A new AI-powered tool focused on Maltese law was launched on Monday with the aim of making legal research more efficient and accessible. The tool, called ligi.ai, was developed over the course of 18 months in consultation with lawyers.
Kurt Hili, founder of ligi.ai, described the tool as “a chatbot that has all the Maltese law and case law in it.”
While legal research of this kind would normally require a person to know a specific date or case law, this chatbot can make information more widely available, he said. The platform, which can be purchased for a monthly subscription, has filtering tools that make it easier to extract information.
Unlike ChatGPT, which relies on a wider set of information and functions by predicting what the next best word would be, ligi.ai can only access a limited pool of vetted sources and citations, Hili explained.
Deo Falzon, a lawyer who served as a consultant for the project, said that accuracy took top priority. They would rather the chatbot admit when it doesn’t have a good answer, rather than running the risk of it writing rubbish. “You can’t afford to have them hallucinate,” he said.
While there have been no known cases of lawyers using false information sourced from AI in Maltese courts, lawyers in the United States were fined after submitting fake citations generated by ChatGPT in a court filing in 2023.
Although several larger AI companies have developed similar services, this chatbot, available in both English and Maltese, fills a gap in the market by targeting the unique needs of Maltese legal professionals, Hili explained.
Falzon pointed to the multilingual nature of Maltese law, which adds challenges to the amount of information a lawyer would normally be expected to retain.
With some judgments in English, others in Maltese and significant portions using Latin terminology, the AI tool can facilitate the research process, he said.
Hili envisions that the product will revolutionise legal support to lawyers and courts in the future and hopes the government will consider subsidising the subscription for law students to enhance their education.