The sweatshop document review is going to be taken over by AI, for sure, probably by 2020-25ish.
If you don't know much about AI and are like "wtf is taking so long?" Then read about Moravecs paradox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moravec's_paradox The main sticking points have been, like most AI research, the ones that you would think are not sticky at all. But the hard part is actually taking all these disparate documents, the handwriting, the pictures, the fonts, the grainy fuzz, the titling, the from and to, and all the little things that need to be taken into account when digging for the smoking gun, and putting that into a searchable data structure. In other words, a human still has to actually read most documents because current programs would miss critical information.
for instance, in an IP case, you might get things like this:
that is hard for a computer to read at all, letter for letter. And even harder to take in the spatial relationship aspect. Also when unwinding an e-mail chain, a computer is going to have a hard time understanding the social interaction element. Like who is responsible for saying what. And what is big time and what is small time. Those social cues that go back to the pack animal in us, the alpha, beta, omega roles. And further, the herd, the school of fish, the bacterial colony.
Other than that, yeah another essay to stack on top of thousands of others about how seeking a law degree is a fool's errand, especially if you are not in the top schools. Some say only top 14 is worth it anymore. I'm more inclined to think top 100. But I've met many talented and successful attorneys from the bottom tier schools, so don't count anybody out just yet.
I'm just going to leave this here:
