PLE0042 ENGLISH FOR LAW READING PROJECT

PLE 0042 ENGLISH FOR LAW

Trimester 3, 2020/2021

READING PROJECT (30%)

CLO2: Apply critical reading skills in interpreting texts on legal
topics or issues

Instructions to students:

1. Answer all questions in this reading project.

2. Type your answers in the answer template provided.
3. Submit your answer script before 5pm, 27 MAY 2021.
4. Only one submission is allowed.
5. Late submission will not be entertained, and no marks will be awarded.
6. It is your responsibility to ensure the complete answer script is submitted.

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CRITICAL READING [30 MARKS]

Read the passage below and answer all questions.

Rise of Robot Lawyers?

1 The encroachment of robotics into the workplace has caused anxiety about 1
whether there will be enough jobs in the future for human workers. Until recently, the
consensus among researchers seemed to be that blue-collar workers with lower levels of
education would be more affected. Now, new research by Stanford University
economist, Michael Webb, suggests that the robot revolution which has long been 5
regarded threatening for only blue-collar workers is a misconception. The advent of
artificial intelligence (AI) has also provoked considerable speculation about the job
prospect in white-collar fields, including law which sees an increasing use of intelligent
machines. Whether or not we realise it, law regulates all aspects of our lives and
serves many purposes, from maintaining order to protecting liberties. Law is larger 10
than humans, and human activities take place in the shadow of the law. Hence, when AI
became ubiquitous, it is impossible for the legal world to be insulated from this change.
However, will AI actually replace lawyers? This might be a scary thought, and it is
likely to cause alarm in the legal circle.
2 For many years, various computer software types have supported law firms in 15
their daily operations, mostly with document archiving, text editing and communicating,
but the rise of intelligent machines should induce anxiety only among segments of the
legal profession that provide routine solutions for clients. One such segment involves
paralegals’ tasks which include researching cases, preparing discovery law in common
law jurisdictions and generating case summaries. A machine can surely sift through a 20
trove of documents better than a paralegal. AI can conduct time-consuming research
much faster and more thoroughly than a paralegal, reducing the burdens on courts and
legal services and accelerating the judicial process. Currently, the legal system relies on
paralegals to discover, index and process information. All these jobs require much
sifting and pattern recognition, skills that suit AI particularly well. Thus, within the next 25
decade, AI will certainly eliminate most paralegal positions.
3 Nevertheless, it is still human knowledge, experience and competencies that
determine the final product of lawyers’ jobs. The automation of certain routine types of
legal work is hardly evidence that lawyers’ core tasks will soon be performed by AI.
Lawyer employment and wages have been growing steadily over the last twenty years, 30
which would not be the case if automation were taking hold. In light of the evolving
tasks carried out by lawyers, it should come as no surprise that AI researchers have
regarded lawyers as relatively immune from automation. In their influential 2016 paper,
Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne estimated that lawyers had only a 3.5 per cent risk
of automation, far less than other professionals. 35
4 Actually, the threat posed by intelligent machines has been overstated and fails to
take into consideration that these machines pose a challenge to establishing liability. If
lawyers fail to deliver competent legal services to their clients, they are subject to ethical
discipline as well as malpractice suits. When lawyer robots err, who should be held
responsible? Who should pay damages and compensate injured clients? Can robots be 40
hauled to the court? Uncertainty over liability may chill the adoption of AI in law and
lead to a situation where the lawyer remains the centre of the legal representation with
ultimate responsibility for the services provided.
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5 Additionally, intelligent machines lack moral authority and cannot deal with legal
and non-legal considerations to exhort clients to act in accordance with the law. 45
Consider DoNotPay, a smartphone application that assists users in fighting parking
tickets. DoNotPay suggests various defences for parking violations and prepares a filing
based on the user’s inputs. One such defence is medical emergency at the time of the
alleged violation. Although a small number of individuals may park illegally because of
medical emergencies, the reality is that any unscrupulous DoNotPay user can obtain the 50
app’s assistance to raise the medical emergency defence. DoNotPay, unlike a lawyer,
has no obligation to weed out illegitimate defences or dissuade the user from lying.
Unlike robots, lawyers are people who believe in fighting for justice, fairness and due
process. If an AI system such as DoNotPay is used, one can conceive of a future where
litigants, assisted by apps utilising AI, flood courts with unsustainable claims, with 55
harried judges left to separate the wheat from the chaff. This illustrates why a society
should not expand upon these flawed systems.
6 As highly educated professionals whose work involves problem solving, creativity
and persuasion, lawyers would seem to be poor candidates for automation and should
not fear AI’s rise. All these tasks which are the highest hanging fruits for the AI systems 60
