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{ sPotLigHt on… }
ross intelligenCe:
reVolutionizing legAl reseArCh
By Lynne Yryku
Meet your new assistant, reated by a group of students at the frst Watson University Competition in
ROSS. This eager assistant University of Toronto, ROSS is an January. ROSS placed second, and the team
Cartifcially intelligent legal app that has decided to turn the project into an in-
will do your legal research in helps you greatly reduce legal research dependent start-up.
a fraction of the time and not time. You ask it your question in plain ROSS is not the frst computerized legal
English, and ROSS searches through its research program, but it is the frst to use
even ask for a lunch break. database of legal documents, returning the power of Watson along with other ar-
an instant answer with citations and sug- tifcial intelligence technologies. To create
gesting highly topical readings from leg- ROSS, the University of Toronto loaded a
islation, case law and secondary sources. huge volume of Ontario corporate law de-
It even monitors the law in real time and cisions and statutes, and used the subject
alerts you if a new court decision that may matter experts on their team to calibrate
affect your case comes into its database. Watson to provide useful answers.
You ask ROSS your question in natu- What makes Watson so powerful is its
ral sentences, just like you would a col- cognitive computing platform—in other
league, unlike existing alternatives that words, its ability to learn. So every time
rely on search engines that simply fnd ROSS (a Watson application) answers a
keywords. ROSS then sifts through over question, it asks for feedback on its per-
a billion legal documents, statutes and formance so it can learn from past inter-
cases to provide you with highly relevant actions. This means the answers should
facts and conclusions. become more accurate as you continue to
ROSS is built upon Watson, IBM’s cog- use the system.
nitive computer system combines artifcial The timing is good, as organizations
intelligence and sophisticated analytical are increasingly looking to their legal de-
software to create an effective “question partments to reduce costs, especially in
answering” machine. It was created by terms of legal spend. To do so, the famed
University of Toronto students Andrew Ar- billable hour charged by external frms
ruda, Pargles Dall’Oglio, Jimoh Ovbiagele, has been giving way to alternative fee ar-
Akash Venkat and Shuai Wang for IBM’s rangements in recent years, and some or-
32 CCCa MaGazIne | FaLL 2015 auTOMne
