What Legal AI Use Cases?

This month has been huge, which is why this instalment of the newsletter is a little later than usual.

TL;DR: Rather than asking what Generative AI could be used for, lawyers should be thinking about how to use current technologies to improve client experience, access to justice, and staff working conditions.

Legal AI and the Future of Law

March has been full of interesting conversations, roundtables and panel discussions at conferences.

It was my first time at a roundtable discussion, and I wasn't sure what to expect. What did surprise me was:

1. The positivity and willingness to share experiences with law and Generative AI (albeit with Chatham House Rules/Vegas Rules),
2. New Zealand is quite possibly one of the most primed and ready places in the world for Generative AI to make the most impact, despite it not being distributed as completely as other places like Australia or the UK, and
3. "What are the beneficial use cases?" or some similar question is still being asked about Generative AI and law.

I appreciate Terri Mottershead and the Centre for Legal Innovation for the invitation and opportunity to share.

This experience was similar to the conversations had at LawFest 24.

Lawyers and legal allied professionals are ready for Generative AI. What they're ready for exactly is still unknown - but we are all quite positive about it!

Generative AI will not steal lawyers' jobs, but lawyers using Generative AI will steal the work off those who are not.

This quote was bandied quite a bit, but it was Cat Moon 😺 who put the point on it:

Instead of focusing on AI, focus on the skills and mindsets to deal with this new ambiguity in the whole context of the world.

There is so much to love in this quote and the acknowledgement that there is an awful lot of legal technology that never gets used illustrates what should be important to lawyers. Cat Moon threw down the challenge for lawyers to make the vision for themselves and their firms to create the law equivalent of Apple. Rather than focusing on the question of what Generative AI can do for lawyers right now, lawyers should be focusing on the ways in which they can help their clients and improve their ways of working with currently accessible tools.

When All You Have is a Hammer

The full quote from Maslow in The Psychology of Science in 1966 is:

I remember seeing an elaborate and complicated automatic washing machine for automobiles that did a beautiful job of washing them. But it could do only that, and everything else that got into its clutches was treated as if it were an automobile to be washed. I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

The next sprint in the legal Generative AI arms race is not going to be about the next "use case". That is hammer-think. The difference is going to be how lawyers think about their work and providing the best possible experiences to their clients, solutions to access to justice, and improving their staff working conditions.

Let creativity reign.

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