Lawyers Falling Into Race To 'Do Something With AI' Despite Having No Clue What AI Can Even Do
Half-cocked strategies always pan out!
The logo for the Walt Disney World Dolphin is a fish.
Just a full-on, scale-covered fish. And while this conveys the aquatic theme of the resort, it is, decidedly, not a dolphin.
I pondered this perplexing reality while staring into the lobby bar fountain at the hotel playing host to the International Legal Technology Association’s 2023 convention. Perhaps this is a metaphor — or a coincidence clumsily cobbled into a metaphor for the purposes of this hastily composed short update from the exhibit floor seeking some sort of deeper literary meaning — for the whole event.
The dolphin is what lawyers want out of generative artificial intelligence. The fish is what it can actually deliver in 2023.
That’s not a knock on AI. It’s still a revolutionary tool that promises to disrupt the practice — somehow — but it’s not prepared to deliver on most of the mainstream hype. Lawyers need to walk a fine line between keeping an open mind to the potential for AI to streamline critical tasks and, you know, getting disciplined.
At the outset of this event, I wondered if lawyers would be a roadblock to adoption and stymie the industry. I assumed the show would feature a lot of comiserating between vendors and firm tech teams eager to bring realistic AI to law firms, but unable to get the lawyers on board.
Without discounting the population of lawyerly luddites out there, it seems as though the space may also have the opposite problem.
More than one source told me that senior leadership at some law firms have embraced the breathless mainstream AI coverage and are pressuring tech folks to “go get some AI” just for the sake of saying they have an AI “strategy.” They don’t understand the limits of the technology or have any defined pain points for AI to solve… they just want some AI.
Whatever that means.
Thankfully, there’s a solution for both the skeptical and overzealous. Trust your tech experts. They know the use cases where AI will enhance the firm’s practice and where it’s just a goofy ornament tacked onto a perfectly robust piece of non-AI tech.
Just because you have a JD doesn’t make you an expert in everything — no matter what the armchair historians, neurologists, and biochemists on the bench might say.
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Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
