John Benson - June 2024
Current as of June 18, 2024 10:25 AM (CDT)
The emergence of generative AI in the legal field presents a transformative opportunity for attorneys to enhance the quality of their work and better serve their clients. While AI has the potential to revolutionize the way lawyers approach their practice, it is important to recognize that it is not merely a search replacement or a tool for creating generic drafts. Instead, AI can be a powerful ally when used thoughtfully and in alignment with our professional obligations.
To effectively harness the power of AI, attorneys should work with these tools in a controlled manner, ensuring that they remain grounded in verifiable case law and other reliable sources. By maintaining control and staying within their zone of competence, lawyers can leverage AI to enhance their work while mitigating potential risks.
As we navigate the integration of AI into legal practice, it is essential to keep our ethical obligations at the forefront. The principles of diligence, candor, and confidentiality that have guided our profession through the dawns of the industrial age, the space age, and the information age will continue to serve as our compass in the AI age. Moreover, in an era of widespread user data collection for AI training, we must be vigilant in prioritizing the security and confidentiality of our clients' information. This paper will explore strategies for finding secure ways to use AI that protect the integrity of our work and the trust placed in us by our clients.
In the following sections, we will focus on the scope of text-generative AI tools and their applications in legal practice. We will explore three primary use cases: legal research, AI as a copilot, and language models for document review. Each of these applications will be examined in detail, providing practical guidance for attorneys considering integrating AI into their work. Additionally, we will briefly touch on other potential use cases that hold promise for the future of legal practice. Finally, we will dedicate a section to addressing the crucial topic of confidentiality in the context of AI, discussing strategies for ensuring the security of client information while leveraging these powerful tools.
As the legal landscape continues to evolve, attorneys have the opportunity to proactively explore the transformative potential of AI. By doing so, we can enhance the quality of our work, better serve our clients, and position ourselves at the forefront of the legal profession's technological evolution. I invite you to join me in exploring how AI can empower us to navigate the complexities of modern legal practice while upholding the values that define our profession.
Depending on the context, AI has meant a number of different things for quite some time. For the purposes of this paper, I'll be focusing specifically on AI in the context of large language models used for working with text. While image generation, video generation, audio generation, and music generation are all worthy topics of discussion, they fall outside the scope of this paper.
As we narrow our focus to text-based AI and its potential applications in the practice of law, a range of questions emerge. How effective are language models at legal research? Can they accurately review documents? And to what extent can they assist in legal writing? While there are no clear answers to these questions yet, two things are crystal clear to me.
First, any dismissal of the effectiveness of large language models for a particular purpose should be viewed with a skeptical and curious eye, as the capabilities of these models are rapidly evolving. Second, while AI has not yet fundamentally changed the way law is practiced, it will do so very soon, whether we like it or not. Yesterday's pleas for firms to avoid ChatGPT and all AI technology for fear of their model training are being replaced by tentative inquiries about capabilities. These will soon give way to questions, either asked directly or rhetorically by clients, about why a particular task took so long when an AI could produce a similar result in a matter of moments.
Ethan Mollick, author of the one book I truly recommend that every person read about AI, points out a central tenet: any language model you use today will be the least capable one you'll ever use. While the true power of these models lies under the hood, GPT-4 and its progeny are orders of magnitude more capable than the widely-used GPT-3.5. Context windows, which can be thought of as a language model's short-term memory or RAM, are now as long as multiple books in Gemini 1.5 and can span full days' worth of recorded testimony in Claude. Moreover, privacy policies exist to ensure that you can input meaningful information into these models without fear of your data being used for training (though there are some caveats to this, which I'll discuss later).
The rapid advancements in AI technology are not limited to high-end, resource-intensive models. Apple's custom silicon can run a top-tier model from Meta, such as Llama 3, locally on a laptop without even spinning up the fan. There are even apps like Private LLM that allow you to run dozens of smaller models directly on your iPhone. While these models may not be capable of replacing human jobs just yet, they illustrate the potential for powerful AI at the low-cost, accessible end of the spectrum.
As we explore the implications of text-based AI for the legal profession, it's essential to keep in mind the breakneck pace of development in this field. The questions and challenges we face today may be rendered obsolete by tomorrow's advancements. By maintaining an open and curious mindset, we can position ourselves to harness the power of AI for the benefit of our clients and our practice.
In the following section, we will delve into the ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI in the legal profession, examining how the principles of diligence, candor, and confidentiality must be adapted and applied in this new context. By proactively addressing these considerations, we can ensure that our use of AI aligns with our professional obligations and values, allowing us to harness its power to improve the quality and efficiency of our services while upholding the trust and confidence of those we serve.
The ethical issues presented by generative AI are as numerous and diverse as its potential applications, ranging from the creative industry's concerns about job displacement to the philosophical quandaries surrounding the technology's development and goals.