By Bryan Hanna
Every industry seems to be dealing with the inevitable use of artificial intelligence (“AI”). The legal industry is no exception. As attorneys and law firms wrestle with the practical, economic, and ethical use of AI tools, clients are similarly interested in understanding how their attorneys may be utilizing AI in the delivery of legal services. Some clients may be asking…
- Should my attorney be using AI in handling my matters?
- What are some ways attorneys use AI in the practice of law?
- How does my attorney’s use of AI impact my invoice for legal services?
As all good lawyers learned in law school, the most accurate answer is usually…it depends!
As a general rule, attorneys should be using tools that are readily available and impactful to the practice. It wasn’t all that long ago that the personal computer arrived in law firms for the first time. This author was a youngster when that seismic innovation became an existential requirement for law firms. Today, it is unfathomable to think of practicing law without a personal computer, but then, in the moment of implementation, law firms had to navigate the transition in a thoughtful and prudent manner, and also had to make significant investments in equipment. Some firms moved swiftly, some more slowly, but all eventually entered the personal computer era.
Many attorneys view the implementation of AI into the practice of law similarly to the introduction of the personal computer. If it isn’t already, it will soon be unfathomable to suggest that a law firm could provide relevant legal services without implementing AI tools in some way. Attorneys who fail to adopt these tools risk falling behind—and their clients may not be receiving the full benefit of modern legal practice. So…
Should my attorney be using AI in handling my matters? Generally, yes, but only after careful adoption of a viable AI tool with appropriate safeguards and protections. Using AI irresponsibly is worse than being slow to implement AI tools. Our law firm expended significant resources in vetting and procuring our AI tools. A significant consideration in our analysis was the protection of attorney-client privileged and confidential information. As such, we selected an AI tool that does not utilize our inputs for the AI’s learning model outside of our firm’s usage. This is of critical importance as privileged or confidential information could be indirectly exposed in a generic AI tool. Other considerations for our firm included (i) the AI tool’s ability to utilize our preferred forms of documents that we have drafted and vetted over the years, and (ii) the AI tool’s ability to provide legal-based research.
What are some ways attorneys use AI in the practice of law? Attorneys in our firm use our AI tools in a variety of ways. AI serves as a very thorough second set of eyes looking for internal inconsistencies in documents. Our legal AI tool provides a significant research resource to supplement each attorney’s practical knowledge and expand our scope of analysis. Using our firm’s bank of preferred forms, our AI tool can also expeditiously provide an initial draft of a document. AI is, however, only a tool and not a replacement for an attorney’s judgment. Every output must be reviewed, refined and validated in the context of the client’s transaction or dispute, as applicable. So with all these benefits of AI, many of which provide for greater efficiency…
How does my attorney’s use of AI impact my invoice for legal services? Well, certainly a good question, but as suggested above, it depends! There are several uses of AI that provide for much greater efficiency, quicker answers, and accordingly, a smaller invoice. This is particularly the case with standard forms and straightforward legal questions (if there is such a thing). However, as the complexity of a matter increases, so also does the volume of material an AI tool produces—material which must be carefully vetted and considered in the context of the legal question and facts. Just because an AI tool spits out an answer, the actual attorney must still consider the response, and the applicability to the subject matter. Believe it or not, AI does not always produce the right or complete answer, or at least not the right answer in the context of the specific matter. The actual trained intelligence and professional judgment of the attorney must still be utilized to assess the vast information that an AI tool may produce. As the attorney wades through more and more information and considerations produced by AI, the attorney must assess accuracy, applicability, and practicality. The significant volume of information that is provided via AI will likely increase the attorney’s time effort, meaning invoices are likely to increase with the use of AI tools in accordance with the complexity of the legal matter.
All in all, AI has arrived and is here to stay. In the legal context, the proper use of AI should result in a superior legal product if the attorney is skilled in creating the right inputs and assessing the outputs.