Samuel Edwards
February 7, 2024
Divorces can get messy.
Every year, there are roughly 690,000 divorces in the United States.
Most of the people involved in those divorces hope, against the odds, that their divorce process will be quick, easy, and cheap.
But the reality is, divorce is usually time-consuming, challenging, and expensive.
As a lawyer, you have the power to make things easier. You can address your responsibilities in the process with diligence and haste. You can anticipate potential issues and remedy them before they become pressing. You can even keep your rates in check to ensure that you don’t alienate or bankrupt your client base.
Even so, divorces are often complex to navigate – for lawyers and spouses alike.
However, a new tool has emerged for lawyers, designed to make a multitude of legal processes faster, more efficient, and more convenient: legal AI.
But what is legal AI and how can it simplify the divorce process?
There are several factors making divorce cases complex and expensive.
The median cost of a divorce in the United States is $7,000, with the average floating between $15,000 and $20,000. In some rare cases, the expenses associated with divorce climb into six figures. Even in a best-case scenario, divorces take several months, and in some cases, they can stretch on for years.
Where does all this money go? And why does it take this long?
First, it's important to understand that there are many issues that need to be resolved in a divorce, and the people participating in the divorce are unlikely to immediately agree on everything. In disputes involving custody of children, both parents have a vested interest in getting an outcome they want – and they are often diametrically opposed to each other. In disputes involving significant assets, division isn't as straightforward as a simple 50/50. Ownership of businesses, homes, and other indivisible property can complicate matters to the point where negotiations take months.
Throughout all this time, both parties in the divorce will be paying lawyers an hourly rate.
Second, divorce law can be confusing and it's constantly in flux. Lawyers are responsible for staying up-to-date with the latest changes to local laws, and even small changes in the legal system can lead to greatly increased complexity for lawyers handling the case.
Third, divorces tend to unfold over the course of several hearings, which must be scheduled in a court system that is probably overflowing with scheduled matters. Even in a case where a divorcing husband and wife agree immediately on everything, it can still take several months for the divorce to be finalized.
Fourth, there is a massive amount of paperwork that needs to be drafted and filed for the divorce. In some cases, lawyers can use existing templates as a starting point, but in many cases, these documents need to be drafted from scratch or heavily revised.
So what can legal AI do to address these problems and make divorce cases more expedient and inexpensive?
First, it's important to understand the state of modern legal AI. Conversational, generative AI has reached a point where it can respond to conversationally written inquiries, search large databases, and even generate large swaths of text. AI is incredibly fast and efficient, often generating a response within a few seconds or a few minutes that might take a human hours or days of time to complete. It's also reasonably accurate, so long as it has access to a sufficiently exhaustive set of data to draw from.
Legal AI can help in divorce cases in several ways:
From these benefits, you should be able to see how legal AI can help in divorce cases for both lawyers and clients. Lawyers get to do their work faster and more efficiently, with fewer hiccups and headaches. Clients get to make progress in their divorce cases with a more reasonable timeline, and there's a good chance they can save money by paying lawyers for fewer hours of work. And because clients are happier with the work done, they're more likely to give their lawyers good reviews and referrals.
At this point, you may be wondering if legal AI is a bit too good at what it does.
In other words, could it possibly threaten your position as a divorce attorney?
Could a modern AI system handle a divorce without humans?
The short answer is no, and it's unlikely that legal AI will ever fully replace human lawyers.
There are several drawbacks and weaknesses of legal AI that we need to acknowledge, though they don't even begin to eclipse the benefits.
Additionally, there are some strengths of human lawyers that legal AI systems can't yet approach.
The bottom line here is that legal AI can be incredibly useful for divorce cases, and valuable for both lawyers and clients. Even if you only use legal AI to create rough draft documents and answer a few questions, you could save hours of time and save your clients hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Soon, legal AI may become a practical necessity for remaining competitive in the world of divorce law.
If you want to see how legal AI works for yourself, we’ve got a perfect opportunity for you.
Our legal AI tool is equipped with all the features you need for document review, legal research, contract generation, and more – and because it’s conversationally driven, you can start using it with no prior training or experience.
Everything starts with a free trial – so sign up today to see how it works!
Samuel Edwards is CMO of Law.co and its associated agency. Since 2012, Sam has worked with some of the largest law firms around the globe. Today, Sam works directly with high-end law clients across all verticals to maximize operational efficiency and ROI through artificial intelligence. Connect with Sam on Linkedin.
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