Looking to the Future and Seeing AI

In a conversation about the future of law—or, really, the future of anything—artificial intelligence is quick to surface.

“So many lawyers are trying to avoid the lion, but it’s not going to go away,” says Southfield attorney Rita Soka, who practices estate planning, family law and criminal defense. “It’s only going to get closer and closer. You can’t outrun it.”  

Instead, she embraces it. “You have to attack it, and know it, and use it, or you’ll be left behind.”

Transactional business lawyer Victor Wandzel, based out of Birmingham, embraces AI. His firm’s mission statement reads, “Hand-crafted legal counsel for bold startups and scaling businesses–where ethical judgement meets AI precision, and boundless expertise carries vision forward.”

“AI is this extremely powerful tool for the practice of law,” he says. “It can sift through tons of law instantly and then provide written summaries as to the law that applies in certain ways. It obviously takes a lawyer who understands prompting, and who understands they must fact-check what they receive from the prompts, but it provides such an efficiency that it’s almost impossible not to use it.”

“That’s the main priority: save me time and save them money.” —Rita Soka on why she’s using AI

Soka, an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. from Iraq as a teenager, and Wandzel, who holds dual citizenship in the United States and Poland, both take an international view of their business.

Soka, who often caters to Arabic-speaking immigrant clients, uses AI to create templates for documents like proof of service, notice of hearings, certain provisions and judgments of divorce or motions, signature blocks, and more. She recently used AI to create a templated document for a client who struggled with English as he sought to settle debts while going through the divorce process. 

“He was shocked at how quickly and efficiently I helped him organize all his information with documents I made with AI,” she says. “I use these tools to my advantage to save clients money. That’s the main priority: save me time and save them money, because when they see that their bill is not as high as they expected, they’re happy, and they’re going to come back with more work and refer work.”

Wandzel leans into his human-centered approach to using AI tools for certain tasks to free up more time to build his international transactions work. 

Wandzel, a man of faith, says as lawyers are exposed to disruptive technology, they must hold true to the “highest understanding and capability of ethics and morality. Lawyers can be the peacekeepers of society. And when they use AI, it proliferates the good or the bad, depending on how it’s used. So I think there’s an ethical and moral need to survive the use of AI for humanity because AI itself is immoral and humans have to teach it morality.”

Both lawyers became licensed in 2022, and in their three years of practice, have been chiefly solo. Now, both are looking to add lawyers to their boutique firms and expand their books. 

“With the baby boomers passing the baton, or passing away, they’re leaving behind trillions of dollars of business, which younger lawyers will need to take the helm on,” he says. “And with enhanced technology, the 21st-century lawyer is better equipped to maintain what the 

baby boomers have established, as well as grow it.”

The two agree on some areas in which the law is headed in the right direction. Soka, who sits on the board of her alma mater, Detroit Mercy School of Law, sees a large uptick in the number of young women in law school or pre-law; Wandzel is heartened by what he views as more productive and open conversations around negotiation tables. 

But they also point to concerns. Soka hopes to see increased civility among her peers. Wandzel wants to see renewed focus on the rule of law.

“As we move forward, the law needs to go to its origin in terms of actually following the law,” he says. “I think as a judge or attorney, your job and your goal is to apply the law as written. Now it’s also true that law needs to be able to change and adapt. There are such cases where there’s some law that needs to be overturned, and we see those examples time and time again. But the most important thing in the American legal system is that those in positions to uphold and respect the rule of law do so. Unfortunately, I’ve seen many instances where laws are ignored.”