Q. My lawyer keeps charging me a lot of money to do things that AI will do very quickly like research. I am trying to keep the fees manageable so I have done a lot of sampling with different platforms and have tried to make suggestions as to how things can be done more efficiently. It seems like every time I send him something I have generated through AI, he ignores it and sends me something more complicated and charges me a ton of money.
How do I convince my lawyer to let me be part of the team and use my materials? Or should I just look for a new lawyer?
A. Lawyers are trained to be thorough in research and drafting. AI feels like cutting corners and is a big adjustment. Every time a lawyer signs a pleading they are essentially certifying to the court that they are providing valid information and have done the work to back that up. If lawyers cut corners and misrepresent things, even unintentionally, they open themselves up to serious consequences like sanctions or bar discipline.
Because of this, most lawyers take their filings very seriously and are hesitant to use AI for too much at this point. There have been a number of situations where lawyers were sanctioned for using AI when, for example, AI makes up case law which does not exist and a lawyer cites to it.
Many clients who are running things through AI are coming up with pages and pages of data the lawyer must then sift through to see if anything is useful. Reading all of the AI-generated materials takes time for which the client is billed. What’s more concerning from the lawyer’s perspective is every time a client runs some of their case documents through a publicly accessible version of an AI platform, they risk breaching the attorney client privilege. By uploading documents to an AI platform, the documents end up in a public domain and are no longer confidential. Clients do not have an appreciation for how concerning this is and I urge you to use a paid version of an AI platform going forward if you are not doing so already.
Have a frank discussion with your lawyer. See if you can agree on a strategy for when to use AI and when not to in your case. If you decide to change counsel, ask all of your AI questions when vetting successor counsel.
Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com
