Ker Shing Chock, Head of Legal & Compliance, DBS Bank Ltd. Malaysia
When I first heard about the term “robot lawyer” in 2024, I envisioned an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike wearing horsehair perukes and a suit bursting through the courtroom doors and saying, “I’ll be back.”
For the first time in history, a “robot lawyer” created by DoNotPay was to take on a case in the United States Court to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket case. The company’s ultimate goal is to disrupt the legal industry and replace certain lawyers with AI to save litigants’ money.
This is where the fear of complete human replacement actually creeps in.
Fortunately, those plans have been halted for now, due to concerns about the legality of the usage of AI in Court.
Nonetheless, the idea of utilizing AI to represent litigants in court, altogether replacing lawyers, is an interesting prospect and is certainly something worth examining.
Malaysia's Position
Under the Legal Profession Act 1976, only qualified individuals with a valid practicing certificate have the right to appear and argue in Malaysian courts. AI does not have legal standing. Malaysian authorities acknowledge that while AI is becoming proficient at black-letter law, the human element of legal practice remains indispensable.
Law varies from client to client. Even with advanced technologies, AI cannot independently evaluate emotional nuances, negotiate settlements, or present human reasoning and the ability to adapt to cross-examinations and judges’ inquiries.
Further, legal accountability lies with the human practitioner, not the software. In England and Wales, judicial guidance reminds judges that they remain personally responsible for everything they issue. It warns them to check all AI-produced research carefully. Similarly in Malaysia, lawyers who blindly rely on AI-generated research resulting in fictitious citations may face professional disciplinary action and contempt of court.
Hence, AI will not entirely replace human lawyers, but it is radically transforming how legal services are delivered:
(a) AI can speed up contract analysis, filing processes, document summarization and case research.
(b) AI can suggest timetables and directions for case management, which reduce delay and encourage settlement.
(c) AI can assist in sentencing and risk. In February 2020, a Sabah (East Malaysia) court used AI to help mete out a sentence in a drug possession case. This helps to minimize disparity in criminal sentences.
From an academic perspective, the use of AI has freed up the time of the senior lawyers for mentoring young lawyers. Vice versa, because young lawyers are digital natives, they are increasingly taking on the role of mentors when it comes to adopting and testing new AI tools in the firm. This builds confidence and allows associates to help shape the firm’s legal tech strategies.
Despite the fact that nine in ten legal professionals now use AI in their work, full deployment and deep integration are still relatively rare due to the cost of enterprise legal technology, as well as the risks of AI implementation without guardrails:
(a) One major concern is clients. Do law firms make sufficient disclosure of AI use to their clients? This triggers a transparency problem that impacts billing or when it involves handling confidential client data. Also, clients need assurance that a qualified lawyer critically reviews and verifies all AI outputs and that the use of AI technologies benefits them in enhancing efficiency, accuracy and cost savings.
(b) AI tools are trained on historical data and largely rely on pattern recognition. Even as generative AI continues to become more sophisticated, there are still issues of inaccuracy, biases and discrimination if the outputs are not strictly monitored by humans.
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AI isn’t about replacing lawyers. It’s about restructuring human talent.
(c) Over-reliance on AI may degrade lawyers’ skills and stunt the development of junior associates and fresh grads. AI-crafted work can create an “illusion of competence," where lawyers can produce highly polished deliverables without mastering the underlying legal reasoning. This leads to an overestimation of personal expertise. Human judgment, persuasive writing and the ability to evaluate complex legal arguments need to be trained on the ground, as these are fundamental skills. Notwithstanding, young lawyers will thrive if they can leverage AI wisely while sharpening the human-centric skills that technology cannot replicate.
(d) Ethical and regulatory violations—Lawyers are bound by professional codes of ethics that require competent, independent legal judgment. Courts across the country such as Australia’s Federal Court and legal bodies in the UK have repeatedly issued warnings regarding AI deception. Similarly, China’s Supreme People’s Court has issued judicial guidelines emphasizing the need for human oversight and the right to appeal AI-generated decisions.
In a nutshell, AI is reshaping industries and jobs—and the legal sector is no exception. However, it should be a balanced approach where “I am not entirely leaving it to the machine to do it. But I am queuing to see what the machine can produce for me." Future lawyers must be AI savvy while the human element remains. Clients will always pay for human judgment, commercial awareness and trust—things that AI simply cannot replicate.
AI isn’t about replacing lawyers or job loss; it’s about restructuring human talent. Let AI take the first cut by handling routine and supportive tasks; let lawyers tackle creative disputes or regulatory challenges. That’s the future.
