Abstract
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in law has again become of great interest to lawyers and government. Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) have played a significant role in the provision of legal information via the web. The concept of ‘free access to law’ is not static, and the evolution of its principles now requires a response from providers of free access to legal information (‘a LII response’) to this renewed prominence of AI. This should include improving and expanding free access to legal advice. This paper proposes, and proposes to test, one approach that LIIs might take in the use of AI (specifically, ‘decision support’ or ‘intelligent assistance’ (IA) technologies), an approach that leverages the very large legal information assets that some LIIs have built over the past two decades. This approach focuses on how LIIs can assist providers of free legal advice (the ‘legal assistance sector’) to serve their clients. We consider the constraints that the requirement of ‘free’ imposes (on both the legal assistance sector and on LIIs), including on what types of free legal advice systems are sustainable, and what roles LIIs may realistically play in the development of such a ‘commons of free legal advice’. We suggest guidelines for development of such systems. The AI-related services and tools that the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is providing (the ‘DataLex’ platform), and how they could be used to achieve these goals, are outlined.
Highlights
The use of artificial i ntelligence ( artificial intelligence (AI)) i n l aw, i ncluding i n r elation to decision-support systems, has again become a matter of great interest to both the legal profession and to government
This paper proposes, and proposes to test, one approach that Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) might take in the use of AI (‘decision support’ or ‘intelligent assistance’ (IA) technologies), an approach that leverages the very large legal information assets that some LIIs have built over the past two decades
We consider the constraints that the requirement of ‘free’ imposes, including on what types of free legal advice systems are sustainable, and what roles LIIs may realistically play in the development of such a ‘commons of free legal advice’
Summary
The use of artificial i ntelligence ( AI) i n l aw, i ncluding i n r elation to decision-support systems, has again become a matter of great interest to both the legal profession and to government. Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) and the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM), played a very significant role in those developments [1]. This paper proposes, and proposes to test, one approach that LIIs might take in the use of AI (‘decision support’ or ‘intelligent assistance’ (IA) technologies), an approach that leverages the very large legal information assets that some LIIs have built over the past two decades.. This paper proposes, and proposes to test, one approach that LIIs might take in the use of AI (‘decision support’ or ‘intelligent assistance’ (IA) technologies), an approach that leverages the very large legal information assets that some LIIs have built over the past two decades.2 This approach focuses on how LIIs can assist providers of free legal advice (the ‘legal assistance sector’) to serve their clients. A decision support system on rental housing law is to be developed to implement, test and evaluate the above approach, with the DataLex platform being used by pro bono knowledge-base (KB) developers from a large law firm to develop the application, working in conjunction with a community legal centre that will utilise it, and a university research centre to evaluate the project
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