Artificial intelligence software could leave many law graduates superfluous
A law firm has unveiled a blueprint for an army of virtual paralegals — all named “Kim”.
Riverview Law, based in the Wirral, has showcased its latest technological breakthrough that could see law students seeking valuable entry-level paralegal positions become surplus to requirements.
Earlier this year, Legal Cheek reported that the forward-thinking law firm had teamed up with boffins at Liverpool University in a bid to apply artificial intelligence to legal tasks.
Combining this with the purchase of US knowledge automation business CliXLEX back in September, Riverview Law has created an artificial intelligence system called Kim.
Kim, which stands for “knowledge, intelligence, meaning” and has nothing to do with Kardashians, will be rolled out fully in the New Year.
According to the North West outfit, the system will be able to handle “many” legal tasks and free up the valuable time of lawyers to perform other work.
Trumpeting the tech-advancement, a spokeswoman for Riverview said:
They [Kim] will be able to take on many tasks for lawyers, combining Riverview Law’s legal domain expertise with automation, expert systems, reporting, visualisations and artificial intelligence.
It will no doubt be of concern to law students that the virtual paralegal system will be available to all law firms and businesses with an in-house legal department. With Kim not requiring lunch, holidays or even a salary, and designed to undertake many of the tasks a young law graduate at a firm would be expected to perform, the project could see many students lose out as firms look at ways to cut costs.
Kim has already set up a flashy website (pictured below) featuring images of DNA overlaid with phrases such as “Kim is” in what appears to be an attempt to make her it appear as close to human as possible.
Having being unable to resist the lure of social media, Kim created a Twitter account yesterday, tweeting somewhat ominously:
In 2016 we will break cover https://t.co/GaGVScZ5Oi #6
— Kim Technologies (@KimTechnologies) December 7, 2015
Beware law students, Kim is coming.