We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
how long before law firm jobs are under threat? what impact will it have on litigation?
Further, law school projects, assignments are effectively dead. From what i understand, this can also paraphrase content, effectively running circles around turnitin. Law schools need to adapt or be obsolete?
LI's 2 cents. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But that goes for nearly all creative / intellectual professions done with a computer nowadays, including copywriting, translation, 2d and 3d graphics and even computer coding, many parts of which could in some years time be largely automated by this kind of technology.
But, importantly for legal:
1. It's not quite there yet both in terms of quality and reliability (but it probably will get there at some point in the coming years).
2. There will still be scope for human supervision and checking, particularly for high-value legal issues, but there might not be as much need for as much human and junior time.
3. Some of it will be positive for newbies, in that it may assist you in doing research and drafting faster by suggesting intelligent things that you can do.
In terms of law school assignments, a good professor can probably still spot a GPT authored paper and it likely won't get a very good grade (for now), though you're right, it might actually be good enough for a passing grade. Also, turnitin or other plagiarism checkers might adjust to also use AI that might be able to determine whether something was written by a GPT-style algorithm or not.
Would love to hear reader views.
Also, what ChatGPT can not do is legal interpretation. Sure, it can research and give you the data but can it interpret terms or clauses of a contract? Can it apply legal mind and incorporate clauses in an agreement? Can it negotiate with the other party? Can it be relied on for confidentiality? There are more reasons why it cannot fully replace lawyers and legal work. However, it would still eat up the work of basic researchers, interns and to some extent junior associates. But all this for what? to make our lives faster? Do we really need it?
Furthermore, the impact of technological change on employment is not a new phenomenon. Throughout history, advances in technology have often led to the creation of new industries and jobs, even as they have disrupted others. For example, the development of the printing press in the 15th century led to the creation of new jobs in printing and publishing, even as it made the job of scribe obsolete.
Ultimately, it's important to approach technological change and automation in a way that minimizes the negative impacts on employment while maximizing the benefits for society. This may involve supporting workers who are displaced by automation through retraining and other forms of assistance, as well as regulating the use of automation in certain industries to ensure that it is being implemented in a responsible way.
LL should be afraid instead since we can now, using ChatGPT, build websites/applications (within a matter of days!) which generate instant news articles by using very trivial sources of information. Check out 'GPT Times' - https://the-gpt-times.eriks-studio.repl.co/
An example of a news article generated by it - https://the-gpt-times.eriks-studio.repl.co/article/1601348697370947584
"Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the potential impact of ChatGPT and other legal AI technologies. You are correct that these technologies are not yet fully reliable or of high enough quality to completely replace human legal professionals. However, it is possible that they may eventually play a larger role in the field, particularly in areas such as research and drafting.
It is important to keep in mind that while legal AI technologies may be able to assist with certain tasks, they are not currently capable of replacing the expertise and judgment of human legal professionals. High-value legal issues will likely still require human supervision and checking, and it is unlikely that these technologies will completely eliminate the need for human labor in the field.
As you mentioned, it is also worth considering the possibility that plagiarism detection technologies may evolve to detect papers or documents written with the assistance of AI algorithms. It is always important to ensure that any work produced is original and properly cited.
Overall, the use of legal AI technologies is an interesting and rapidly-evolving area, and it will be interesting to see how they are adopted and utilized in the coming years." As expected - a very basic response.
After submitting my note, I posed the question to ChatGPT just out of curiosity. Surprisingly, it gave me the correct and summarised position in just 2 paragraphs!!!!! I couldn’t imagine how impressed the associates would’ve been if I had told them this answer in just a few hours, along with some cases.
Needless to say, I absolutely abused ChatGPT while making my assignment lol. Just threw an article in the chat and it paraphrased the entire thing for me. Added a few citations after that and boom, mission accomplished in just 30 mins xD
I’ve noticed that ChatGPT isn’t that accurate when it comes to technical or skill based stuff like specific Python codes, or even competition level algebra involving quadratic equations, inequalities etc.
But for the legal “research” related tasks, where little application of human acumen is required, it does wonders with the amount of data it has gathered from all over the internet.
"LawChatGPT, write me a draft seller-friendly response to this email from the Buyer on this SPA's warranties".
You're right, you'll still need a lawyer to look at it before it goes out and there'll be scope for top lawyers to negotiate that extra bit. Question would be whether that kind of gain in efficiency would reduce billings because GPT has written 90% of your draft in 2 seconds, or whether lawyers will find new revenue streams or billing models to compensate.
"Thank you for sharing your experience with ChatGPT and its capabilities in the legal field. It is no surprise that the legal industry has been slow to adapt to new technologies, but it is clear that AI like ChatGPT has the potential to significantly impact and improve various aspects of legal work.
As for the potential threat to law firm jobs, it is important to note that legal AI is still in its early stages and is not yet able to fully replace the expertise and judgment of human attorneys. However, it can certainly assist attorneys in their tasks and potentially reduce the need for certain roles, such as document review or contract drafting. It is important for law firms and attorneys to stay up to date on the latest legal AI developments and consider how they can incorporate it into their work in a way that complements and enhances their skills and expertise.
As for the impact on litigation, legal AI has the potential to streamline and speed up certain aspects of the litigation process, such as document review and analysis. However, it is unlikely to fully replace the role of human attorneys in the courtroom or in negotiations.
Finally, regarding the impact on law school assignments and projects, it is important for law schools to adapt and incorporate the study of legal AI into their curricula in order to prepare students for the changing legal landscape. While AI may be able to assist with certain tasks, it cannot fully replace the need for a strong foundation in the law and the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that law school provides."
Essentially, its a yay! for bullshitters in the short-term. However in the long-term people with high level of subject-matter expertise should be more employable by law firms.