After announcing the firm’s partnership with ROSS Intelligence earlier this month, BakerHostetler has now become the first major global firm to hire an AI lawyer. ROSS is built on IBM’s cognitive computer, Watson, and will be employed as a legal researcher in Baker Hostetler’s 50-strong bankruptcy department. With both cognitive computing and natural language processing abilities, lawyers will be able to ask ROSS research questions and receive evidence-based, up-to-the-minute candidate answers and hypotheses based on ROSS’ breakneck review and analysis of billions of laws, cases and other relevant data. ROSS Intelligence’s website also claims that the speed and efficacy of ROSS’ work improves the more it is used. Baker Hostetler chief information officer Bob Craig said in a statement: ‘We believe that emerging technologies like cognitive computing and other forms of machine learning can help enhance the services we deliver to our clients,’ adding that the firm will continue to ‘explore these cutting-edge technologies as they develop.’ Though Baker Hostetler’s hire is the first for ROSS there may be more on the horizon, as ROSS Intelligence has reportedly forged partnerships with several other unnamed major law firms.
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