A year ago, Andrew Arruda was a 26-year old articling student working in Toronto. Fast forward to today. Andrew is now living in the San Francisco area where he is NOT practicing law. He is actually the CEO/co-founder of ROSS Intelligence, a computer app billed as “your brand new super intelligent attorney.”

I profiled the ROSS application earlier this year, when Andrew and his team were still building it out. But, ROSS is now working and making revenue, so I thought I would revisit ROSS and see if I could take it for a test drive.

Before we do that, let me give a little background. As we all know, legal tech is all the rage. Clients are cost-conscience and demanding. They want better “value” for service, which really means they want more for less. That leaves lawyers in a tough position. If they reduce their rates without reducing overhead, the almighty paycheck suffers. But, if they reduce their rates and costs proportionally, the client is happy (lower bill) and the lawyers presumably maintain their same level of compensation (which is never enough, but that’s a column for a different day…).

The amorphous concept of “legal tech” is constantly mentioned in the literature as the way firms can reduce their overhead and still provide timely client service.

Legal research is one area I understand where there is lots of client pressure to reduce costs. In other words, clients want you to research, they just don’t want to pay for it. Hence, many law firms have to keep a staff of expensive researchers on hand for which they may not be able to recoup the associated expenses. Good for clients, bad for lawyers.

Now we come full circle to… ROSS. For those who don’t know, think of ROSS as your super-duper researcher. Type in a research question in natural language and beep, boop, bop, ROSS comes back with the most relevant case law and legislation.

Although it does not do your research for you, it is a time-saving device that allows the user to conduct research more efficiently. Greater efficiency should equal cost savings, right? Good for clients, good for lawyers.

Right now, ROSS is ready to go in the bankruptcy area. Andrew gave me a demonstration. As I watched remotely (he in San Fran, me in Milton, Ontario — isn’t technology amazing?!), he typed in, “When can student debt be discharged in bankruptcy?”

Beep, boop, bop — Ross returned a number of highly relevant cases, along with a case citator that showed whether the case was given positive or negative treatment by the courts.

Queries can be as long and complex as you want. Or they can be simple questions. You can also search broadly (like all of the United States) or by jurisdiction (e.g., New York) or by court (e.g., 9th Circuit). Thus, you could type, “What cases has the 9th Circuit released that deal with when a student debt can be discharged in bankruptcy?” and ROSS would then answer your question within those parameters.

But, you ask, how is this different than any other case law database?

First off, ROSS is built on the back of IBM’s Watson, which is a natural language parser. This means the application is not simply looking for keywords and phrases like, “9th Circuit”, “student debt”, etc., and then searching for cases that contain those words. It actually approaches the question from a human perspective and can understand the context and grammar of the question.

Think of traditional search as talking to a 2-year-old. “Go pee pee? Need to go pee pee?” It’s aimple question we’ve all asked our toddlers in the quest to get them out of diapers.

Think of talking to ROSS as talking to an adult. “Hey, if you need to go pee, don’t use the upstairs bathroom because the toilet is plugged. Use the toilet in the basement.” If ROSS needed to pee (and had legs), it would trek downstairs because ROSS is not looking for simple words that it can match against words in a case. It actually understands the sentence and its context, much like an adult human would.

Thus, ROSS understands your question and gives you a relevant answer, not just a bunch of cases that you need to read through to determine whether they are relevant or not.

Efficiency.

ROSS’s ability to learn is the second reason why it’s so advanced. At the end of each search, the application asks the lawyer to rate whether the search garnered the results the lawyer was looking for. ROSS takes the answer (yes or no) and uses it (and some other factors) to refine its next search. It relies on a weighted system that, for example, gives more weight to practitioners with more experience. But, the bottom line is every time someone uses ROSS, it gets smarter. The law is not static, so your search tool shouldn’t be either. ROSS changes and adapts just like the law.

Additionally, ROSS has a monitor. This means ROSS will continuously run your query so if there’s an update, it will send it to you. Plus, since ROSS is constantly learning and growing, if it learns something new (and relevant), it will push that to you, so you are always current.

Right now, it only does case law and legislation. Eventually, Andrew and his team want to add scholarly texts into the mix, so the researcher would get a blend of relevant legislation, case law, and scholarly thinking. Additionally, only the bankruptcy database is currently running, but they are testing ROSS with other areas. As part of that process, they are talking with partner law firms to determine what areas of law are most impactful to them.

Currently ROSS has a number of high-profile backers. Mega-firm Dentons was an early supporter. Baker Hostetler is now using ROSS for its bankruptcy practice. I have heard through the grapevine other prominent law firms will onboard in the near future.

Additionally, ROSS caught the attention of Y Combinator, which is prominent tech accelerator. Y Combinator provides funding and expertise to a select number of tech companies. Apparently it’s harder to get into Y Combinator than it is to get into an Ivy League school, but not quite as difficult as it is to get into a Ted Cruz law school study group. Somewhere in between.

I think it’s a promising sign at this early stage to have prominent law firms and an exclusive tech accelerator on board. Very promising, indeed.

Ten months ago Andrew was a Canadian articling student. Today, he is overpaying for housing in the Valley as the CEO of a growing company on the cutting edge of legal tech. And, he doesn’t have to have to practice law.

How sweet is that?

That’s the View From Up North. Have a great week.

Steve Dykstra is a Canadian-trained lawyer and legal recruiter. He is the President of Steven Dykstra Law Professional Corporation, a boutique corporate/commercial law firm located in the greater Toronto area. You can contact Steve at steve@stevendykstralaw.ca. You can also read his blog at stevendykstra.wordpress.com, follow him on Twitter (@Law_Think), or connect on LinkedIn (ca.linkedin.com/in/stevedykstra/).