Legal Drafting in the Era of AI and Digitisation: Enhancing Quality and Efficiency
On 8 March 2024, the LEOS team had the privilege of attending JIAMCATT, an annual conference that unites a vibrant community of linguists from over 90 international organisations who are at the forefront of Computer-Assisted Translation and Terminology. This year, held in Paris and hosted by UNESCO, the conference centred on the ‘next kid on the block’—Artificial Intelligence (AI)—and its implications for the translation profession. A key question emerged: Is AI a threat or a treat?
Why We Participated
Our participation in JIAMCATT was a logical step forward. Over the past two years, the LEOS team have deepened our collaboration with EC colleagues in Directorate General Translation, who are developing an open-source spell and grammar checker. This tool, set to be integrated into LEOS in all languages, is currently being finalised for English, French, and German.
Our Presentation Highlights
Our presentation at the conference highlighted new features in LEOS, including track changes, performance improvements and an enhanced user experience. If you want to hear firsthand on these novelties, note that we are organising a webinar on 21st of June to present LEOS 5 Watch our social media for information on the webinar. We mentioned ‘in passing’ the main features which make LEOS a robust legal drafting solution. These include the use of the Akoma Ntoso XML standard to facilitate a seamless cooperation between EU Institutions and within these, cooperation of all actors.
Given the conference's focus, we also shared our insights on the use of AI in the digitisation of legal drafting. Central to our discussion is the concept of smart functionalities, i.e., advanced and intelligent software capabilities to enhance the performance of the LEOS system using both AI and legacy technologies. Over the summer of 2023, we consulted with lawyers, policy developers and linguists to identify the smart functionalities they would find most useful. Their input led to the identification of following priority features:
- Correlation between recitals and the enacting terms
- Automatically identify existing legislation relevant for the act under development
- Acronyms, organisations, and other abbreviations
- Use correct linguistic formulations within the structure of the document
- Correct formulation in accordance with the English Style Guide
- Detect divergences between different linguistic translations
- Suggest linguistic formulations in provisions
- Detect and avoid structures that could create issues in legal interpretation
- (Correlation) between previous acts and the new one
- Detect obligations, rights, permissions, penalties
- LLM based legal text generation
Do you agree? Anything missing?
What We Learned
Our participation at JIAMCATT reinforced the idea that lawyers and linguists, both highly professional communities, have remarkably similar needs. Both groups share a commitment to precision, clarity, and coherence in their work. Leveraging corpora, datasets, and implementing smart functionalities in LEOS can benefit both professions. This can ensure consistency in terminology and streamline collaboration and communication.
Hence, a call to team-up: “Uniting Legal Drafters and Linguists Through Smart Functionality.” But also, a call to establish a close cooperation between linguists and IT professionals in identifying needs, exploring the potential of AI and the development of IT solutions.
In fact, the JIAMCATT conference presented for us an opportunity to meet and discuss with international organisation representatives from around the world. What bonded us is multilingualism, a topic very close to our heart in the European Commission. As an aside, at JIAMCATT we also met colleagues from other EU Institutions. Interesting contacts to be nurtured.
A final obvious conclusion is that AI ‘is not going to go away’ and ‘will have a profound impact on all professions ‘. We all agree that we should all engage with the topic and in any case, “The human must be in control”.
Future Vision
Looking ahead, we envision a future where AI continues to advance, providing even more sophisticated tools for legal drafting. These tools will enhance efficiency, improve quality, ensure greater transparency and increase accessibility. As AI evolves, and in particular Large Language Models, we anticipate plenty opportunities and new functionalities that can augment users and further streamline the drafting process.
Call to Action
We invite you to share your thoughts on the proposed smart functionalities and participate in the ongoing discussion about the future of legal drafting in the era of AI and digitisation. Your feedback is crucial as we continue to develop tools that enhance the quality and efficiency of legal drafting in the public sector.
We look forward to hearing from you!