The use of AI for law is increasing, but how exactly it fits is yet to be seen. In an industry where accuracy and ethics are paramount, it is important for legal professionals and technology companies to understand the influence and responsibility they have in bringing this technology to the forefront. For example, some AI systems have reached 81% accuracy for predicting the decisions of new judges, while others have shown to cite fake/false sources in court arguments. In this news roundup, we explore how AI and other enterprise tech solutions are growing and impacting the legal field.
ChatGPT can be a disaster for lawyers — Robin AI says it can fix that – The Verge
AI can be unreliable, though, and when you’re working in law, unreliable doesn’t really cut it. It’s impossible to keep count of how many headlines we’ve already seen about lawyers using ChatGPT when they shouldn’t, citing nonexistent cases and law in their filings. Those attorneys have faced not only scathing rebukes from judges but also in some cases even fines and sanctions.
Every day, businesses are signing contracts. That’s how they record pretty much all of their commercial transactions. Now, they can use AI to look back at their previous contracts, and it can help them answer questions about the new contract they’re being asked to sign. So, if you’re doing a deal with the Rangers and you worked with the Mets in the past, you might want to know what you negotiated that time. How did we get through this impasse last time? You can use the Robin platform to answer those questions.
Concerns and legal issues surrounding AI – Reuters
LLMs can hallucinate, producing incorrect answers with a high degree of confidence. Hallucinations are common with general-use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, and may even be becoming more frequent in the tools’ latest versions.
GenAI tools designed specifically for legal research are built to increase accuracy and limit hallucinations. These legal research tools are trained to only retrieve trusted legal data.
While more reliable than general-purpose LLMs, it’s still the lawyer’s ethical responsibility to check the output of any GenAI tool it uses for accuracy.
AI: Intellectual Property Litigation Discovery – Reuters
For example, in the hypothetical facial recognition authentication system discussed below, the AI system’s ability to recognize faces in uncontrolled environments and authenticate users improves as it observes more faces. Other AI systems may make decisions or take actions that are not always foreseeable and may not be explainable by their developers, presenting additional challenges for litigants, their counsel, and fact finders.
A litigation hold generally applies to electronically stored information (ESI), but it also implicates hard-copy documents, equipment, and other things. In any IP lawsuit involving AI technology, a prompt litigation hold is critical because these cases typically involve source code versions and data that may be routinely updated or modified.
Inside the AI boom that’s changing how Big Law attorneys work – Business Insider
Behind closed doors at Big Law firms, a technological shift is underway. Lawyers, developers, and legal operations teams are experimenting with generative AI to reimagine everything from due diligence and document review to legal research and compliance risk detection.
Before adopting any tool, Gibson Dunn runs a three-step review process, said Meredith Williams-Range, the firm’s chief legal operations officer.
Tools must first pass an internal audit covering security, privacy, and risk. Next, they undergo proof-of-concept testing with a small group. Finally, tools must demonstrate real value to lawyers through hands-on use, a process that can take days or, as with a Harvey pilot, stretch over several months.
Lawyers Say AI Is Reshaping How—and Why—They Work Beyond Just Automation – Newsweek
When lawyers discuss artificial intelligence (AI), the conversation no longer centers solely on efficiency gains. A recent study commissioned by Ironclad, covering 800 attorneys and legal operations professionals, shows AI is evolving legal work in deeper ways, shaping not only how lawyers operate but also transforming why they remain in the profession despite the long hours, isolated workdays and taxing pursuit of perfection.
AI isn’t just entering law offices—it’s challenging the entire legal playbook – Fortune
The impact of AI in the legal sector goes far beyond the tools lawyers use to complete tasks, however, and could dramatically shift legal processes in fundamental ways. Legal professionals now have to deal with the fallout of AI-generated and manipulated evidence and the larger societal erosion of trust in what we see and hear. There is a risk of biased AI systems being used as decision makers in the legal systems. There’s also the question of: if everyone gains access to tools to help them navigate legal documents and concerns, will people even need lawyers in the same ways they do today?
How the AI ‘Authority Mirage’ Is Hurting Law Firms – Inc
Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Grok employ what’s called an “authority framework” to figure out what to believe and how to enumerate the pecking order for the answers and citations that the LLM gives.
Those authority frameworks are a proxy for the way that humans figure out who a trusted authority is on a given subject. But there’s an important caveat for professionals that rely heavily on being known as a trusted authority to win new clients: Artificial Intelligence and human intelligence don’t work the same way.
A recent high-profile case of AI hallucination serves as a stark warning – NPR
The use of AI by lawyers in court is not itself illegal. But Wang found that the lawyers violated a federal rule that requires lawyers to certify that claims they make in court are “well grounded” in the law. Turns out, fake cases don’t meet that bar.
There have been a host of high-profile cases where the use of generative AI has gone wrong for lawyers and others filing legal cases, Grossman said. It has become a familiar trend in courtrooms across the U.S.: Lawyers are sanctioned for submitting motions and other court filings filled with case citations that are not real and were created by generative AI.
Will AI hold up in court? Attorneys say it’s already changing the practice of law – Fortune
Most lawyers came to appreciate the transformative power of AI at the same time as everyone else: November 2022. That was when OpenAI released the initial version of ChatGPT to the general public, and, unsurprisingly, it was about six months later that the first wave of fake citations began showing up in courtrooms.
In fact, the idea of using AI to inform legal research has been around for over a decade. Pioneers in the field include the likes of Ironclad and DISCO, which respectively offer automated ways to create and manage contracts and to expedite the discovery process.
Risk Or Revolution: Will AI Replace Lawyers? – Forbes
As artificial intelligence reshapes many industries, the legal field faces its own crossroads. Over the past few years, a growing number of legal professionals have embraced AI tools to boost efficiency and reduce costs. According to recent figures, nearly 73% of legal experts now plan to incorporate AI into their daily operations. 65% of law firms agree that “effective use of generative AI will separate the successful and unsuccessful law firms in the next five years.”
Investors have shown strong support for AI-powered legal startups, with funding reaching new record highs in 2024 with total capital investment of $477 million. The appeal for VCs is the potential that 44% of legal work could potentially be automated by emerging AI tools. Startups like Harvey, raised a $100 million Series C round at a $1.5 billion valuation.
Lawyers Used AI to Make a Legal Brief—and Got Everything Wrong – Vice
By now, some AI-generated nonsense sneaking into legal briefs isn’t shocking. But that doesn’t mean the fallout is or should be any less severe.
Letting generative AI ghostwrite your legal briefs without vetting is still a career hazard, it seems. It was only a matter of time before the proliferation of AI chatbots made its way into the courtroom.
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***News roundup guest post from FischTank PR interns Abby Collins and Laura Gruener***
