Keys to Using GenAI in Your Law Practice? Caution and Common Sense

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Lawyers get sanctioned for filing bogus cases concocted by GenAI. This storyline is all too familiar to us legal professionals. While these headlines deliver a powerful cautionary message, they should not deter you from using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in your law practice. What Lawyers Need to Know […]
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Lawyers get sanctioned for filing bogus cases concocted by GenAI. This storyline is all too familiar to us legal professionals. While these headlines deliver a powerful cautionary message, they should not deter you from using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in your law practice.

What Lawyers Need to Know About GenAI Solutions

More than 80% of professionals believe GenAI can be applied to legal work. However, the current guidance on using GenAI in the practice of law is lacking. The American Bar Association issued an opinion asserting that existing legal ethics also apply to the technology but stopped short of offering any new rules.

So, what do you, as a lawyer, need to consider as you vet GenAI solutions? It boils down to using common sense. Before using GenAI in your law practice, understand the technology’s capabilities, learn its pitfalls, create safeguards and stay on top of new developments.

Also read: “Ethical Pitfalls When Using ChatGPT” by Mark C. Palmer

Overcoming AI Hallucinations

Hallucinations are the headline weakness of GenAI. Why do these tools hallucinate? Reasons include:

Limited training data. The algorithm fills in the gaps when it doesn’t have enough knowledge to answer a question.
Overfitting. When the algorithm learns specifics rather than concepts, it is unable to respond appropriately to new situations.
Lack of understanding. Algorithms may struggle to comprehend the situational context, particularly when dealing with nuanced legal language.

The type of large language model (LLM) a solution uses will impact its output. Widely available tools, such as ChatGPT, use a general LLM trained on the entire internet. As a result, they lack specific knowledge about the legal field, making them more prone to hallucinate on legal queries.

Many legal tech solutions use an LLM trained on legal texts, cases and documents to deliver more focused knowledge. They produce more accurate results than general LLMs, but research shows they can still hallucinate 1 in 6 queries.

Hopefully, we’ve all learned a lesson from the lawyers who relied exclusively on these solutions for their briefs. So, how can we use GenAI responsibly?

Check the AI Tool’s Work Product

Legal ethics compel you to supervise your staff. This responsibility extends to any software you use.

When considering tools, evaluate the guardrails the solution provides for its answers. Legal tech that includes source citations in its output eases the verification burden.

Learn Effective Prompt Writing to Enhance Answer Quality

Be Clear and Specific

The more specific you can be when interacting with GenAI tools, the better. Smokeball’s AI 101 guide includes a “BARCODE” to help lawyers write effective prompts.

Build on previous prompts.
Consider your Audience.
Redirect it when it makes mistakes.
State the Context.
Specify the desired Output.
Provide Direction.
Give Examples.

Use Prompt Chaining for Better Answers

Prompt chaining — building a query off of a previous answer — delivers a more coherent and contextually relevant output. Here’s an example chain:

Provide an overview of the legal principles related to intellectual property rights under Texas law.
Focusing on Texas law, summarize the key elements that must be proven to establish a violation of IP rights and provide examples of relevant case law.
Identify and explain the relevant Texas statutes governing IP rights, including any recent changes or amendments in 2024.
Given a hypothetical scenario where a client claims an IP violation due to unauthorized use, analyze how the principles and statutes you’ve outlined would apply.
Using the information and analysis provided, draft a legal memorandum for a client explaining their position and potential remedies in an IP violation involving unauthorized use under Texas law.

Prompt writing will become a critical skill for a lawyer as more firms adopt GenAI platforms. However, even the best prompt writer must still double-check the platform’s output.

Other GenAI Pitfalls for Lawyers

Do you know where your data is?

Some GenAI platforms integrate data you enter into their general training database, essentially making it public knowledge. Yes, even confidential client information. To avoid violating attorney-client privilege, you must ascertain how a GenAI solution uses your input. Platforms specifically designed for legal use tend to have guardrails protecting your information. Failing to ensure data security puts you at risk for sanctions, even if the disclosure was unintentional.

Bias is another hurdle for the legal community.

GenAI algorithms amplify bias in training data, which could negatively influence legal work. We don’t yet have a concrete system to eliminate the risk of bias in GenAI, but the easiest way to start addressing this problem now is by reviewing and thinking critically about outputs.

Think Bigger Picture for Using GenAI in Your Law Practice

Many in the legal profession are focused on how GenAI can help with billable tasks. However, this technology has many back-office use cases that are less ethically murky, such as:

General research. Open GenAI platforms can give a general topic overview and help explain complicated subject matter. The caveat is you still need to verify accuracy, but it at least gives you some direction for your research.
Brainstorming. Blank pages are intimidating. Use a GenAI tool to come up with ideas for the task at hand, such as writing an all-staff email or developing a marketing campaign.
Project management. GenAI can create a project plan with due dates, tasks and responsibilities. The plan may require adjustments, but it provides a great starting point.
Marketing. Law firms can use GenAI to write marketing materials such as blogs, social media and email. There’s no confidential information involved, and hallucinations are much less damaging in marketing content than legal documents.

Remember, GenAI is not the only show in town. Numerous rule-based and extractive AI technologies are also available to automate tedious tasks like billing, document management and contract analysis.

AI Is the Future of Law

The shift toward using GenAI in legal practice is happening. Everlaw’s 2024 Ediscovery Innovation Report found that one-third of surveyed legal professionals have adopted GenAI in the last two years, and other surveys report even higher adoption rates. It took the profession a decade to reach the same level of adoption for cloud-based e-discovery.

To stay competitive in this market, lawyers must learn how to successfully — and ethically — apply AI in their practice. This will require continuous learning, experimentation and an open mind.

GenAI presents many unknowns right now, but legal professionals are smart people who understand their ethical obligations. Ensure you think critically and apply common sense when implementing new tools. As we move forward in this new age, collaboration among legal professionals, technologists, ethicists and policymakers will empower us to use GenAI to evolve the practice of law and enhance client service.

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