Using AI in Legal Practice: What Lawyers Say

Victor Wandzel, a business and corporate law attorney in Birmingham, Michigan, was an early adopter of AI in the workplace. He’s familiar with the pros and cons, deploying a future-focused metaphor to describe his experiences.   

“Using artificial intelligence is like piloting a powerful rocket in outer space,” he says. “You can travel very far and very fast with it, but if you don’t know which planet you’re going to, you could end up in the middle of nowhere.”

As attorneys and clients increasingly use AI to streamline work and seek legal solutions, human judgment and legal expertise become more essential, not less. “Lawyers know how to guide and where to take AI-powered solutions for the benefit of their clients,” says Wandzel.

In multiple conversations, Super Lawyers Selectees said that, even if you’re not a fan, it is essential to at least learn about how these tools are quickly transforming the industry. 

Using AI in Legal Practice: What Lawyers Need To Know

“What lawyers need is hands-on experience and great interest, even if it’s just a personal hobby with technology topics,” says Jennifer Beckage, a tech business owner-turned-technology lawyer in Buffalo, New York.

Recalling her time as a client, Beckage welcomes clients who use AI tools to better understand their legal issues and solutions. “I started off as a business owner. I was the client, right? And I understand that clients don’t want to pay a lawyer to do work they can probably do a decent job with on their own using AI models.”

By empowering clients to help themselves, Beckage sees AI as bringing a long-needed reckoning to the legal industry. “I think it’s phenomenal, and I welcome the change.”

Of course, as with all developments in the legal profession, “We have to do it responsibly and ethically,” Beckage adds. “I’m not advocating AI use carte blanche, but it’s a valuable tool for clients as well as lawyers.”

How AI Can Help Lawyers and Clients

There is a spectrum of attitudes toward AI adoption within the legal profession. “It really depends on the lawyer, the law firm, and the industry or practice area,” says Michael N. Cohen, an intellectual property lawyer in Beverly Hills, California. 

Where AI tools can be helpful to lawyers — and, by extension, to the clients who hire them — is by speeding up workflows and routine tasks like emails.

“It’s also very helpful in compiling, analyzing, and assembling facts into a timeline,” adds Cohen. “You can even direct AI to play devil’s advocate to explore hypothetical case outcomes, which helps you be better prepared.”

At the other end of the spectrum are attorneys opposed to any use of AI. “One of my legal mentors is very much opposed to it, but he has over 50 years of experience practicing law without using AI,” says Wandzel, an early AI adopter. “So, perhaps he could benefit from AI if he tried it, but he has all the experience he needs.”

Regardless of the use case — assisting with legal research, iterating on drafts of legal documents, streamlining document review, generating hypotheticals — lawyers must verify accuracy and retain decision-making authority over the AI.

Lawyers should also realize that they don’t have to open ChatGPT to use AI. “AI is everywhere, even if it’s not predominantly advertised as such,” says Beckage. “Because it’s embedded in many of the tools we use, lawyers have an ethical duty to understand the technology.”

AI-Driven Solutions for Clients: Benefits and Risks

Widely available AI tools make legal DIY easier than ever, in the sense that you can easily ask an AI chatbot about your legal issue. This can help or harm clients depending on how they use it.

“We have some sophisticated prospective clients who use AI in a variety of ways, and there are reasonable use cases,” says Cohen. “For example, it’s good at helping them compile questions to ask me, including issues they may not have otherwise known to ask about.”

However, clients can create problems for themselves if they treat AI as their lawyer, rather than as a tool to explore different options. An AI model can give bad advice by getting the law wrong and failing to fully consider a client’s background and needs. 

“You might get an appealing answer from AI, but the answer is misleading because it hasn’t considered the uniqueness of your business or situation. That’s where human legal advice is invaluable,” says Beckage.

Major Ethical Considerations in Legal AI Still Unaddressed

Over the last 12-24 months, there has been an increase in laws, regulations, and ethics opinions regarding the use of AI in the legal profession. “AI is kind of a new thing for everybody, and we’re all evolving and learning,” says Cohen, “whether in court procedures or internal law firm best practices.”

Some judges require lawyers to certify in their motions whether they used AI and how. This is a practice that Cohen thinks will become more widespread to counteract AI hallucinations in statutory and case law citations.

In addition to legal accuracy, client confidentiality is another major issue in the ethical use of AI. “Attorneys risk breaching attorney-client privilege if they enter client information into open-source AI,” Cohen warns.

Despite the rapid changes in AI adoption and use, “The basics of a lawyer’s ethical duties remain the same, and provide a lot of guidance about what lawyers should do,” says Beckage.

“I keep track of new ethics rules and special reports that come out, but I see existing legal ethical frameworks as quite robust and applicable to AI,” adds Wandzel. 

For example, ethical guidelines have long required lawyers to be competent in their use of technology. This applies just as well to new AI technologies.

Jump In, No CLEs Needed

Opportunities abound for lawyers to learn about AI and gain hands-on experience with it. “I find that a lot of AI instruction can come from business organizations, and there are online certifications,” says Wandzel.

However, Wandzel and Beckage, both early AI adopters with years of experience using it, caution that obtaining a certification may not be enough. “A certification doesn’t equal experience. I have lots of certifications, and they’re great to have, but that doesn’t mean you have the relevant experience in the issues,” Beckage says. “What matters is demonstrated interest, study, and experience with the technology.”

There’s also the rapid development of AI to consider. “Given that it’s in such a state of flux, you could get a certification now and it might be useless later,” says Wandzel. “Who knows?”

The practical upshot is that lawyers interested in AI should stay engaged with the technology and not settle for a one-time learning experience.

“The first thing I’d say is that they need to try AI for themselves not in the practice of law, but just in general,” says Wandzel. “Ask it a question about cooking or coming up with a creative idea, for example. I think a lot of people might just read about AI and never actually try it themselves, and then they judge it on that basis.”

Getting Legal Guidance in the Use of AI

And if you want personalized legal advice? “Give us a call,” says Beckage. “As technology lawyers, we’re happy to help educate you from a legal and technical standpoint on how to use AI responsibly.”