to tackle will remain beyond intelligent machines’ capabilities for the foreseeable future.
While machines can access information within a second, they can never be trusted with
the high-level tasks. This is not only because they are unfit, but also because people will
not trust them enough to put their lives in robots’ hands. Legal service is a premium
product which is unaffordable to many people. Clients who can afford legal service or 65
clients who are high profile certainly want to have the best possible defence they can
get. If they get a robot, that is a lawyer anyone can hire; lawyers are different as lawyers
are a smart bunch, and they possess the intellect for high-level tasks. Anyone who has
visions of unleashing mechanical robot lawyers to lay waste to their enemies will be
disappointed because intelligent machines are only capable of handling mindless 70
rampage of logic. Thinking and advising clients are roles that will always require higher
order tasks. AI is not going to replace the need for these tasks.
7 While machines are dependable when it comes to administrative tasks, they
cannot perform any tasks that require judgement. “Judgment” is needed as part of
providing any legal advice. Computers cannot do this in the same way humans can as 75
the answers to legal questions are not always black and white. There is no Big Book of
Law that contains all the answers to legal questions. Instead, most of the law is built on
precedent where every case had someone arguing the exact opposite of how the case
was decided, and it may have been a close call, hinging on one key or obscure fact or
other twist. In this situation, humans are always better at making ethical judgments. 80
Even with machine learning, the basic principles and ethics of law still require a human
mind. Machines cannot practise law, and the practice of law requires human judgement.
Intelligent machines are simply hard-nosed workhorses which do not use judgement.
8 With technology advancing, lawyers will be moved to more strategic tasks, ones
that require empathy. Human lawyers’ unique ability to create empathy with jurors and 85
judges makes them indispensable to legal deliberations. Song Richardson, Dean of the
University of California-Irvine School of Law, said, “Using AI isn’t the answer. It’s the
opposite of justice.” Besides, lawyers are the shoulder that people cry on because in
some situations, their loved ones were murdered or lost their lives. In divorce cases, the
applicants experience extremely emotional time in their lives. In this distressing legal 90
process, the lawyer can give them a sense of peace by motivating them to move forward
with their new lives. Lawyers also work with traumatised individuals including victims
of persecution, torture and sexual violence, hearing traumatic narratives, such as those
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relating to rape and sexual abuse. There is no intelligent machine which is capable of
doing all these tasks. It is that human touch, that ability to walk alongside a client 95
through a painful journey, that a machine cannot replace.
9 A robot is just a mechanical servant. Even the best AI needs to be taught. This
means that it can only be as objective as the people who teach it. Biased data is going to
lead to biased AI. Various forms of AI bias are detrimental, too. Speaking recently to
The New York Times, Princeton University computer science professor, Olga 100
Russakovsky, said bias goes well beyond gender and race, and AI is developed by
humans who are inherently biased. “AI researchers are primarily people who are male,
who come from certain racial demographics, who grew up in high socioeconomic areas
and who are primarily people without disabilities,” Russakovsky said. In the same
article, Google researcher, Timnit Gebru, called scientists some of the most dangerous 105
people in the world because they have this illusion of objectivity. In consequence of
bias, AI has the ability to circulate controversial opinions that could poison public
debates and even manipulate the opinions of millions of people.
10 Whatever the eventual capabilities of intelligent machines are, lawyers fulfill an
invaluable role in the legal system. The legal system is not a parking ticket to be gamed, 110
and reckless automation of whole swaths of legal work is bound to destabilise the
system. AI might well change the world, but it will not be as radical as some are
predicting. It might alter how lawyers work in the future, but it is certainly not the end
of the legal profession.

Adapted from Marcovic, M. (2019). Rise of robot lawyers? Arizona Law Review, 61 (325), 326-349. from
https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/61-2/61arizlrev325.pdf

1. In your own words, explain the meaning of “Law is larger than humans, (1 mark)
and human activities take place in the shadow of the law” (lines 10 – 11).

2. Answer each question below in 70-80 words of your own.

i. Based on paragraph 1, draw a logical conclusion on white-collar workers’ (3 marks)

job prospect in the face of the use of artificial intelligence. Explain your
answer.

ii. Based on the information in paragraph 2, what is the author’s attitude (3 marks)
towards the displacement of paralegals by artificial intelligence. Explain
your answer.

iii. State the author’s viewpoint in the article. Explain your answer. (3 marks)

3. In 300-350 words of your own, list FIVE persuasive techniques used by the (20 marks)
author in persuading readers to agree with his or her viewpoint. Give
examples and explain each of the techniques used. Write your answer in
FIVE paragraphs.

End of Paper
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