Ethics and Legal Challenges in AI-Driven Data Analytics for Law

It all started with the internet, which connected us all on the World Wide Web. Then came the rise of search engines, which led us to ask Google, Yahoo, and all other similar platforms almost every question that we can think of.

We have now entered the era of artificial intelligence. It’s not just another search engine. The world’s geniuses leveled things up and created a technology that can generate conversational answers using context and intent from different Large Language Models (LLMs). As this technological shift accelerates, legal professionals are increasingly recognizing the importance of enrolling in an artificial intelligence course to understand not just the capabilities of AI, but also its ethical and legal implications.

As a result, it has penetrated various industries, including coding, accounting, writing, and, surprisingly, even the legal field. However, as with every innovation, new risks and challenges arise that every professional should be aware of, especially in the legal field. After all, in law, we uphold every person’s right to life, liberty, and property, which should never be taken lightly. 

In this article, we’ll tackle the ethical and legal challenges in AI-driven data analytics in the legal field and explore ways to safely adapt to this innovation without compromising everyone’s access to justice. 

On the rise of generative AI

In the past years, legal professionals have been open to using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day work. Most use generative AI, which are trained to use the uploaded content and generate new images, videos, audio, code, and writings. 

Examples of these generative AIs include popular tools such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Copilot. 

In the case of lawyers, according to the 2025 Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report, AI has been primarily used for legal tasks such as legal research, drafting briefs and legal memos, and contract reviews and analysis. 

As a result, the report found that AI can free up an estimated 240 hours of work annually for a legal professional. With work streamlined, legal professionals are expecting a decline in the use of hourly billing models. 

But on the bright side, AI seems to help not just with working faster but also smarter and with a better purpose, as a legal professional can reinvest these lost billing hours to perhaps focus on their physical and mental health, deepening their professional relationships with clients, having more time with strategic planning with their firm, and ultimately, delivering high-value insights and guidance. 

The pitfalls of using AI in law

With the rise of AI in the legal field, we must also confront the ethical and legal issues that this innovation has introduced. These main issues are hallucinations, bias, transparency, and privacy. 

Hallucinations

Although AIs can provide conversational answers immediately, we are not always certain that what they produce is based on facts. These LLMs tend to hallucinate, produce incorrect answers, and present them confidently nonetheless.

This is a common feature in general-use AI tools, such as ChatGPT. Thus, there is a growing need for generative AI tools designed for legal research to mitigate these hallucinations. These AI tools should be trained to use only trusted and verified legal data. 

For instance, in the Philippines, Digest PH uses an LLM configured to retrieve answers from a set of Philippine laws, jurisprudence, and Supreme Court decisions. In Australia, there’s also Case Note, which is a case search and AI legal research platform trained to increase the accuracy of its answers through a repository of Australian court decisions. 

Otherwise, lawyers and law firms may be fined by the court for submitting briefs to the court that contain fictitious cases generated by AI hallucinations. 

Bias

Whether in the field of law or not, one of AI’s most pressing issues is the tendency to perpetuate biases. AI, whether intentionally or not, can use biased data to train itself and answer accordingly. 

In the legal field, this becomes problematic, as marginalized groups often face disadvantages in accessing justice. If the AI is asked to assess the likelihood of crimes, it can target the marginalized groups based on the disproportionate arrest data. 

Another example is the COMPAS algorithm, which was found to miscalculate a higher recidivism risk for Black defendants and a lower one for White defendants. Should this algorithm be used in sentencing and court decisions, then such an algorithm may surely demonstrate racial bias. 

As AI can perpetuate biases, oversight from legal professionals is necessary, and there is a pressing need for these AI systems and the algorithms they’re trained to mitigate bias and promote fairness in every aspect touched by the law. 

Transparency

The American Bar Association stressed that “lawyers and law firms must fully consider their applicable ethical obligations, which include duties to provide competent legal representation.”

Although legal professionals can now virtually ask AI any question their clients might have, overreliance on AI opens up the “black box” problem. It complicates ethical decision-making in the practice of law. 

If one lawyer becomes too reliant on it, matched with AI algorithms that do not reveal the inner workings and thought process behind their answers, it will inevitably become difficult for legal professionals to understand and explain the reasoning behind their legal advice or decisions. 

As a result, there now comes a lack of transparency as lawyers are obligated “to provide competent legal representation.”

As for the legal tech engineers, they must prioritize the explainability of every answer so that their processes can be checked and understood, thereby maintaining accountability and trust in the legal decisions that result from them. 

Privacy

The use of AI in the legal profession has also raised concerns about privacy and data security. By the nature of the profession, lawyers handle confidential and sensitive data from the clients and businesses they represent. 

Now, sharing or uploading these documents in the AI software, and as these tools process the data, opens a high risk of breach and misuse. If there are no security protocols in place for that software, the AI can use this confidential, personal, and sensitive data to train itself, and, worse, may inadvertently reveal it to others.

Thus, these AI software should comply with every country’s data protection law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation for the European Union. 

Further, these AI tools should be equipped to handle confidential and sensitive information in such a way that they ultimately respect the client’s privacy and adhere to stringent data security and protection regulations. 

Obligations of legal professionals in the world of AI

With all these ethical and legal considerations, every legal professional must not only provide sound legal advice but also ensure that the AIs they use are used ethically and legally in compliance with data regulation laws. 

In ABA’s Formal Opinion 512, lawyers must exercise caution in four key areas, namely, competence, communications, confidentiality of information, and fees. 

Every lawyer must ensure that the technologies they use in their work safeguard confidential, personal, and sensitive client information, inform the clients of their responsible use of AI, and charge reasonable fees therefor.

There must also be a continued collaboration between lawyers and AI technologists. This ensures that the crafting and designing of AI tools will not only make their lawyering work easier and faster but also ensure that security and data privacy laws, as well as their obligations to clients, are followed. 

With this, the gap between technology and legal accountability may be adequately addressed. 

Embracing AI in the field of law

The use of AI is inevitable, especially in the field of law. Although it has hastened the legal work of professionals, there are still risks and improvements needed to make these AI legal tools adapt to the ethical and legal needs of the field. This is where structured learning becomes essential. Enrolling in a comprehensive artificial intelligence course empowers legal professionals to understand the inner workings of AI systems, assess their limitations, and apply them in a legally compliant and ethically sound manner.

Legal professionals must recognize these pitfalls as they utilize AI and exercise caution to avoid overreliance on it. Their best bet is to look for AI legal research tools that limit their data to their country of practice and jurisdiction while complying with data security and privacy rules. 

We’ve come so far in the field of research, technology, and law. There is no turning back now; we must take cautious steps to continue utilizing our diverse expertise and help more lawyers, ultimately bringing access to justice to more people. 

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