Ontario Challenges Legal Technology Firms To Use Artificial Intelligence

Written by Carolyn Gruske. As featured in The Lawyer's Daily.

(October 11, 2017, 12:51 PM EDT) -- There is $80,000 in seed funding to be won by Ontario-based technology companies that can apply artificial intelligence (AI) to legal innovation.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and the Legal Innovation Zone (LIZ) at Ryerson University are sponsoring the Ontario AI Legal Challenge. Similar in nature to the inaugural Ontario Access to Justice (A2J) Challenge that was run last year, the AI Challenge will also provide the winning companies with residence in the zone and access to the mentoring, training and support services supplied to all of the startups who are part of the legal technology incubator.

"The idea is to focus the legal community or those interested in the provision of legal services on the great need out there and the great opportunity out there to use technology, in this case artificial intelligence, to deliver legal services to those who need them faster, simpler, more affordably," - Chris Bentley, LIZ managing director.

Under the rules of the contest, AI is defined as "a computer that learns to perform intelligence tasks we usually think only humans can do. We’re expecting a computer to complete human tasks," he added.

The rules then break down AI into four separate categories:

• Machine learning — a system that can continually take data points, process them, perform a task and then repeat that cycle with new data points while improving upon the results
• Natural language processing — getting the computer to understand human language and interpret what that person actually means
• Vision — creating the ability for the computer system to interpret images, identify them and describe them
• Speech — interpreting oral language and having a back-and-forth interaction like Apple's Siri application.

Companies have until Nov. 10 to submit their applications. A panel will assess all of the applications and select the top 10 to make pitches to a committee made up of members picked by LIZ and the Ministry.

The top six companies from the pitching round will be invited into LIZ for four months beginning in December, where they will get access to mentors, and all of the other services offered to LIZ members. Those six will then have to complete another pitch at the end of the four months.

The top three companies from that round of pitches will then share the $80,000 and be given another four months in the incubator.

According to Bentley, there are numerous advantages to being part of the zone . He said angel investors often come to LIZ looking to meet with the startups as do people from governmental and other agencies, like the Ontario Centres of Excellence. The entrepreneurs have the opportunity to meet with a variety of mentors and to get hands-on training in business necessities including how to structure a pitch and where to look for funding.

It also gives the young companies a chance to interact with other businesses in the same space, according to Laura van Wyngaarden. She is chief operating officer of Diligen Inc., which is a current resident of the zone. Diligen uses machine learning to perform contract reviews.

"What is fantastic about being part of the zone is we are here with other companies focused on the legal space. We are really able to have a lot of casual conversations about the future of law and what that will look like and the challenges inherent in legal right now. We’re allowed to focus on that, think on that, about how we will solve the problem. That has been fantastic,"

she said.

Diligen will be entering the competition, and van Wyngaarden encourages other legal technology companies to do the same.

Bentley is looking forward to the competition and expects to see a variety of solutions entered.

"Sometimes you see things you expect to see and there are several initiatives out there I would expect — contract analysis, I expect we’ll see that — but there will be lots of proposed applications that will be a variation on the usual or that will be completely new to us, that’s what’s so exciting to us.

"I think what the Ministry is doing, what the government is doing, is trying to unleash the creativity that is out there, both to better services for Ontarians and Ontario and Canadian businesses, but also to establish Ontario as a centre where this type of development can be undertaken," he said.

"Toronto has evolved to be a real leader in AI," said van Wyngaarden. "It’s great for Toronto. It brings really talented people back here. It keeps the talent here, so people stay here and grow their businesses here. That’s good for Toronto, that’s good for Canada."

As for why there should be a focus on AI in the legal technology world, van Wyngaarden said it offers opportunities and advantages nothing else can match.

"It has tremendous potential to improve the efficiency and the quality of the practice of law, far more than any other technology. The gains in productivity, when you can use AI and you can use it well, are so enormous. For example, if you have a team of lawyers manually going through an M&A or corporate finance action at a law firm ... that could take a dozen people weeks to do that review; to produce summaries of each of those contracts; to identify the really critical needle-in-a-haystack provisions. There is a huge amount of work there. With our software, you can do that work and get it done 30 to 80 per cent faster. You can get summaries produced really within minutes because it is produced entirely by AI and that is your starting point. It extracts all the key clauses and lays it out as a summary for you. That’s your starting point rather than a blank page. So we’re going from taking weeks to produce all those summaries to literally minutes."

Bentley said that while the legal community's adoption of AI has been relatively recent, it has the

potential to change the industry.

"It is a very interesting time. It’s interesting for legal which is maybe looking at forms of disruption coming up. It’s interesting for those who are interested in the tech space because the field is pretty open. We have an opportunity to be leaders here in Ontario and in Canada, and we should take that opportunity. I think the government’s investment in this type of initiative spurs interest and creates that sense of energy and excitement which is needed for places to really take off."

LexisNexis Canada has entered into partnership with Ryerson University's Legal Innovation Zone with the intention of charting and evaluating important emerging trends in legal innovation in Canada and around the globe. The content of this page is not subject to approval by LexisNexis Canada or Ryerson University's Legal Innovation Zone.

Originally Published by The Lawyer's Daily. Written by Carolyn Gruske.