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The Kingsley Napley Junior Debate is taking place this week and we’re going to be discussing the impact of artificial intelligence on the way in which we help clients reach financial settlements.
Whether it is using Chat GPT to help you to start a blog or asking Alexa to add to your shopping list, it’s clear that AI is infiltrating all parts of our lives. While the specific figures vary depending on where you look, statistics show that most households in the UK own a smart home device and a large proportion of those have voice activated assistants. For children growing up in the UK today, this sort of technology is a part of their everyday life and they’re going to expect to see it rolled out across all sectors as they move into adulthood. Our clients, and particularly those of the future, don’t see AI as the science fiction concept it once was but rather as an ordinary, time saving tool. I am therefore firmly of the view that family lawyers need to join the AI revolution.
At Kingsley Napley we are investing time to understand what AI can offer us and, by extension, our clients, who are going to be increasingly interested in how technology can drive efficiency, reduce time spent on tasks and, as a consequence, the related costs and potential stress. We are already seeing AI specifically in financial remedies practice with AI based on open source banking being used to analyse financial documents and create asset schedules and budgets. It is also starting to infiltrate everyday life in the office with meeting notes being produced by video conferencing programmes as standard and legal research tools being powered by AI. There is also discussion on an industry-wide level of whether analysis of historical financial data from previous settlements may be used to predict a range of likely outcomes for future cases. I have reservations about relying on this too heavily given the huge range of discretion needed to meet the needs of all families fairly, but I am keen to see what can be done. Similar exercises are already underway in terms of business valuation models and it may be we can leverage that expertise in financial settlements.
There is of course the darker side of AI and while we’re seeking to understand what it can do to benefit our clients, simultaneously we need to understand its limitations in order to protect them. Deep fakes and the ability for ordinary people to easily change and enhance documents, photographs and videos using AI is something we all need to be alive to. We also need to understand what data is being pulled in to the relevant AI programmes that we are using, ensure that it is kept up to date and be alive to any bias that may arise.
However, in my view, it seems unlikely that family lawyers and judges will be replaced by machines completely. In a system where there are always outlying cases and factual scenarios, lawyers are there to provide nuanced and strategic advice at what is an emotionally difficult time. Judges are required to use their broad discretion to achieve fairness to meet needs. That is a much deeper and more sensitive analysis than a pure numerical assessment. Humans offer the emotional intelligence that machines lack (at least at the moment!). It is for these reasons that I cannot yet see how similar technologies could be used in child arrangements work. It is however clear that there is the potential to use AI positively to reduce time spent on certain tasks, particularly at the start of cases when we are trying to understand the extent of the assets available to the parties, and reduce legal costs. Lawyers need to embrace these technologies so that we are able to focus on providing the added value to clients that only a human can offer.
I am looking forward to a lively debate this week but unless someone can persuade me differently, it seems that the AI revolution is to be embraced and that financial remedy work has the potential to be changed for the better by it.
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If you have any questions regarding this blog, please contact Sarah Dodds in our Family team.
about the author
Sarah is a Senior Associate in Kingsley Napley’s family and divorce team, where she specialises in complex divorce and financial work as well as private children cases.
Her practice includes all aspects of private family work and the majority of her clients have international connections. Sarah specialises in divorce and matrimonial finance disputes, including in particular those which contain complex pension issues. She also regularly deals with high conflict cases relating to children’s arrangements and financial provision for children, including international and domestic relocations and child abduction. Sarah has a particular interest in adoption and surrogacy matters and regularly advises parents who wish to apply for parental orders following the birth of their child.
We welcome views and opinions about the issues raised in this blog. Should you require specific advice in relation to personal circumstances, please use the form on the contact page.
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