AI for Attorneys [webinar recap]

In this month’s CLE, Jordan Turk and Bob Ambrogi tackled the subject on everyone’s mind: Artificial Intelligence.  

AI actually isn’t new to the legal field. The International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Law was held in 1987. (See the slides above for a full timeline.) What's wild about generative AI is how quickly it has evolved.  

When GPT-4 passed the Bar exam with 76% accuracy, it demonstrated the power of AI to understand legal language. Jordan and Bob called out that there’s legitimate concerns and fears around this technology but also many ways that lawyers can currently benefit.  

Ways to use AI as a lawyer:

• Summarizing articles, documents, or longer text 
• Drafting emails, letters, blog posts, and more
• Ideating everything from good opening arguments to staff gifts 

Bob and Jordan focused on ChatGPT with the reminder that it’s just one type of generative AI model. Because ChatGPT is trained on numerous datasets (which the public doesn't have clear insight on), there's room for error. It’s critical to review any generative AI output to ensure its accuracy. Additionally, when using ChatGPT, you’re sharing information with a third-party company. Keep confidentiality in mind!

Important reminders:

• Don’t submit anything that could compromise your client or firm’s privacy. 
• AI can “hallucinate” (return false information). All results should be reviewed for accuracy and adjusted to fit the context and writer’s tone of voice.  
• Generative AI should be used to assist, not replace.   

With that in mind, if you’ve been afraid of or intimidated by AI—jump in! It can be a huge time-saver. And as Bob reminded attendees: AI can't think like lawyers do. So nowhere (in the near future) will AI be replacing attorneys.