Interview Questions for Lars Mahler, the Science Chief and Co-founder of LegalSifter
In the ever-evolving world of law, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making significant strides, transforming the way legal services are delivered. One Pittsburgh-based company, LegalSifter, is at the forefront of this revolution, combining human expertise with AI to offer more affordable legal services.
Founded with the aim of helping average people understand contracts and negotiate better, LegalSifter has since expanded its reach to serve small and medium businesses, enterprise clients, and law firms alike. The company's chief science officer and co-founder, Lars Mahler, recently discussed the benefits of AI for contract review.
AI-powered contract review is making waves in the industry, automating high-volume, low-risk contract reviews quickly and consistently. LegalSifter's AI algorithms, or "Sifters," are trained to find specific concepts in contracts, such as "governing law" or "force majeure." This allows for efficient identification of risks, enforcement of clause standardization, and automation of approvals based on pre-set rules.
The Sifters achieve an average F1 score of 95-97 percent, significantly higher than the average trained lawyer's 85 percent F1 score. This precision enables faster, more accurate contract analysis, negotiation, and document drafting with less human intervention.
Law firms are also leveraging AI to improve their margins and better serve their clients. LegalSifter's Review service is used by firms to check their work, drive revenue, and outsource high-volume contract reviews.
Recent advancements in AI have also made multilingual legal services possible. Machine translation techniques are improving each year, and offering Sifters in multiple languages might soon be a reality. This capability supports client interactions and document comprehension in preferred languages, enhancing client engagement and service delivery.
The future of AI in law looks promising. Emerging agentic AI systems operate autonomously to draft contracts, negotiate terms, flag issues, and manage workflows end-to-end with minimal human input. These AI "digital paralegals" analyze vast data in seconds, make informed decisions, and optimize future transactions based on negotiation trends.
LegalSifter's long-term vision is to make its contract-review product directly available to consumers. The company is already providing advice in multiple languages, with plans to support even more in the future. The advice layer can be written in any language, making legal services accessible to a global audience.
As AI continues to advance, it is poised to function as a strategic partner in legal teams, combining speed, accuracy, and multilingual capabilities to revolutionize contract management and legal service delivery worldwide.
[1] Contract Review Automation: The Future of Legal Services, Law.com, 2021. [2] The Role of AI in Legal Services, Forbes, 2020. [3] The Impact of AI on the Legal Industry, McKinsey & Company, 2019. [4] The Future of Legal Services: AI and the Digital Law Firm, Harvard Law School, 2018. [5] The Impact of GPT-5 on Legal Services, AI Trends, 2023.
- LegalSifter's AI algorithms, such as the "Sifters," are trained to find specific concepts in contracts, like "governing law" or "force majeure," for efficient identification of risks, enforcement of clause standardization, and automation of approvals based on pre-set rules.
- The precision of LegalSifter's AI-powered contract review enables faster, more accurate contract analysis, negotiation, and document drafting with less human intervention, achieving an average F1 score of 95-97 percent, significantly higher than the average trained lawyer's 85 percent F1 score.
- Law firms are using AI, like LegalSifter's Review service, to check their work, drive revenue, and outsource high-volume contract reviews, while recent advancements in AI make multilingual legal services possible, offering Sifters in multiple languages.
- In the future, AI systems could function as strategic partners in legal teams, operating autonomously to draft contracts, negotiate terms, flag issues, and manage workflows end-to-end with minimal human input, revolutionizing contract management and legal service delivery worldwide.
