Don’t tell me about your effort. Show me your results. Tim Fargo
I have recently attended several legal tech conferences and other lawyer meetings, which were dominated by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) discussions and presentations.
Despite the rapid advancement of GenAI and AI technologies, the content at these events is pretty repetitive. Most of the presentations center on the dangers of lawyers using GenAi, and how the GenAi systems work. The presenters drone on about the “black box”. They pontificate endlessly about how the systems will revolutionize the practice of law in short order. How they will drag the moribund legal profession kicking and screaming into the 21st century. In many of these conferences, IT professionals and vendors outnumber bewildered lawyers and legal professionals. In most of these conferences, the event planners and speakers are not lawyers; if they are, they have advanced pretty far up the GenAI legal curve and speak geek more than legal.
As I have discussed, most lawyers are not using GenAI tools and remain frightened by them. They hear a lot about the dangers and see the publicity about problems and sanctions. They listen to overdosed lectures about vectors and word pattern predictions. They often conclude that using GenAI is probably not worth it, especially when their law firms issue blanket prohibitions.
Certainly, lawyers and legal professionals need to be aware of the risks of GenAI and what can go wrong. That caution is part of our ethical responsibilities. And yes, that requires at least a rudimentary understanding of how the systems work. It’s good to focus on theories, warnings, and philosophies about use.
But what is missing is practical, boots-on-the-ground information about use cases. Lawyers and legal professionals need to see how GenAi can be used to their benefit. They need to