Generative AI and Chat GPT exploded in the past few months causing businesses and legal professionals to reconsider their operational and administrative processes. The race to develop programs and applications using AI for legal professionals is proliferating faster than lawyers, judges, and employers can keep up as they are occupied by day-to-day deadlines and challenges. Individuals at all levels are asking whether AI is coming to take their job. Worst-case scenarios are arising from cases where the use of ChatGPT has gone wrong. Regulators from governments to judges and organization managers who want to keep AI use within safe guardrails are working against a moving target.
Industry leaders and those who want a competitive advantage and improved professional performance will learn what is necessary, find a way to get in the game safely, and be prepared for the continued advances that will undoubtedly come to the legal profession. Experience gained by using generative AI will yield foundational knowledge, enhance learning, and pay off for future use as the applications become commonplace in law practice.
Legal professionals need to know enough about how LLM’s work and what the potential pitfalls are to use it or manage those who use it. Beyond that, they need to understand the proper use of the product. For Chat GPT that means understanding the way to interact or prompt the application skillfully while keeping out private or confidential information.
Tried and true past frameworks may successfully be applied to the newest technology but only with a solid understanding of what the technology does and how it does it. Knowledge through experience is the key to thriving in a technology-rich environment.
Lawyers busy with deadline-driven tasks should invest the time to learn about potentially time-saving, economically friendly, and competitively advantageous generative AI tools that will improve rather than complicate their lives. Learn about it before you run from it. Managers in the legal profession will also benefit from understanding ways to encourage the proper use of AI rather than stifling innovative and productive use. As I have learned over and over, being among the first to master innovations pays off exponentially down the road.
Source: JD Supra
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