{"id":135184,"date":"2025-10-15T15:17:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T23:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/15\/has-ai-managed-to-make-lawyers-even-dumber\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:17:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T23:17:36","slug":"has-ai-managed-to-make-lawyers-even-dumber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/15\/has-ai-managed-to-make-lawyers-even-dumber\/","title":{"rendered":"Has AI Managed To Make Lawyers Even Dumber?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philosopher Paul Virilio wrote of the integral accident \u2014 with technological advancement there comes a corresponding new accident. Planes beget plane crashes, electricity begets electrocution<\/a>. Artificial intelligence has, in turn, delivered the AI hallucination. Lawyers do it<\/a>, judges do it<\/a>, our clients do it<\/a>. When Mata v. Avianca<\/em> came down \u2014 the ur text of lawyer AI hallucination screw ups \u2014 we defended the technology against critics, stressing that the problem in this case remained fundamentally human<\/a>. It shouldn\u2019t matter where the fake cite comes from\u2026 lawyers have an obligation to check their filings for accuracy.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t hate the (video) game, hate the player.<\/p>\n

Now, after a couple years of sustained hallucination embarrassments across the industry, we have to wonder if it\u2019s time to start hating the game. It seems like they\u2019re just not stopping and it doesn\u2019t seem to matter if the sanctions are understanding<\/a> or draconian<\/a>. There\u2019s another story coming out of last week:<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

If the court calls you out for citing fake cases in a filing, one thing you can try is insisting that they exist and gaslight the judge by saying that you attached them.<\/p>\n

It won’t work very well, but you can try it. pic.twitter.com\/BOUCZB4rX1<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Rob Freund (@RobertFreundLaw) October 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Christine Lemmer-Webber described generative AI as Mansplaining As A Service, and I don\u2019t know if an AI tool suggested telling the judge that there were attached cases that weren\u2019t attached, but it raises the mansplaining bar. <\/p>\n

How is this still happening? There\u2019s an interesting back-and-forth among law professors today:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In response, Professor Frye states:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Which is fair. Plagiarism should be your friend in a common law legal system. Whenever an enterprising lawyer tries to assert copyright over their public filings<\/a>, a puppy dies. But there\u2019s an art to knowing what<\/em> to properly copy to advance the client\u2019s argument. Though even with a \u201chuman in the loop\u201d \u2014 the industry polite phrasing for \u201cyou\u2019re still responsible, dumbass\u201d \u2014 does the human process of finding good material and copying it lose something when automated?<\/p>\n

On a surface level, it shouldn\u2019t. However the material gets there, the human checking it should make sure it\u2019s right before it goes out the door.<\/p>\n

But returning to Virilio, another of his core arguments was that speed<\/em> changes the nature of an event. Applying this sort of dromological displacement to the process of writing, Virilio might say that these tools aren\u2019t just typing faster, but changing what a \u201cbrief\u201d (or \u201copinion\u201d) even is. Is the brief merely the manifestation of the argument to the tribunal, or is it also the site of the lawyer\u2019s thinking through<\/em> of the argument. To the extent it\u2019s the latter, automation collapses that temporal space. The lawyer doesn\u2019t write with<\/em> time anymore, as much as they write against<\/em> it. When we talk about how AI accelerates the process, a lawyer\u2019s conception of the workflow itself can change and the human act of tediously checking cites becomes so jarring when juxtaposed to the writing process that we look down upon it as an obstacle to be half-assed\u2026 or, probably inevitably, turned over to yet another bot.<\/p>\n

The hype surrounding \u201cAgentic\u201d AI tends to suggest the industry has a hankering for this \u201cGPT-sus Take The Wheel\u201d approach. Truly Agentic AI is miserably inaccurate<\/a>. Thankfully, most agentic applications in legal are can only very tenuously be called \u201cagentic,\u201d<\/a> which may irritate marketing teams, but should make lawyers more comfortable. Regardless, the fact that we\u2019re talking<\/em> about Agentic AI as a goal is indicative of a desire to erode the human from the loop. There\u2019s a fundamental difference between (1) the iterative process of querying the bot, checking the output, refining the query, checking the output, rethinking strategy, running the query again, checking that, and then moving to step 2 in a five-step workflow; and, (2) showing up after an AI churned through the five-step workflow uninterrupted and trying to reverse engineer the delivered work product to make sure it makes sense. Because the first option is where AI more or less exists as a legal tool now and the second is the \u201cpromise\u201d of agentic.<\/p>\n

And anyone who doesn\u2019t believe there\u2019s a difference between the two, consider how you would normally work on a brief with junior associates every day and assigning the brief, taking a three-week vacation, and then editing a draft for the first time six hours before it\u2019s due. Those are two very different processes.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to the question: has AI made lawyers dumber? Is it just shining a light on lawyers who were already too careless, or has it changed the whole process in a way that creates more carelessness?<\/p>\n

And if it is the latter, the answer isn\u2019t to reject the technology. There may well be a catastrophic bubble bursting sometime soon, but the underlying technology will find a way to go on. How do lawyers adapt to this psychological reordering of the process? Like most continental philosophy, Virilio isn\u2019t saying speed is necessarily bad, it just\u2026 is. <\/p>\n

