AI: The Attorney’s Secret Weapon
Adam Spence, a successful trial attorney, recently presented a program on AI for attorneys with the Maryland State Bar Association. The program, titled “AI: The Attorney’s Secret Weapon,” discussed how AI can be used today by attorneys to improve their practice.
How AI is Reshaping the Legal Industry
Adam began by discussing how AI technologies are reshaping the way legal professionals approach their work. He pointed out that AI can automate tasks such as document review, contract analysis, and legal research, freeing up attorneys to focus on more strategic and creative work. He discussed how the most useful tools to attorneys right now are AI systems that provide Natural Language Processing (“NLP”), Generative AI, and Large Language Models (“LLM”).
Adam highlighted how most attorneys are probably already using AI but they just don’t know it yet. For instance, Adam showed how Word and Outlook use AI through predictive text to help you finish sentences (Adam also shows how to “activate” this feature”). Adam also showed how gmail automatically generates draft reply emails to provide quick responses.
Adam then gave a live demonstration of Google Bard and ChatGPT, providing a number of examples of how attorneys can immediately augment their practice. Adam showed how attorneys can use AI to write sample clauses for a contract or even write a complete Will. Adam also showed how you can use the prompts in those AI platforms to expand on or correct the response. For instance, Adam prompted the AI to “write a Will”, then prompted it “prepare an email to the client summarizing that Will” and finished his example by prompting the AI to “include how excited I am by the Will.” Adam even showed how you can write a quick love letter to your spouse in the voice of a pirate!
In addition, Adam showed how attorneys can use logo websites and ChatGPT or Bard to quickly develop new branding materials including a “playful” attorney logo and motto.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations of AI
In addition to the benefits of AI, Adam also discussed the challenges associated with AI’s use. He noted that it is important to understand that AI-powered tools can provide “hallucinated” answers, providing wrong information. Adam even showed a real-time example of Google Bard “hallucinating” in response to a prompt. In turn, Adam stressed how attorneys using AI must carefully review the output to ensure that the stated information is accurate. In this way, attorneys can augment their practices considerably with AI.
Adam also addressed ethical concerns posed by AI, including issues related to:
- Competency required of attorneys when using AI
- The Attorney-client privilege
- Independent judgment and analysis Required of Attorneys
- The Unauthorized practice of law
Conclusion
Overall, Spence’s presentation provided a comprehensive overview of the ways that AI can be used by attorneys. He highlighted the benefits of AI, as well as the challenges and ethical considerations when using it.
If you are an attorney who is interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence and how it can help your law practice, I encourage you to watch Adam’s presentation. You can find the link to the presentation on the MSBA’s website here. You can download the materials here.
AI was used to make this blog post better.
All images were generated by AI based on prompts.
The Future is here.