UAE: Virtual lawyer to speed up legal proceedings in first-of-its-kind project

A 'virtual lawyer' project which will help legal institutions develop legal pleadings in simple cases has been announced by the Ministry of Justice, in conjunction with the activities of GITEX 2024.

The virtual lawyer is the first project of its kind in the UAE and the region, and aims to achieve additional value in accelerating litigation time, and facilitating the litigant’s journey.

The virtual lawyer will use the “Unified National Legislative Texts Database” that will be created by the Ministry of Justice, while law firms wishing to use it will have to feed its database, after registering the virtual lawyer with the Ministry.

The trial version will be launched in 2025. In the first phase, it will be limited to assisting lawyers in simple cases with features, most notably the ability to interact with a human judge, convert voice to text and vice versa, and submit memoranda and documents.

This project contributes to enhancing the readiness of the justice sector for future opportunities, and their impact on the justice sector and legal professions. It also seeks to harness advanced technology and artificial intelligence to create new government models that accelerate services and improve the customer experience in a digital and interactive litigation environment.

The project was developed in partnership with the Office of Government Development and the Future and the Office of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications in the UAE Government.

Abdullah Sultan bin Awad Al Nuaimi, Minister of Justice, said that the Ministry is always looking forward to employing innovations and visions that serve justice and raise the efficiency of procedures.

He added that artificial intelligence technologies open up new horizons in developing the judicial system, which contributes to enhancing accuracy and speed in decision-making, and reducing the administrative burden on the judicial system.

Ohood bint Khalfan Al Roumi, Minister of State for Government Development and the Future and Chairwoman of the Higher Committee for Government Digital Transformation, said that this project is one of the projects of the “Emirates Future Mission”, which focuses on transforming the vision of the leadership into proactive government work models for future readiness in all sectors.

This joint platform supports government agencies in designing future government projects, achieving qualitative leaps to create major transformations and enhancing readiness for the future.

Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, stressed the importance of enhancing government initiatives aimed at accelerating the adoption of technology and artificial intelligence solutions in various areas of government work.

The project will take into account the cyber immunity of clients, ensuring the privacy of users and protecting their data, within the cloud environment of the UAE government and the digital environment of the Ministry of Justice.

The Ministry of Justice is also working on preparing legislative formulations to keep pace with new legal professions, and developing legislation for the use of the national digital infrastructure in legal professions with the best digital security standards.