Competition heats up to launch AI-based legal services
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After the advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, the Korean legal services market, previously hesitant to adopt new technologies, is now witnessing a surge in the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI), according to industry officials, Tuesday.
Just like companies in other industries, major law firms in Korea, as well as the prosecution and courts, have begun collaborating with tech companies to develop AI solutions for legal affairs.
DR & Aju recently became the first Korean law firm to provide AI-based legal advisory services.
In collaboration with Naver Cloud and a legal tech startup called Nexus AI, the law firm started allowing everyone to receive legal advisory services anytime through AI DR & Aju.
“Nexus AI developed the service by using DR & Aju’s accumulated data and Naver’s hyper-scale large language model, HyperCLOVA X,” a DR & Aju official said. “The service features high-quality responses based on a large law firm’s verified data and HyperCLOVA X-based parameter-efficient fine-tuning, prompt engineering and retrieval-augmented generation technologies.”
During a demonstration session last Wednesday, AI DR & Aju generated answers to each question within 30 seconds. However, it gave 88 correct answers and 12 incorrect responses to 100 questions.
“The service will be improved through continuous learning and will eventually be able to draw up legal documents based on more correct answers and analyses,” Nexus AI CEO Lee Jae-won said at the session.
AI DR & Aju was launched as LexisNexis, America’s leading legal tech company, possessing clients in 150 countries, released Lexis+AI in Korea to preempt the generative AI-based legal services market.
The U.S. firm’s service is currently specializing in both British and American laws, but LexisNexis plans to develop an AI service specifically for Korea's laws and precedents. Lexis+AI is also seen as generating fewer incorrect answers, thanks to America’s tendency to disclosing the entirety of judgments to the public.
In response to the intensifying competition, Korean legal tech companies, which have developed AI-based legal services earlier than major law firms here, have been accelerating efforts to come up with more advanced technologies.
Intellicon, which launched an AI-based legal adviser, Law GPT, last May, developed Korean Adaptive Legal Language AI (KOALLA) last month. Law & Good, which also launched ChatGPT-based Law & Bot last May, developed a chatbot specializing in Korean financial regulations last month.
Law & Company, which runs an AI-based legal data platform, Bigcase, joined hands with a local AI startup, Upstage, to develop an AI service for lawyers, which is tentatively known as Super Lawyer, by June.
Following the trend, a growing number of law firms here are looking for tech companies that can jointly develop AI technologies, which will not only translate legal documents written in foreign languages but also write drafts of legal documents.
Potential use for investigations, trials
Although legal tech companies and law firms are spearheading the development of AI for legal services, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office is set to introduce an AI system by the end of this year for prosecutors and investigators to search databases for similar cases more easily.
In collaboration with the Catholic University of Korea, the office also studied ways to utilize generative AI for investigations.
“We hope the introduction of our recently developed generative AI model will improve the prosecution’s working environment and guarantee fairness in investigation procedures,” said Shin You-jin, assistant professor of data science at the university.
The Supreme Court also invited tenders recently for the development of AI that can assist trials, with the expectation that the technology can prevent the delay of trials by easing the burden on judges, each of whom has to handle hundreds of cases every month.
DR & Aju Managing Partner Lee Kyu-chul speaks during a demonstration session for an artificial intelligence-based legal counseling service at the law firm's head office in Seoul, March 20. Courtesy of DR & Aju
Backlash from lawyers
However, AI-based legal services have caused controversy here, as lobby groups representing lawyers pointed out that those services may go against the Attorney-at-Law Act.
When DR & Aju announced the launch of its AI-based legal advisory service, the Korean Bar Association (KBA) asked the law firm to clarify whether human lawyers check the AI-generated answers. KBA also questioned the law firm’s marketing campaign for the new service, citing the association’s guidelines, which ban lawyers and law firms from promoting free-of-charge or unreasonably cheap legal services.
The Korean Lawyers Association, which represents lawyers who graduated from law schools, also urged the Ministry of Justice and KBA to start discussions on how to control AI-based legal counseling services.
In addition, concerns remain that Korean courts’ limited disclosure of written judgments may hinder the growth of the country’s legal tech AI market.