And understanding what it\u2019s doing to you is half the battle.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Headshot\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a\u00a0Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Has AI Managed To Make Lawyers Even Dumber?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Philosopher Paul Virilio wrote of the integral accident \u2014 with technological advancement there comes a corresponding new accident. Planes beget plane crashes, electricity begets electrocution<\/a>. Artificial intelligence has, in turn, delivered the AI hallucination. Lawyers do it<\/a>, judges do it<\/a>, our clients do it<\/a>. When Mata v. Avianca<\/em> came down \u2014 the ur text of lawyer AI hallucination screw ups \u2014 we defended the technology against critics, stressing that the problem in this case remained fundamentally human<\/a>. It shouldn\u2019t matter where the fake cite comes from\u2026 lawyers have an obligation to check their filings for accuracy.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t hate the (video) game, hate the player.<\/p>\n

Now, after a couple years of sustained hallucination embarrassments across the industry, we have to wonder if it\u2019s time to start hating the game. It seems like they\u2019re just not stopping and it doesn\u2019t seem to matter if the sanctions are understanding<\/a> or draconian<\/a>. There\u2019s another story coming out of last week:<\/p>\n

Christine Lemmer-Webber described generative AI as Mansplaining As A Service, and I don\u2019t know if an AI tool suggested telling the judge that there were attached cases that weren\u2019t attached, but it raises the mansplaining bar. <\/p>\n

How is this still happening? There\u2019s an interesting back-and-forth among law professors today:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In response, Professor Frye states:<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Which is fair. Plagiarism should be your friend in a common law legal system. Whenever an enterprising lawyer tries to assert copyright over their public filings<\/a>, a puppy dies. But there\u2019s an art to knowing what<\/em> to properly copy to advance the client\u2019s argument. Though even with a \u201chuman in the loop\u201d \u2014 the industry polite phrasing for \u201cyou\u2019re still responsible, dumbass\u201d \u2014 does the human process of finding good material and copying it lose something when automated?<\/p>\n

On a surface level, it shouldn\u2019t. However the material gets there, the human checking it should make sure it\u2019s right before it goes out the door.<\/p>\n

But returning to Virilio, another of his core arguments was that speed<\/em> changes the nature of an event. Applying this sort of dromological displacement to the process of writing, Virilio might say that these tools aren\u2019t just typing faster, but changing what a \u201cbrief\u201d (or \u201copinion\u201d) even is. Is the brief merely the manifestation of the argument to the tribunal, or is it also the site of the lawyer\u2019s thinking through<\/em> of the argument. To the extent it\u2019s the latter, automation collapses that temporal space. The lawyer doesn\u2019t write with<\/em> time anymore, as much as they write against<\/em> it. When we talk about how AI accelerates the process, a lawyer\u2019s conception of the workflow itself can change and the human act of tediously checking cites becomes so jarring when juxtaposed to the writing process that we look down upon it as an obstacle to be half-assed\u2026 or, probably inevitably, turned over to yet another bot.<\/p>\n

The hype surrounding \u201cAgentic\u201d AI tends to suggest the industry has a hankering for this \u201cGPT-sus Take The Wheel\u201d approach. Truly Agentic AI is miserably inaccurate<\/a>. Thankfully, most agentic applications in legal are can only very tenuously be called \u201cagentic,\u201d<\/a> which may irritate marketing teams, but should make lawyers more comfortable. Regardless, the fact that we\u2019re talking<\/em> about Agentic AI as a goal is indicative of a desire to erode the human from the loop. There\u2019s a fundamental difference between (1) the iterative process of querying the bot, checking the output, refining the query, checking the output, rethinking strategy, running the query again, checking that, and then moving to step 2 in a five-step workflow; and, (2) showing up after an AI churned through the five-step workflow uninterrupted and trying to reverse engineer the delivered work product to make sure it makes sense. Because the first option is where AI more or less exists as a legal tool now and the second is the \u201cpromise\u201d of agentic.<\/p>\n

And anyone who doesn\u2019t believe there\u2019s a difference between the two, consider how you would normally work on a brief with junior associates every day and assigning the brief, taking a three-week vacation, and then editing a draft for the first time six hours before it\u2019s due. Those are two very different processes.<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to the question: has AI made lawyers dumber? Is it just shining a light on lawyers who were already too careless, or has it changed the whole process in a way that creates more carelessness?<\/p>\n

And if it is the latter, the answer isn\u2019t to reject the technology. There may well be a catastrophic bubble bursting sometime soon, but the underlying technology will find a way to go on. How do lawyers adapt to this psychological reordering of the process? Like most continental philosophy, Virilio isn\u2019t saying speed is necessarily bad, it just\u2026 is. <\/p>\n

And understanding what it\u2019s doing to you is half the battle.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Headshot\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>\u00a0if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a\u00a0Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philosopher Paul Virilio wrote of the integral accident \u2014 with technological advancement there comes a corresponding new accident. Planes beget plane crashes, electricity begets electrocution. Artificial intelligence has, in turn, delivered the AI hallucination. Lawyers do it, judges do it, our clients do it. When Mata v. Avianca came down \u2014 the ur text of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}