Quality News, Services and Publications

At Quality Legal Services, we have a network of experienced Researchers, Professionals and Academics who are well-versed in their specialist field. With their extensive knowledge and skills, they provide reliable insight and commentary on a worldwide level of developing industries.

Technology and Innovation

Legal studies and publication programmes can enable research to be conducted in a fraction of the time that a manual search would need, whether it be for topic-specific documents or for authorities considering a particular point of law or a particular standard form contract provision and so on. The massive computing power now available provides a quicker means of doing what was already being done manually; but it doesn’t change the nature of the task of legal research. We are developing our own Legal Channel that will make law modules, law research and insights available to our consumers in one centralised place.

Future plans for using legal technology, as compared to current use, is marked by interactivity with consumers. Of the total survey respondents (Number of Respondents = 891), 37% said they are currently using legal technology, while 24% said they are ‘not using but planning on using’ it in the future. The top five most prevalent types of legal technologies currently in use are: 

• ‘videoconferencing with clients’ (87% of total respondents) 

• ‘storing data in the cloud’ (66%) 

• ‘practice management software’ (62%) 

• ‘legal research software’ (50%) 

• ‘e-verification/e-signature’ (37%).

Some research tools still require a law practitioner to review the case authorities that a particular search may return and to consider what the textbooks may have to say on a particular point. Similarly, programmes that can search databases of documents and identify and order those that fit a given search profile do not obviate the need for the practitioner to evaluate the returned documents and to consider how they may support, or otherwise, the narrative of a party's case. These systems involve a low level of A.I., but essentially provide the automation of a manual process.

Generative A.I., of which ChatGPT is the most well-known, however, involves a level of autonomy going beyond mere automation. By autonomy, what is meant is the system’s capacity to generate its own reasoning with the capability of learning and changing over time. Used in the field of law, this technology, it is suggested, does have the potential to change quite radically the nature of the legal function, including the role of representatives and of the courts and judiciary.