The Rise of AI in the Courtroom: TrialView & The BBC

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Nina Warhurst  
It's just gone quarter past seven. Now, over the last year, we've reported on all of the big predictions andwarnings about how artificial intelligence is going to transform the world. Well now the senior judge overseeing AI projects in courts in England and Wales is predicting it could help deliver swift and cheap justice to the most disadvantaged in society. Our legal correspondent, Dominic Cassiani, reports.
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Dominic Cassiani  
Every day in our courts, witnesses swear to tell the truth, and it takes a skilled barrister to pull at the threads of lies. That costs time and money. But is all that about to change thanks to artificial intelligence? Big law firms are already using AI tools, but the judge overseeing guidance in the field says they could, in fact, benefit the poorest.

Sir Geoffrey Vos  
When people have claims which they can't resolve, it creates a huge economic loss to our society. And so we in the justice system really do want to find ways in which we can resolve people's problems more quickly and at lower cost. And so I think artificial intelligence, in time, will be one of those tools that we will use.

Dominic Cassiani  
So how far could AI go? This is a demonstration of courtroom software. The tool listens to the witness. It then compares what they say to other evidence, and it aims to spot inconsistencies or lies quicker than abarrister could. So will my learned friends soon be all out of a job?

Stephen Dowling  
The truth is, the technologies we're looking at here will enable one lawyer or two lawyers to do the job of10 or 20 it's going to massively change access to justice and massively reduce down legal costs. People need, ultimately, judges, human judges, to hear what they're saying and to emotionally connect to what's involved, but all that can be assisted and augmented by the use of artificial intelligence.

Dominic Cassiani  
Judges are backing AI, but want strict controls. They want the courtroom focused on real people with technology helping in a human drama. Dominic Cassiani, BBC news.

Nina Warhurst  
Fascinating stuff. Let's get more on this from Stephen Dowling, who's a barrister and also the founder of TrialView, which is an AI tool for lawyers. Morning to you. We saw you in the report there saying this would cut down to one or two lawyers, what was 10 or 20 lawyers? So to 10%... how?

Stephen Dowling  
Well with modern AI software, Nina, it's going to radically change how the legal profession operates. If you consider most legal cases these days, they all essentially review evidence, and that evidence is now stored in electronic data. There's been an absolute exponential explosion electronic data over the last 10to 15 years, and if you consider any legal case that has literally 1000s of emails, WhatsApp messages, text messages and video clips that lawyers have to sift through. Now, if you can put all that material intoan AI system, have the AI System Review all that, that could radically change time it takes to review thatinformation. So instead of having teams of lawyers pour over that material, you have AI LLMs or large language models reviewing that material and serving up to the lawyers in question the relevant facts, evidence and testimony that they need to prepare and present their case.

Nina Warhurst  
Sounds very clever. Stephen, but is there a risk that in trawling all of that information and trusting this software for something as important as justice, something might be missed?

Stephen Dowling  
Well, there's no doubt that this has to be treated very carefully. There's already reports of AI being inaccurate in certain places, and it doesn't operate on a probabilistic system where you don't always geexactly the right information at the right time. So it's important to have guard rails in place. So with AI,for example, that we use a TrialView, we always ensure that whenever the results come up, you can directly verify the source of that information, and to ensure that the lawyers in question can immediatelypoint to the original document with the original piece of evidence that supports what the AI is telling us. And the other piece to this is getting just as quickly. One of the major problems now in any major legal system is backlogs in the court. It can take years for a case to be heard, and then can take a very long time for judgment to be delivered. So with the use of technology, it will be possible to get to the hearing quicker, to sift through the evidence quicker, and ultimately to enable a judge to deliver his or her decision in a far faster time frame.

Nina Warhurst  
I mean, it's fascinating stuff. Thank you, Stephen. It feels like a matter of time before AI is replacing newspresenters. What do you think?

Stephen Dowling  
I doubt that Nina. Your job is definitely irreplaceable!

Nina Warhurst  
Oh, there we go. The correct answer! Thank you so much. Stephen Dowling, barrister and founder of TrialView.