional stake than in other sectors. AI-powered chatbots can make it easier for law firms to manage customer requests and questions, often resolving the issue without human intervention. 

Even if a human response is required, the information gathered by an AI chatbot can help to reduce the amount of time the professional spends crafting a response since it will already have gathered the necessary information. 

How AI Will Impact the Future of Law?

We’re still at the beginning of the AI journey. The tools that law firms currently have access to are powerful and can have a transformative impact on operations, and that’s expected to only develop further in the coming years. 

It would have been unthinkable to believe that the current crop of AI software tools would have existed just a few years ago, so it’s impossible to say what type of tools will be available in the next decade or so. 

Are Humans Still Superior? 

It’s important to note that while AI tools are getting a lot of attention and are becoming increasingly popular, they won’t replace trained professionals anytime soon. While popular, they cannot account for all the various factors contributing to making a valuable, informed decision. 

That only comes with experience and expertise. So, while they will certainly have a place in the legal field, the skilled professionals at the heart of the legal industry will still play the biggest role.

It’s also unclear whether AI will impact the roles of less-skilled jobs within the legal sector, such as legal assistants. 

New Case Areas

So far, we’ve talked about how litigators and law firms may use AI software tools to enhance their operations. However, there’s another side to AI litigation, too—the law cases lodged because of AI. 

This is a growing area of the law industry that is largely without precedent. We’re already seeing some high-profile cases, including artists claiming that AI companies are stealing their work or celebrities claiming that they’re using their likeness. 

A string of household names have already denounced marketing companies for using AI-generated videos and images featuring individuals in their marketing campaigns. 

Legal Aspects AI May Influence

The cases involving artificial intelligence we’ve outlined above are just the beginning of what could be a tsunami of AI-connected lawsuits and legal matters. Some legal frameworks that AI tools may influence include:

Privacy Matters

Privacy is a hot topic, but some AI tools, by nature, rely on individuals’ information to function correctly. Those types of tools may face legal scrutiny and lawsuits if they don’t integrate data protection into their services.

Antitrust

The race to be the leader in the AI field may lead to antitrust investigations if it appears that one company is edging towards a monopoly. 

Liability

AI tools will cause incidents in the future, especially in the case of self-driving cars. It’s unclear who will be liable for such instances. This is likely to be a developing legal aspect that is drafted in response to incidents. 

Discrimination

AI systems are trained by humans, and if the data inputted into the systems leads to discrimination, even involuntarily, then there may be a raft of discrimination-based lawsuits. This is possible in fields such as criminal justice and employment. 

The Legal Challenges of Copyright Infringement

Copyright concerns are a major issue in AI, highlighted by a lawsuit against OpenAI filed in the Northern District of California this year by authors Michael Chabon and Sarah Silverman.

The plaintiffs submitted a complaint alleging the company utilized their copyrighted material without authorization to train its AI models. The central debate is whether using copyrighted texts for AI training falls under “fair use” considering the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

OpenAI argues that it transforms publicly available content to create new, original outputs, while the authors contend this practice devalues their intellectual property.

This case could set a precedent for how AI companies use copyrighted material, possibly leading to stricter licensing, compensation for creators for direct infringement claims, or limits on data scraping practices. It underscores AI development challenges in balancing innovation with avoiding direct copyright infringement.

Plaintiffs Alleging Copyright Infringement Are Doubling Down

In some lawsuits against AI companies like OpenAI and Meta, the plaintiffs have each filed an amended complaint to strengthen their cases. These updates often include more specific details about the copyrighted works that were allegedly used without permission and how they were used to train AI models.

The amended complaints aim to fill gaps in the original filings by providing clearer evidence of how the content was accessed or used without proper authorization. This could involve showing that AI companies scraped content from the internet or violated website terms of service.

Sometimes, these new filings add more plaintiffs or claims to make the case broader and more impactful.

It’s Not Just Textual Content

Stability AI, DeviantArt, and Midjourney received a class-action lawsuit back in January 2023, filed by artists Sarah Andersen, Karla Ortiz, and Kelly McKernan.

The plaintiffs alleged that these companies infringed on their copyrights by using their artwork without permission to train AI models like Stable Diffusion. Plaintiffs claim the defendants scraped billions of images from the internet, including their own, to create AI systems capable of generating new images. They argue this practice violates the Copyright Act, the DMCA, and their publicity rights.

In October 2023, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick dismissed several of their claims, citing a lack of clarity on how each defendant specifically violated copyrights or altered copyright management information. The judge allowed the plaintiffs to amend their complaint within 30 days to include more specific allegations.

This case underscores the complex legal challenges AI development poses to intellectual property rights. As AI technology advances, courts will need to address how existing laws apply to scenarios involving AI-generated content and the use of copyrighted works in training data, shaping the legal landscape for AI and creative works.

AI Overview in the Legal Industry

Artificial intelligence is making waves in the legal industry, bringing exciting opportunities for law firms to save time and improve outcomes.

By automating tasks like legal research, document drafting, and case management, AI tools help attorneys work more efficiently, allowing them to focus on strategic thinking and complex case analysis.

AI’s predictive abilities offer valuable insights, helping firms better assess case outcomes, spot trends, and build stronger legal strategies. For firms ready to embrace technology, it’s a clear advantage in staying ahead in a fast-paced legal world.

But with all these benefits come challenges. AI tools raise new legal and ethical questions, particularly around data privacy, cybersecurity, and potential biases in AI-driven decisions.

The use of copyrighted content to train AI models has already sparked vicarious and contributory copyright infringement cases, putting the spotlight on how data is sourced and used in AI development. Issues like unauthorized data scraping and potential DMCA violations are reshaping discussions on intellectual property rights.

AI also carries the risk of overreliance. While it can offer recommendations and analyze data, it lacks the human touch or ethical understanding necessary for every legal situation.

Legal professionals must strike a balance between leveraging these tools and applying their own expertise to ensure thoughtful, ethical, and effective outcomes for clients.

Reduce Costs By Automating Your Discovery Document Process

Discovery responses cost firms $23,240 per year per attorney. The $23,240 estimate assumes an associate attorney salary of $150,000 (including benefits—or $83 an hour), 20 cases per year/per associate, 4 discovery sets per case, 30 questions per set, 3.5 hours spent responding to each set, and 1,800 hours of billable hours per year.

Under these assumptions, using Briefpoint saves you $19,465 per year per attorney.

Test Briefpoint yourself by scheduling a demo here.