FREDERICK — The Employment Law Center of Maryland has recently adopted an artificial intelligence tool that acts as a legal assistant — a move that an attorney at the center says will help close the gap for access to justice.
The nonprofit law firm has been using the tool — called CoCounsel — for the past few months to complete time-intensive tasks like legal research, drafting documents and contracts and reviewing documents. It’s become an integral part of the day-to-day work, the center’s managing attorney, Joseph Gibson, said.
Gibson said the firm was amazed by CoCounsel’s capabilities.
“Candidly, I think our first reaction involves some expletives because we were blown away by the tool,” Gibson said. “And then we really dug in and started using it.”
Casetext, the legal AI company that developed CoCounsel, says it can do “document review, legal research memos, deposition preparation, and contract analysis in minutes.”
Casetext had the Law Center beta test the tool and give feedback to better develop it, Gibson said.
The company wanted the Law Center to think about the tool from a perspective of access to justice.
The whole purpose of the Law Center is to provide affordable legal counsel for those facing legal employment issues, and the tool helps build on that, Gibson said.
“If it allows lawyers to provide legal assistance to more people at a more affordable level, that’s a good thing,” Gibson said.
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