AI and technology integration the way ahead for legal profession, says Justice Swaminathan

The Indian Judiciary is engaging with artificial intelligence (AI) in a big way, and law students would have to be at the cutting edge of the latest developments in order to succeed in the legal profession, Justice G.R. Swaminathan, Judge, Madras High Court, has said.

Justice Swaminathan was speaking at the inauguration of a national conference on cyber crimes and AI, organised by Centre for Research, Development and Training in Cyber Laws and Cyber Security (CRDT-CLCS) of Tamil Nadu National Law University (TNNLU) on Saturday.

Justice Swaminathan spoke on the benefits of integrating technology in the judicial process. “When I got enrolled in 1991, arranging the Cause List [manually] would take at least 45 minutes for lawyers in the morning. Now, everything is sent to lawyers as short message service (SMS) or WhatsApp text. We used to take hours to locate one proposition, but now, everything can be found with the help of computers within a matter of minutes. So students have to adapt and update themselves to keep abreast of these changes.”

The conference was aimed at facilitating discussion on themes of cyber crimes in various mediums such as in the Metaverse or in Extended Reality. Law enforcement and cyber security challenges posed by developments in cyber space and AI were examined.

Experts presented over 40 papers and held panel discussions on a wide range of topics pertaining to cyber crimes in the current context.

At the inaugural function, Justice Swaminathan released the Handbook on Introduction to Cyber Laws and Cyber Security co-edited by Deepa Manickam, head, CRDT-CLCS and TNNLU alumna S. Modharshini. The first copy of the book was received by TNNLU vice-chancellor V. Nagaraj.

Registrar S. M. Balakrishnan, spoke.

Published - September 21, 2024 06:36 pm IST