Questioning Everything We Think We Know About AI in Law ft. Daniel Schwarcz

Quotes:

• "I'm excited about this new paper I have that tries to look at not only what the effect on quality and speed is of using AI on legal tasks, but also what the effect is on the ability of people who are using AI to reason when the AI is taken away from them. I think that's an important step in trying to understand the broader scenario that all lawyers and members of the legal academy more generally are facing right now."
• "The mere fact that an AI can do well on an exam or on a task doesn't really answer the question most lawyers want answered, which is: how will I perform when I use AI compared to how I perform when I don't use AI? You can't extrapolate from the fact that an AI performs well on its own to the fact that if I use an AI, I'll start performing well on my own."
• The basic interpretation is that AI helped our participants understand the legal source material better - they understood the case law better, they understood the law better. That produces benefits that persist even when they no longer have AI."
• "The study made me more confident than I would otherwise be that using these tools can be beneficial in many ways, even in ways that aren't fully intuitive.”
• "In some contexts, the practice of law will absolutely look like AI judgment being primary with humans handling exceptions - like in will drafting where an AI handles the initial draft and a human checks it. But in other settings with massive human elements like counseling clients or talking to judges, AI won't be a substitute because the human element is essential."