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Brookings: AI Will Revolutionize the Practice of Law

March 22, 2023

On March 20, the Brookings Institution published a post on how AI will revolutionize the practice of law.

Is anyone talking about anything else these days??? This one caught my eye because such a respected source contains some notable predictions.

As the post notes, the recent introduction of large language model-based systems such as GPT-3 and GPT-4 marks the first time that widely available technology can perform sophisticated writing and research tasks with a proficiency that previously required highly trained people.

One prediction is that “law firms that effectively leverage emerging AI technologies will be able to offer services at lower cost, higher efficiency, and with higher odds of favorable outcomes in litigation. Law firms that fail to capitalize on the power of AI will be unable to remain cost-competitive, losing clients and undermining their ability to attract and retain talent.”

We have long known that one of the most time-consuming tasks in litigation is extracting structure, meaning, and salient information from an enormous set of documents produced during discovery. AI will vastly accelerate this process, doing work in seconds that without AI might take weeks.

Likely true enough. AI can also be used to draft motions to file with a court, citing the relevant case law, advancing arguments, and rebutting (as well as anticipating) arguments advanced by opposing counsel.

The post says that human input will still be needed to produce the final draft, but the process will be much faster with AI.

It is also predicted that AI will make it much more efficient for attorneys to draft documents requiring a high degree of customization. Examples include contracts, the many different types of documents that get filed with a court in litigation, responses to interrogatories, summaries for clients of recent developments in an ongoing legal matter, visual aids for use in trial, and pitches aimed at landing new clients. AI could also be used during a trial to analyze a trial transcript in real time and provide input to attorneys that can help them choose which questions to ask witnesses.

Another good observation: “These opportunities will spur the creation of new legal tech companies. One example is Casetext, which was featured in an early March broadcast of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and recently announced an AI legal assistant called CoCounsel. CoCounsel, which is powered by technology from OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, allows an attorney to ask the same sort of questions that he or she might ask of a junior associate, such as, “Can you research what courts in this jurisdiction have done in cases presenting similar fact patterns to the case we are working on?” Casetext is part of what is sure to become a rapidly growing ecosystem of legal tech companies offering AI products based on large language models.”

While I agree, my own experiences thus far with ChatGPT indicate that there are significant errors in some of its responses to questions involving court cases. Lawyers will need to be very, very careful to validate whatever ChatGPT comes up with.

This leads to the post’s observation that AI is most effective when it is used to complement human skills, and the people who learn how to leverage this collaboration well will get the most mileage out of AI tools.

Lawyers will have to hone new skills, knowing how to choose the right AI tool for a particular task, knowing how to construct the right queries and evaluate the relevance, quality, and accuracy of the responses (and then update the queries as need), and being able synthesize the overall results into a cohesive, actionable picture. Attorneys will also need to be attentive to ensuring that any use of AI tools is done with appropriate attention to protecting confidentiality.

That last point is well taken. Lawyers are not yet sensitized (my view) to the dangers of AI when it comes to giving AI client data.

It will take a while to institute new training so that practicing attorneys can adapt to this new environment. Law schools will have to update their curricula to ensure that they provide law students with instruction in how to use AI writing and research tools. There is likely to be a high payoff as these skills will surely be in high demand among recruiters.

AI also has the potential to dramatically broaden access to legal services, which are prohibitively expensive for many individuals and small businesses. As the Center for American Progress has written, “[p]romoting equal, meaningful access to legal representation in the U.S. justice system is critical to ending poverty, combating discrimination, and creating opportunity.”

AI will make it much less costly to initiate and pursue litigation. As the post notes, it is now possible with one click to automatically generate a 1000-word lawsuit against robocallers. Generally, drafting a well-written complaint will require more than a single click, but in sometimes, not much more. That may make it much easier for law firms to expand services to lower-income clients.

The downside? There will likely be people who exploit the rapid ability to automatically generate legal complaints to flood court systems in multiple jurisdictions with frivolous AI-written lawsuits. These plaintiffs will calculate that a sufficient number of defendants will quickly settle, making that strategy profitable. It may be necessary to update laws to counter these abuses.

The post argues that attorneys will still be vital. AI can’t make a convincing presentation to a jury. The technology can’t fully weigh the factors that go into the many strategic decisions, large and small, that get made over the course of any litigation matter. It can’t replace the human element of relationships with clients. A computer can’t play a leadership role in motivating a team of attorneys to produce their best work.

All interesting points and predictions. This much is certain: The practice of law is now evolving more quickly than ever before.

Sharon D. Nelson, Esq., President, Sensei Enterprises, Inc.
3975 University Drive, Suite 225, Fairfax, VA 22030
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