Page 33 - CCCA 239285 Magazine_Fall 2015

{ sPotLigHt on… }

“ ROSS sifs through over a billion legal

”
documents, statutes and cases to provide you
with highly relevant facts and conclusions.

ganizations are outsourcing legal work to ing place for research, it is still in its in- statements and fuzzy (or even conficting)
other countries with cheaper labour costs. fancy and requires a lawyer to evaluate rules, so the right answer may be “I don’t
ROSS may help with saving money while all its answers. As tech lawyer Addison know.” And in areas that lack case law and
keeping the work in-house. Cameron-Huff points out, legal research are more forward looking than precedent
Will it make junior staff unnecessary? is a very hard language processing task. based, such as constitutional law, ROSS
Although ROSS provides a good start- Legal decisions can be flled with vague will not be able to provide an answer.
ROSS is currently offered as a free
cloud service in a private beta to a number
of undisclosed legal frms. The feedback is
helping ROSS learn and improve.
Once ready for market, it plans to tar-
get organizations—in the United States.
Though originally designed with Cana-
dian content, the team announced at the
end of July that they are moving ROSS
to the States to tackle American case law,
thanks to funding and support from the
investment frm Y Combinator and, more
recently, the global law frm Dentons.
ROSS will deal frst with bankruptcy and
insolvency law, and grow from there.
Technology like ROSS represents a big
step forward for the practice of law. And
while it may not replace human legal re-
searchers in the near future, it provides an in-
teresting look at where we may be heading. ❚

Lynne Yryku is the Managing Editor of the CCCA
Magazine.
The ROSS team (L to R): akash Venkat, andrew arruda, jimoh Ovbiagele and Pargles
dall’Oglio (Shuai Wang has since left)

CanadIan CORPORaTe COunSeL aSSOCIaTIOn | CCCa-aCCje.ORG 33