Blue J Legal Combines Law and AI with Employment Foresight

Technology is designed to make work easier—whether that means education, health, or even the law.

Toronto’s Blue J Legal has announced Employment Foresight, a software solution that incorporates AI to help human resources professionals, in-house counsel and lawyers easily resolve employment law issues.

Blue J Legal’s software uses machine learning to identify hidden patterns in judicial rulings, which will allow users to navigate difficult areas of employment law and come to more informed decisions. The platform can aid with everything from worker classification to employee drug testing.

“Employment Foresight is a game changer because it takes into account all of the important factors that courts consider, and then makes a prediction based on how those factors have interacted in court in the past,” said Ben Alarie, CEO of Blue J Legal. “Companies can reduce the risks of litigation, calibrate severance packages to prevailing legal requirements, and dramatically reduce negotiating time around some of the most common employment law issues.”

Canadian companies lay off an estimated 800,000 employees every year, and organizations grapple with employment law at every step along the way, especially if they are unable to afford in-house lawyers or consultation.

Employment Foresight collects and analyzes the facts and findings from thousands of cases to predict how a court may rule in new circumstances. With huge data sets to feed into machine learning platforms, the software looks at relationships between individual factors like length of employment and outcomes in previous decisions to clarify trends that even seasoned lawyers may miss.

The user must submit fact-based scenarios then watch as Employment Foresight makes a prediction based on case law. That estimation comes with an explanation and links to cited cases, so a lawyer or professional can carry their research further if necessary.

As an included example regarding how the new software works, Employment Foresight could help Uber tackle their “contractors vs. employees” problem the company is facing in the U.K. and may have to address in other countries soon.

The new software can save hours of time for lawyers and HR staff, allowing them to allocate their resources towards more important problems. It is not designed to replace lawyers or counsel, but allow users to reduce their reliance on what always ends up being a very costly investment from both established companies as well as startups.

Subscription rates vary depending on the size of the company, but for those businesses with fewer than 500 employees, Employment Foresight will start at $199 a month.