Leveraging Natural Language Processing for Legal Research: Trends and Future Directions

7 Pages Posted: 27 Jul 2023

See all articles by Hiral Modi

Hiral Modi

SVKM's Pravin Gandhi College of Law

Date Written: July 18, 2023

Abstract

The symbiotic relationship between law and technology has ushered unprecedented opportunities for legal scholars and practitioners, with Natural Language Processing (NLP) leading the transformative revolution in legal research. NLP, an AI branch, empowers machines to comprehend, interpret, and generate human language, revolutionizing legal analysis.

This study explores the renaissance of NLP in the legal domain, showcasing applications that automate case summarization and topic modelling and predict legal outcomes with data-driven precision. However, ethical considerations are paramount as we navigate NLP's deployment in the legal arena, ensuring data privacy, transparency, and bias mitigation.

Legal professionals can precisely traverse vast legal knowledge repositories using NLP-powered research platforms that process everyday language queries, delivering relevant documents and opinions. NLP automates mundane legal tasks like document review, saving time and reducing errors.

While NLP offers immense promise, challenges such as document structure variability and limited training data availability persist — nonetheless, the benefits of improved efficiency and access to justice warrant NLP's embrace.

As the future unfolds, the legal profession must adapt and leverage NLP as a vital tool for efficient legal services. Concerns about job displacement persist, but NLP's transformative force offers unparalleled growth opportunities and enhanced legal practice.

Keywords: NLP, legal research, predictive analysis

Suggested Citation

Modi, Hiral, Leveraging Natural Language Processing for Legal Research: Trends and Future Directions (July 18, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4514036 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4514036

Hiral Modi (Contact Author)

SVKM's Pravin Gandhi College of Law ( email )

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