Convenience and laziness go hand in hand like great power and responsibility. We’ve seen the consequences of lazy lawyers and judges using widely accessible large language models irresponsibly. Citing to nonexistent cases can get your cemented in the annals of the New York Times and on Above The Law’s Point and Laugh WallTM. Mike Lindell’s lawyers earned a sanction after shoddy LLM use, Alabama lost its chosen lawyers over fake cases, and a judge took the time to (professionally) mock a lawyer whose apology for using AI included purple prose that would make William Faulkner blush. It would be one thing if it were just lawyers showing poor judgement, but judges have hopped on the trend too — one trial judge managed to mail-in their job so hard that an “AI hallucination” became good law for a short while.
At this point, the general public would benefit if someone stepped in to save lawyers and judges from completely outsourcing their jobs to LLMs. Who better to intervene than law schools? Bloomberg Law has coverage:
Incidents of AI-generated errors in legal citations have increased the pressure on law schools to teach responsible use of the technology.
The University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale law schools are among those augmenting curricula. In new or updated classes, schools are training their students to understand the AI tools’ limitations and to check their work.
“You can never give enough reminders and enough instruction to people about the fact that you cannot use AI to replace human judgment, human research, human writing skills, and a human’s job to verify whether something is actually true or not,” said William Hubbard, deputy dean of University of Chicago Law School.
This is an amazing heuristic to have. One, because it directly counters Elon Musk’s sentiment that feeding Grok all prior precedent will replace judges, but also because it refocuses agency back on what matters — the person with a JD responsible for advocating on their client’s behalf. Language like “AI Hallucinations” does a phenomenal job of covering up the real issue behind the negligence that allows errors to make their way in to briefs and caselaw: PEBCAK. I’ll admit it doesn’t roll off of the tongue quite as nicely as “AI hallucination” does, but it’s a better alternative:
Remember: bad AI cites don’t make the AI look nearly as bad as it makes you look lazy. You, and your school, should have known better than to let that happen.
Top Law Schools Boost AI Training as Legal Citation Errors Grow [Bloomberg Law]
Earlier: For The Love Of All That Is Holy, Stop Blaming ChatGPT For This Bad Brief
Trial Court Decides Case Based On AI-Hallucinated Caselaw
T14 Law School Actually Wants You To Use AI In The Application Process
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
The post Elite Law Schools Are Offering Classes On Responsible AI Use appeared first on Above the Law.
Convenience and laziness go hand in hand like great power and responsibility. We’ve seen the consequences of lazy lawyers and judges using widely accessible large language models irresponsibly. Citing to nonexistent cases can get your cemented in the annals of the New York Times and on Above The Law’s Point and Laugh WallTM. Mike Lindell’s lawyers earned a sanction after shoddy LLM use, Alabama lost its chosen lawyers over fake cases, and a judge took the time to (professionally) mock a lawyer whose apology for using AI included purple prose that would make William Faulkner blush. It would be one thing if it were just lawyers showing poor judgement, but judges have hopped on the trend too — one trial judge managed to mail-in their job so hard that an “AI hallucination” became good law for a short while.
At this point, the general public would benefit if someone stepped in to save lawyers and judges from completely outsourcing their jobs to LLMs. Who better to intervene than law schools? Bloomberg Law has coverage:
Incidents of AI-generated errors in legal citations have increased the pressure on law schools to teach responsible use of the technology.
The University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Yale law schools are among those augmenting curricula. In new or updated classes, schools are training their students to understand the AI tools’ limitations and to check their work.
“You can never give enough reminders and enough instruction to people about the fact that you cannot use AI to replace human judgment, human research, human writing skills, and a human’s job to verify whether something is actually true or not,” said William Hubbard, deputy dean of University of Chicago Law School.
This is an amazing heuristic to have. One, because it directly counters Elon Musk’s sentiment that feeding Grok all prior precedent will replace judges, but also because it refocuses agency back on what matters — the person with a JD responsible for advocating on their client’s behalf. Language like “AI Hallucinations” does a phenomenal job of covering up the real issue behind the negligence that allows errors to make their way in to briefs and caselaw: PEBCAK. I’ll admit it doesn’t roll off of the tongue quite as nicely as “AI hallucination” does, but it’s a better alternative:
Remember: bad AI cites don’t make the AI look nearly as bad as it makes you look lazy. You, and your school, should have known better than to let that happen.
Top Law Schools Boost AI Training as Legal Citation Errors Grow [Bloomberg Law]
Earlier: For The Love Of All That Is Holy, Stop Blaming ChatGPT For This Bad Brief
Trial Court Decides Case Based On AI-Hallucinated Caselaw
T14 Law School Actually Wants You To Use AI In The Application Process
Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who is learning to swim, is interested in critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.
