Don’t allow AI to replace your crucial “lawyer’s voice.” Susan Cohodes shares concerns about AI’s impact on young lawyers’ critical thinking skills.
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I know AI is a wonderful tool that will save lots of people, including lawyers, countless hours in gathering and analyzing data, and help them do amazing things. But as an older, moderately crabby lawyer, AI will not be my tool.
What Worries Me About AI-Dependent Young Lawyers
When I talk with young lawyers, I always encourage them to find their voice in their practice. Representing people is difficult — if you aren’t doing it as yourself, it is nearly impossible. If you were that good at acting, you would have gone to theater school, not law school.
Now I worry that because of AI, some may not have the chance to find their voice or hone their analytical skills. I worry they will use AI as a substitute for their own voice, and never develop their own.
Lawyers Trade in Thoughts and Words
We lawyers don’t make widgets, grow crops or contribute in any way other than by offering analysis and communicating that analysis clearly. We have to be able to think at least three steps ahead, and then clearly and persuasively convey those thoughts to clients, opponents, judges, and anyone else our analysis will impact.
What we offer is our thought process and our words. If those processes and words are AI-dependent, the young attorneys who rely on them will never develop the skills to develop arguments or recognize specious ones. These, I think, are the skills that will help them become excellent attorneys.
When I was new to this lawyer business, I often had heated arguments with my boss lawyers about strategy and next steps. Granted, I was often incorrect, but those “discussions” taught me how to think many steps ahead, how to craft an argument or strategy and defend it — and how to pivot when I was met with pushback or an unanticipated obstacle.
I am not aware of any software that offers that pushback. Even with the best prompts, AI tools certainly don’t raise their voice to add pressure to the situation. Real-life clients, opponents and judges always add pressure to situations, and I fear that AI-reliant lawyers may never develop the skill necessary to respond. If they use AI as the amazing tool it can be, they will have more information available than I could ever have dreamed. But if they don’t have the chance to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to parse all that data, that information doesn’t add much to the work product.
These days, hardly a week goes by in the legal press without a story about an attorney being scolded, or worse, for submitting an AI-generated brief with fictitious or improperly cited case law. That’s on those lawyers, not the tool they misused. I’m sure many of them would never have submitted briefs drafted by junior attorneys or assistants without reading all of the cases cited for content or, at the very least, making sure they existed and were still good law. Yet, they happily rely on generative AI.
It’s This Misplaced Reliance on AI That Has Me Worried for New Lawyers
I am not worried for myself because I won’t even sign my name to work that someone else, or something else, has produced. I rely on the writing process to get to an excellent final product and to help me fully understand and think through the problem I am working on. As I write pleadings, briefs and even letters, I refine my arguments and thoughts with each iteration. I read the cases I’m citing as well as the cases citing those cases. This process often leads me to better arguments with clearer support. As an old, somewhat crabby lawyer, I am not confident that artificial intelligence can do that for me. Nor do I want it to.
The process of writing briefs and letters is a large part of my preparation for hearings or phone calls because with every draft, I get to think a situation through again and again. That process almost always leads me to better, more cogent and more successful arguments; for me, simply reading an algorithm’s work product again and again would not do the same. By the time I sign my name to the final product (grudgingly, electronically these days), I have worked out my oral arguments and prepared for questions I anticipate from the judge or my opponents. Those arguments are also set in my mind so that when the time comes, I can focus on my presentation because I’ve already done the thought work.
I have progressed (kicking and screaming) into the modern world and now read on a Kindle and listen to streaming music, but I still prefer paper books and music on vinyl albums.
Sometimes I use AI to gather data or do the math (because when I went to law school, I was told there would be no math). I recognize the benefit of AI in adding efficiencies to the practice of law. And I know a working knowledge of AI is imperative for today’s lawyer, and so, I will learn. But I can’t rely on a summary I did not generate or a letter I did not write (see above re: old and crabby). I’ve never used form letters, and I won’t start now. That may be my loss in efficiency, but even on routine correspondence, it helps me think about what I’m doing; each situation is a little different.
So, I will not quarrel with lawyers who extol the virtues of AI for research (as long as they check the citations generated), for routine documents (as long as they check the content), or data gathering and analysis. I will cheer for the opportunity AI gives lawyers to spend more time crafting arguments, thinking steps ahead, and communicating the outcome of that very human work. I, however, will not cede my creativity and thought processes to a machine.
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