Linklaters and Pinsent Masons have become the latest law firms to invest in artificial intelligence, as the legal profession tries to automate¹ the mundane² tasks that have traditionally been the preserve of junior lawyers.

法律业正尝试让传统上由初级律师承担的枯燥工作实现自动化，年利达(Linklaters)与品诚梅森(Pinsent Masons)就是最新一批投资人工智能的律师事务所。

Linklaters has developed Verifi, a computer programme that can sift³ through 14 UK and European regulatory registers to check client names for banks. The company said it could process thousands of names overnight.

年利达律师事务所开发了电脑程序Verifi，可以筛查14家英国及欧洲监管登记机构的材料，为银行核查客户姓名。该公司表示，这一程序一夜时间可以处理几千个名字。

Edward Chan, banking⁴ partner at Linklaters, said: “Previously⁵ it would have taken a trained junior lawyer an average of 12 minutes to search a single customer name.

年利达银行业合伙人Edward Chan说：“以前，受过训练的初级律师检索一位客户的姓名平均需要12分钟。”

“AI is an indispensible tool for coping with the ever-growing amounts of data which lawyers have to handle in running complex matters. Our lawyers are not engineers or data scientists. Good solid legal skills remain what we look for in our lawyers.”

“律师在处理复杂事务时不得不面对日益庞大的数据量，人工智能已成为处理这些数据的必要工具。我们的律师不是工程师，也不是数据科学家。优秀、扎实的法律技能仍是我们的律师应具备的。”

Pinsent Masons has developed a programme that reads and analyses clauses in loan agreements. Its TermFrame system also helps guide lawyers through transactions and point them towards the correct precedents⁶ at each stage of a process.

品诚梅森律师事务所开发了一个可以读取并分析贷款协议条款的程序。其TermFrame系统还可以在律师处理事务的过程中提供帮助，在进程的每一阶段指引他们参考恰当的先例。

Another law firm, Dentons, has set up NextLaw Labs, a virtual company which looks at the application of technology with the law. It has invested in ROSS, an IBM Watson-powered legal adviser⁷ app that streamlines⁸ legal research, saving lawyers’ time and clients’ money. ROSS is currently being pilot-tested at Dentons and approximately 20 other law firms.

德同国际律师事务所(Dentons)创建了虚拟公司NextLaw Labs，致力于将技术应用在法律事务上。NextLaw投资了一款基于IBM的沃森(Watson)超级计算机系统、名为ROSS的法律顾问应用，该应用可以简化法律检索、节省律师的时间及客户的资金。ROSS目前正在德同等大约20家律所进行测试。

Hodge, Jones & Allen, a law firm, has worked with academics from University College London to create software that assesses the merits of personal injury cases.

Hodge Jones & Allen律师事务所与伦敦大学学院(University College London)的科研人员合作，开发了评估人身伤害案件是非曲直的软件。

Professor Richard Susskind, a technology adviser to the Lord Chief Justice, has predicted radical⁹ change in the legal sector¹⁰, pointing out that intelligent search systems could now outperform junior lawyers and paralegals in reviewing large sets of documents and selecting the most relevant.

最高法院首席法官(Lord Chief Justice)的技术顾问理查德•萨斯坎德教授(Richard Susskind)曾预测，法律业将发生根本性变化，并指出，在查阅大量文档并选取最具相关性的材料方面，智能检索系统如今可以比初级律师和律师助理做得更好。

He told a legal conference last month that the legal profession had five years to reinvent itself from being legal advisers¹¹ to legal technologists and criticised law schools for “churning out 20th-century lawyers”.

上月，他在一场法律会议上表示，律师这一行有5年时间进行自我重塑——从法律顾问转变为法律技术专家。他还批评法学院“培养20世纪律师”。

A recent study by Deloitte suggested that technology has already contributed to a reduction of about 31,000 jobs in the legal sector, including roles such as legal secretaries and a further 39 per cent of jobs were at “high risk” of being made redundant¹² by machines in the next two decades.

德勤(Deloitte)最近的一项研究表明，技术进步已导致法律业减少了约3.1万个工作岗位（包括法务秘书），而且还有39%的工作岗位在未来20年将面临被机器淘汰的“高风险”。

There has been speculation¹³ that law is ripe for “Uberisation”, becoming the next target of technological¹⁴ disruption.

有人推断，法律行业将迎来“优步化”(Uberisation)，成为被技术颠覆的下一个目标。

One smaller firm, Riverview Law, has partnered with the computer science department at Liverpool University to work on artifical intelligence products.

规模较小的律所Riverview Law已与利物浦大学(Liverpool University)的计算机科学系合作研发人工智能产品。

Riverview is setting-up a separate technology business to exploit its software and the intellectual property that it has and is creating. It has launched a virtual assistant Kim designed to help legal teams make quicker and better decisions.

Riverview Law正在创建一家独立的技术公司，以更好地利用其已拥有以及正在开发的软件和知识产权。该公司推出了一款名为Kim的虚拟助手系统，旨在帮助律师团队更快、更好地作出决策。

Karl Chapman, chief executive of Riverview, said Kim has three varying levels of complexity¹⁵ including one level where a lawyer can ask it to suggest the best order to renegotiate a series of corporate¹⁶ contracts.

Riverview Law首席执行官卡尔•查普曼(Karl Chapman)表示，Kim有三个复杂程度等级，在其中一个等级，Kim可以给出律师重新谈判一系列公司合同的最佳顺序。

Many believe that AI will simply automate more routine parts of legal work so that lawyers focus on more complex, high value areas of client work.

许多人认为，人工智能不过将使法律工作中的常规环节实现自动化，以使律师专注于客户服务中比较复杂、高价值的领域。

“I would liken it to mathematicians¹⁷ calculating sums on slide rulers before computers. Computers didn’t do away with mathematicians who are probably more highly valued now than they were before,” said Orlando Conetta, a computer scientist and head of research and development at Pinsents.

计算机科学家、品诚梅森律师事务所研发主管奥兰多•科纳塔(Orlando Conetta)表示：“我把这比作电脑出现前数学家使用滑动标尺计算总数。电脑并没有淘汰数学家，他们如今可能比以前更受重视。”