IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2021 - 37

Evaluating Artificial
Intelligence for
Legal Services: Can
" Soft Law " Lead to
Enforceable Standards
for Effectiveness?
Daniel W. Linna Jr.
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, Chicago,
IL 60611 USA
and McCormick School of Engineering,
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 USA
 ArtificiAl intelligence (Ai) is poised to
transform legal services, legal systems, and the
law itself. The use of AI and other technologies for
legal-services delivery could generate tremendous
benefits for individuals, businesses, governments,
and society, expanding access to law and justice
for everyone. Unfortunately, lawyers and regulators
around the globe have been slow to embrace innovation
and technology. One obstacle to AI adoption
has been a lack of evaluation of the safety and effectiveness
of AI for legal services.
" Soft law " could fill the gap and lead to the development
and enforcement of standards for evaluating
the effectiveness of AI and other technologies used
for legal-services delivery. Traditional " hard law "
means of regulating legal services have not kept
pace with advancing technology. Meanwhile, rules
of professional conduct and standards that apply to
lawyers and other legal-services professionals tend
to impede competition and innovation, even if the
primary intent is to protect clients and the public.
This article analyzes the results of exploratory
research to identify existing obligations for lawyers
and legal-services professionals that could serve as
mechanisms for requiring evaluations of AI effectiveness
for legal-services delivery. Next, this article
analyzes existing evaluations of legal-services technologies
that could be further developed into " soft
law " standards for AI effectiveness evaluations. This
article concludes that existing legal-services regulations,
particularly the obligations of lawyers and
other legal-services professionals to their clients and
society, could prove to be excellent mechanisms for
the enforcement of soft law principles for evaluating
AI effectiveness for legal services.
What is " soft law " ?
The explosion of AI research and use of AI in
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3123732
Date of current version: 7 December 2021.
December 2021
society highlights the " pacing problem " that affects
many emerging technologies. In sum, law and regulation
do not keep pace with emerging technology.
Because the " risks, benefits, and trajectories of AI
0278-0097/21©2021 IEEE
37

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2021

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