INTERVIEW 'AI lawyer' to offer easy-to-use legal services
Jung Jae-hoon, founder and CEO of Legalinsight / Courtesy of Legalinsight
By Jun Ji-hye
Jung Jae-hoon, a lawyer, set up the startup Legalinsight with two other colleagues in August 2017 to develop technology and software to provide easy-to-use online legal services.
In November that year, the Seoul-based legal tech startup began offering the service, “Marshmallaw,” which automatically created documents for complaints involving various crimes such as assault, fraud, rape and libel.
The company expanded the service in April 2018 to other legal area including pleas for administrative hearings.
Jung, a legal veteran with 20 years' experience, said his company is now working with an artificial intelligence (AI) company to develop more advanced AI-based legal tech services he refers to as the “AI lawyer.”
“A variety of services have evolved in line with the advancement of new technologies. But the legal market is one area that has been left behind,” Jung said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “Legalinsight is a startup set up by lawyers who had the common goal of lowering the high barriers to legal services through the application of technology.”
The company is offering the Marshmallaw service for free, so those who have difficulties in paying the steep consulting fees charged by lawyers can receive the appropriate legal service easily.
To use the Marshmallaw, users can simply visit Legalinsight's homepage and fill out answers to short-answer questions related to their complaint. Then, the service automatically creates an accurate document in 10 minutes on average.
As the three lawyers of the company have constructed abundant data utilizing their rich experiences, the system automatically fills out the documents with the appropriate legal principles and precedents.
Users can receive the completed complaint documents by email, Jung said, noting that the service will help those who are considering abandoning their rights due to high costs and complicated procedures.
“Legal documents created by Marshmallaw are as accurate as those created by human lawyers with about 20 years' experience,” Jung said. “This is because human lawyers usually add the necessary content to existing templates when creating documents.”
He said about 740 complaint documents and 60 pleas for administrative hearings have been created through Marshmallaw so far.
“The service is used by ordinary people. I have not thought of charging for the service so far,” he said.
Legalinsight's Marshmallaw service automatically creates complaint documents for various types of crimes such as assault and fraud. / Courtesy of Legalinsight
Marshmallaw has been selected as one of the beneficiaries of a support program operated by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups in recognition of its convenience and innovativeness.
In January last year, the startup signed a strategic partnership with Joonggonara, a popular secondhand dealership site here.
Under the partnership, Legalinsight offers the latest precedents and other legal counseling services to prevent fraud on Joonggonara, which has 15 million monthly active users.
Jung said his company is actively utilizing technology to make it easier for Joonggonara users to access legal services if they are swindled.
On Aug. 27 this year, Legalinsight signed a business agreement with T3Q, a Seoul-based company specializing in AI and big data technology, to jointly develop AI-powered legal services.
As the first step, the two companies are developing an intelligent service to create contracts automatically.
The service calls for users to input the content of contracts online, and the AI recommends an optimized contract template with important clauses and special arrangements.
Jung said the service, which can be used by anyone without legal knowledge, will produce professional and reliable contracts.
“We plan to begin the open beta service at the end of the year or early next year, and then officially release it in April or May,” Jung said. “The service will need data at an early stage. Once abundant data is accumulated through various cases, the service will be able to provide high-quality non-face-to-face legal services.”
Jung said he is thinking of charging for the service after sufficient data is accumulated, and accuracy is secured.
The AI application will be expanded to other legal services such as wills and prenuptial contracts.
In Korea, not many people have written prenuptial contracts that have legal force, in contrast to couples in the United States and other Western countries who often agree on the division of property and other matters before marriage in case they divorce.
Jung said, however, that there seems to be a change in trends in Korea with the emergence of elusive millennials, the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s.
“In addition, divorce and remarriage are on the rise,” Jung said. “I think the demand for prenuptial contracts will increase.”
B2B services
Legalinsight is also moving to develop business-to-business services as a means to expand sources of revenue.
In the short term, the company is targeting financial companies with its contract recommendation service.
“There will be demand for contract recommendations and auto-create services from companies that sign a number of contracts,” he said.
In the long term, Legalinsight plans to develop services to create legal documents in English as well as contract translation services.
The startup is also planning to begin developing legal counselling services powered by AI.
“It will be very difficult to develop such service. We will need more lawyers to analyze clauses and provisions of laws, and construct data,” he said. “I do not want to rush to do things, but want to expand the lineup of services in a calm and orderly way to become a leading legal tech company.”
Jung, who studied law at Korea University and passed the bar exam in 1999, previously worked at law firm Bae, Kim and Lee (BKL) from 2005 to 2011.
He currently serves as a legal adviser to the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority.