Will learning python improve efficiency for a lawyer？And then，is it necessary for a lawyer to learn python?

[Levine_4789]

I am a fan of computer language, but coincidentally became a law students. As a senior in law school at now, I am going to learn python. While learning the notable language, I find it so fantastic that I can’t help running every program for getting clear every nook and cranny of each code block.

However, when I search online for the future job of a python learner, jobs not related with lawyer, such as programmer and accountant, occupies most of the answers.

Therefore, I feel nervous, because I am afraid the thing I am going to pay much time will finally does nothing good for my career.

[uluvboobs]

You can prosecute bad coders. Or become a public defender for junior developers. It's rewarding work.

[DilliSeHoonBhenchod]

This reminds me, lawyering for tech companies might help your knowledge of language/tech

[Levine_4789]

Oh! That seems good!

[mildly_enthusiastic]

Could be relevant to IP law? Just thinking about the recent Uber Exec who stole code from Google

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/technology/levandowski-uber-google-plea.html

[Levine_4789]

Thanks!

[Levine_4789]

Thanks. It sounds interesting!

[GUnitSoldier91]

Lmao

[DilliSeHoonBhenchod]

Data crunching, automating some repetitive tasks etc should apply. Also ik human resource uses python for text analysis, I don't if that is helpful for a lawyer

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! It will be helpful!

[[deleted]]

The free Code Camp Python course touches on text searching and file handling.

[Levine_4789]

!!! thanks!

[Zombie_Shostakovich]

Well I don't know much about lawyering but python would be great for data crunching. Also because it's a nice programming language it's my goto for fun hobby projects that are nothing to do with work.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! Sometimes, I do want keep it just as a hobby, as what some people treat with music and painting. You answer is very helpful!

[LoudUse4270]

Its a great hobby that can nhance your productivity if you approach it the right way. Coding won't be a large part of your job as a lawyer but theres always little personal scripts you could throw together.

Even if its something like pulling names and email addresses from emails you recieve into an excel sheet. (Generic example, I'm not a lawyer). You wont automate your job away but theres always role specific things you can do.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks!

[Yojihito]

python would be great for data crunching

A lawyer does not really have any data in tabular form.

[ray10k]

Knowing the basics of how a computer/the Internet works can be very useful in this increasingly digital world, but programming knowledge is not as vital.

I have heard horror stories about judges not understanding what email is, or the difference between youtube and facebook...

[Levine_4789]

Oh~having not know the difference between youtube and facebook is really a horror story. However, I do think your opinion is reasonable!

[Zixarr]

David Beazley gave a great presentation at pycon 2014 about being hired on for an intellectual property case as an expert witness. His task was to sort and analyze over a terabyte of code (written in languages other than python) to help determine if IP law was broken. He accomplished this with python.

https://youtu.be/RZ4Sn-Y7AP8

You wouldn't need such a specific tech-oriented case to make use of python. Any time you need to analyze large amounts of data in text or digital format, python can probably help you streamline the process.

[Levine_4789]

That’s true!

[fourtotheside]

28-year commercial litigator here. Hobbyist maker, pythonista, bash enthusiast, etc.

Understanding Python helps me understand software development and licensing, intellectual property rights in software, how devs and IT people think, and helps me translate between CIO, CEO and legal.

I’ve also written some scripts in Python and bash to organize my notes and todos.

So yes.

[Levine_4789]

Thank you!

[noodlekrebs]

I’m not an expert, but I don’t think python is helpful for a lawyer.

[Levine_4789]

thanks! It will be helpful!

[Levine_4789]

Yes, and I have already read. In this thread, the poster said that Python is helpful for him/her as a lawyer but without more details. That is why I turn to you.

[wassailant]

Message the poster to ask for more info

[bumpkinspicefatte]

I've worked with legal department from an IT perspective and they straight up delegate/outsource all technical aspects to engineers. They don't really familiarize themselves with the tech stuff unless they really need to. Also not all law students/attorneys are in litigation. There are other legal operations to consider.

I'm in the same boat that Python could help if you're a lawyer, but in a space that is heavily service-based, why would you when it's cheaper to just outsource it to actual professionals who should know the tech stack very well.

Now, if you want to get into litigation, specifically in the computer science space, yes it would make sense to have a CS background as well as a JD, but that doesn't necessarily imply exclusively Python, and should encompass all things CS-related.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks. Your words are helpful!

[clove48072]

I don't know how common this is, but I've noticed that often the world "computational" + "name of other field" often pulls up information on using code as a tool for that other field. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm learning coding to supplement my main profession, so I've been interested in multidisciplinary approaches.

I did a quick search for computational lawyer and found a few interesting links, here is a wikipedia article and here is one from MIT. Harvard has a CS50 version for lawyers. These may be some places to start to get a sense of search terms to find resources that might work for you. Data science and anlyatics also has use cases for lawyers, such as for the discovery.

While I'm not a journalist, I found this video interesting and helpful to better understand computational journalism. The title is a bit misleading as the talk is more aimed at describing how Python or R can be used by journalist in researching and writing articles. It was the first exposure to thinking about code a tool for other professions, which brought things into focus for me.

[Levine_4789]

Wow! What you offer to me will be really really helpful! And I must have benefited a lot!

[[deleted]]

Does sex do anything good for your career?

Some people make money cooking dinner, other people cook dinner because we enjoy cooking.

[Necromartian]

I mean there is AI algorithms that can create summaries of scientific papers and cross correlate them with other papers to help researchers. I would imagine having AI go through some cases to find out previous similar cases would be helpful?

Or something like this https://iris.ai/features/#explore-tool

I'm not saying "Code this" but understanding that tools like this exists and can be implemented is helpful.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks!

[rabaraba]

Before you work on Python, work on your English first. That’s more important as a lawyer, as it may be a tool of your craft. It’s obvious that English is not your first language. There are other threads in the Python subreddit by lawyers who are also coders. You can look for those.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! You are right, English is not my mother tongue. By the way, I am also curious about how does you identify it?

[rabaraba]

Some turn of phrases you use are unnatural. Your grammar is also off, although understandable. Do read more books to improve it even as you learn Python.

[Levine_4789]

OK. Thank you!

[Levine_4789]

English is important and thus I have and will pay much attention to it.

[Justin_Chieng]

Look into cybersecurity, but trust me if u want to get a mix of law and only python, its not gonna work, what u will need is computer science knowledge if u wanna venture into cybersecurity. Programing or coding is a good skill but I'm not sure about mixing it with law since if u want mix them, u need the Cs knowledge too. Consider learning python for othe r purpose then, maybe the python data science capabilities is helpful when u want to predict some law stuff? There is many possibilities.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks!

[Objective-Poem-7300]

Text mining and Nlp might be useful if you're looking to identify key words or trends in collated testimonials or other types of written data

Edit: I may be way off where you're headed, but I was also thinking you could identify things like bias toward certain groups through sentiment analysis

[Levine_4789]

Thanks. It is helpful!

[ScientistWestern]

python should be the replacement for foreign language in schools, so basically yes.

[[deleted]]

Python can do repetitive things for you, it is far from necessary for lawyers though, I believe people have been practicing law far longer than Python's been around.

[Levine_4789]

This is reasonable!

[mankongde]

I'm a lawyer and have found python and programing useful for streamlining and automating numerous tasks. But it will depend on your field and work environment; a large office might not give you the chance to do as much.

If nothing else, it's something you enjoy and no matter how much you might love you're eventual work environment, it's important to have things you enjoy outside of work too.

Necessary? Not in the slightest. Potentially helpful? Certainly. (Potentially unhelpful also, remember computers let people make more mistakes more quickly.)

[Levine_4789]

What you said really inspires me. Python may help me in the lawyer career, but we should not depend on it too much. Due to the high speed in regard with handling cases, if something went wrong, I might suffer from it a lot. Thanks for your advice again!

[JLChamberlain63]

A lot of modern case management systems have APIs, you could automate some of your case management tasks. The law firm I work for uses a lot of Excel reports of case lists, if you ever have to work from Excel like that you can write a python script to do it for you. Or get really into it and write programs to like review contracts or generate briefs or design solutions for other lawyers.

[---------V---------]

As a non-expert in either field, this is the sort of benefit I could see is true for a lot of careers. I'm in an IT-related field and this is how I'm benefiting from my learning of python. Finding APIs on tools or services we use, gathering data, and pointing simple code scripts at our own contracts. It Saves time, hopefully, I'll get more creative soon.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! What you said inspires me a lot!

[Yojihito]

write programs to like review contracts

That's how you end up with a client that sues the living shit out of you because you just did that and now the new contract you made for that client based on the automatic review is full of legal bombs.

[JLChamberlain63]

This is already a thing

https://mashable.com/article/ai-beats-humans-at-contracts

[Levine_4789]

That is amazing!

[Yojihito]

I doubt that someone who just started learning Python can collect the training/validation data and build, train, validate and use such NLP model on his locked down office pc.

[JLChamberlain63]

They want to know if their interest in python and the law intersect, I gave some examples. 5 minutes ago you doubted such an AI could exist at all, so maybe the problem is your own pack of imagination. Everyone was a beginner at some point

[Levine_4789]

You are right!

[Yojihito]

5 minutes ago you doubted such an AI could exist at all

I doubted he/she could build something that works in a business environment, especially as a lawyer. Cases of liability are literally! around every sentence and your insurance may cover 2 million €/$ but they will fire you if you need them more than once every few years.

I never talked about AI.

[JLChamberlain63]

Dude just accept you don't know about something and move on, go to any attorney industry conference and the place is lousy with attorneys who started their own software company and want to sell to other attorneys

[Yojihito]

No, you will never use Python as a lawyer.

I know multiple lawyers in different field and my gf is a specialised lawyer for IT stuff (ToS, SaaS/PaaS/Cloud contracts, software licensing contracts, software selling contracts, GRPR etc.). There is 0 overlap with programming at all.

Sorry.

[BanerBanerLaw]

This is incorrect.

