AUSTRIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Bettina Knoetzl and Katrin Hanschitz, KNOETZL HAUGENEDER NETAL GmbH
Summary After much turbulence over the past few years – the epidemic, high inflation, massive insol- vencies, the effects of the Russian-Ukrainian war – the Austrian legal environment is settling into a period of industriousness and profitabil- ity. Law firms and courts are, simultaneously, looking to the future to adapt practice methods and to make the best use of the new tools and opportunities offered by the rapidly developing AI technology.
ChatGPT and similar tools – while imperfect – help to expedite and present supplementary fac- tual research. While most Austrian law firms are prevented from using AI on casefile documents due to professional ethics and confidentiality obligations, many practitioners are optimistic that solutions will become available within the next year or two that will allow AI to be used to analyse confidential documents and to generate (parts of) legal submissions. AI and innovative legal tech tools will allow rou- tine cases (traffic accidents, small claims) to be handled expeditiously. In more complex cases, used correctly and judiciously, these tools should facilitate the application of a more concentrated and focused level of legal skills for the benefit of both the law firm and its clients.
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