Artificial Intelligence.

Over the years, law firms have deployed big data analytics in novel ways, from measuring how to best retain clients to predicting outside counsel spend. Many of these analytics platforms, whether built internally or by a legal technology provider, have leveraged artificial intelligence (AI) technology to elicit insights from unstructured or unorganized data. But not all law firms and legal professionals have taken advantage of these advances in analytics.

Legal research provider Fastcase, however, is hoping to change that. Its “AI Sandbox” platform seeks to democratize access to AI analytics tools by offering a variety of applications in a centralized platform alongside Fastcase's proprietary legal research data.

What it is: AI Sandbox is a platform through which law firms can upload their data to secure private virtual servers and take advantage of a multitude of cloud-based AI analytics tools—such as those from IBM Watson, Neota Logic, Contraxsuite and LexPredict—for a fee.

Law firms can use the tools to elicit insights from their data, as well as data pulled from Fastcase's legal research platform and their partners, including PACER, Docket Alarm and Courtroom Insight. Using the platform's tools, for instance, a law firm can determine the percent of intellectual property (IP) cases its attorneys won in a certain jurisdiction, compared to how all IP cases were decided in that same jurisdiction.

Security, of course, is a big part of AI sandbox. Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase and adjunct professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, noted that to protect the data law firms upload to the platform's private serves, AI Sandbox uses “the same military-grade security that we use to protect the Fastcase databases.”

Law Firm Clients: AI Sandbox is only offered through Fastcase's “developer program,” which is currently only available to law firms. Though the platform and developer program launched in June 2017, it was only recently that Fastcase brought on most of its current ten law firm customers in the program.

“Most of them signed up around the turn of the year,” Walters said, adding that Fastcase also launched a bimonthly “educational webinar series” in March 2018 to help law firms learn how to use the AI tools hosted on AI Sandbox.

Law firms using AI sandbox include Am Law 100 firms like BakerHostetler, DLA Piper, and Baker Donelson. Katherine Lowry, director of practice services at BakerHostetler, noted AI Sandbox's tools can also be useful beyond just analytics.

For instance, one tool in Sandbox, IBM Conversational Service, “is very interesting to us because we have already created two chatbot prototypes internally, one using Amazon Alexa and the other using the Microsoft Bot framework. So what I would like to do is look at IBM's Conversational Service” as a basis for a chatbot as well.

Though the platform is only currently offered to law firms, Fastcase is aiming to expand its user base to include law schools in the near future.

An AI Cocktail Party: When asked why law firms use AI Sandbox instead of just going to AI analytics tool providers themselves, Lowry noted that the platform is a more efficient way to access and test tools before fully committing. “In order to try products in ordinary terms, we would have to license or subscribe to them and carry on a long-term relationship with [the provider].”

Walters added that AI Sandbox was intended to be a place where law firms and eventually law schools could connect with AI professionals and platforms to discuss different data analytics projects.

“I think of it like a cocktail party of all of the most interesting data scientists and tool providers in the world,” he said. “If you get them all in one room and facilitate a conversation between them and people in law firms and law schools who are trying to create interesting new things, that's what the AI Sandbox would be: The world's geekiest and most powerful cocktail party.”