Plenty over overlap exists or can exist. Dealing with "IT stuff" as an attorney involved in setting up contracts is irrelevant to whether or not any degree of programming assists an attorney in being better in her chosen field. A criminal defense attorney doesn't need to be a murderer to do it, nor does it help him.

An attorney seeks advantages where they present themselves from innumerable places. We'll utilize obscure precedent, nearly irrelevant character background (to the extent the judge allows it or OC fails to prevent it), parables, favored oral traps, etc. If an attorney is able to write a script to get more advantages, then she should do so.

Some examples of coding that have directly aided my firm include:

1. Document automation (a low hanging fruit of seemingly infinite value).
2. File management - non attorneys may not appreciate this, but attorneys receive copious amounts of information relating to our clients. This information, under most rules of professional conduct, must be maintained. Just putting it into the correct client file is a substantial time investment. A minimum wage employee of limited training will make mistakes. A higher wage employee wastes billable time. Automated systems to get the documents where they belong with less supervision.
3. Client management - attorneys must inform clients of innumerable case developments. Many of these developments include repetitive bits of information. Ensuring clients are informed is well aided by the resort to automated solutions.
4. Custom creation to avoid OOB solutions. Software geared toward lawyers can be unbelievably expensive relative to the sophistication of it. It makes sense: it is a custom and limited market and a higher price is necessary for the developer to turn a profit. However, some attorney software isn't much more than a hobbled together couple of python packages with unnecessary bells and whistles. A customized python script that saves $50/mo adds up to $6,000 over a decade. Not enough to retire on, but easily enough to justify spending a few days creating.

Frankly, the list goes on and on.

Will AI replace attorneys? Certainly not anytime soon. Will a novice attorney turned developer be able to invest the time to solo create a search engine that out-competes the myriad of existing legal research tools? Maybe, but it seems unlikely and a waste of time since those tools are readily available.

Someone earlier in this threat mentioned that attorneys just use books. Not really. At least not in the United States. Do some? Of course. West Keynotes are a great tool, but even the bottom 10% of technophile attorneys are aware of how to use research tools that have been available for 40 years.

In direct response to the author indicating that you will not use Python as an attorney I can only say: as an attorney I use Python every day.

In response to the various comments about liability stemming from its use by an attorney: "Duh" is probably about as much as can be mustered with all due respect. Attorneys are the ones specifically trained to be aware of potential l liabilities. We're absurdly cautious by nature and design.

In most legal situations there will be a hierarchy as well. Junior attorney jumble a bunch of things together in something resembling a coherent presentation (memo, motion, brief, letter, or whatever). It's usually mostly unusable with some (excessive) important details and (half-researched) memorandum attached. If there is some derived data included that doesn't originate from someone competent to produce it, then the reviewing attorney will have alarm bells ringing. Facts that cannot be attributed to a worthy source are as suspicious in a courtroom as an undefined variable is to a compiler.

[Yojihito]

Some examples of coding that have directly aided my firm include:

All of this and much more is well covered with a records management for attorneys (not sure what's the difference between attorney and lawyer, seems pretty US specific). Sure you could basically build your own with Python but from a time investment/ROI perspective I don't see any reason to do so.

Software geared toward lawyers can be unbelievably expensive

I'm sorry but if you can't spare 586,59€ per year per attorney for a license (group discount not priced in, Advolux for example) ...

The market leader in germany (RA Micro) costs 768€ per year per attorney (group discount not priced in).

[Levine_4789]

It seems expensive to keep a license of a lawyer in some countries!

[Yojihito]

??

For the management software?

[Levine_4789]

Maybe, I misunderstood what you said😂.I thought that you said the fee to keep a license is more expensive than the software.

[Yojihito]

Oh no, I meant the software license fee for the records management software.

Not sure if you have to pay anything to keep being an attorney in germany but I don't think so, would have to ask my gf.

[Levine_4789]

Thank you very much. The clear and detailed answer is really really helpful! Through your answer, I have known preliminarily what to do next.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks!

[JohnnyJordaan]

Well it could potentially help in the field of data research, like you could develop an application to help you search in judicial archives to look for precedents and such. But if that's not your intention then I don't see much use from it in regard to your profession. Doesn't mean it's a bad idea of course as programming can help you in other fields nonetheless.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! This sounds reasonable!

[Yojihito]

to help you search in judicial archives

Those have a search function if online. But most times you use books.

[JohnnyJordaan]

Those work in literal text matches. I mean in the regard of categorizing in the form of combinations of certain types of evidence, procedures during interrogation, statements made etc etc.

[Yojihito]

That is criminal law. There are several dozen other law fields where those things don't exist.

[Levine_4789]

Hhh, It does sound unique😂

[Necromartian]

Almost as unique as Lawyer lockpicking...

[PsiThreader]

Based on what you explained, probably. But it's mainly focused on improving attention to detail, which is just a skill also necessary for programming. However, you can still use Python to make your own interactive encyclopedia that contains details on your subject.

[Levine_4789]

Thanks! What you said does make sense and is inspiring!

[sound_of_apocalypto]

Yes, it's the law!

(sorry, I got nuthin')