Latest / Coopers' Code / Is AI Making Lawyers Lazy?: This Month in Legal AI
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to Cooper's Code. We are doing the AI overview in
- 0:04terms of AI and the law. It's shows up about every month
- 0:09or so and I'm thrilled to be here with Co host Sherrod Milan
- 0:13Farr and Marshall Cole. Sherrod's up from the Bay Area
- 0:16as people know, plaintiffs personal injury lawyer, a reform
- 0:21defense lawyer. Marshall Cole is from the LA
- 0:23area and he's the the kind of lawyer that most lawyers want to
- 0:29make sure they never never need esteemed legal Mal defense
- 0:33lawyer. So all of us, though, have a a
- 0:35vested interest in technology and use of AI and, and keep
- 0:40current and want to make sure that everyone out there has the
- 0:42opportunity to keep current as well.
- 0:44So Sharon, I might kick it to you.
- 0:47I know we've got some bullet points to cover, but the
- 0:52hallucinations in everything from proper loss to proper win
- 0:57to mega firm taking it on the chin and where do we go from
- 1:02here? So it seems like there's a range
- 1:05of issues that have occurred that kind of change the
- 1:08perspective of this kind of mistake is being made by, you
- 1:11know, solos or improper plaintiffs.
- 1:15So we have a case in Alameda County where the judge dismissed
- 1:18the case when the proper plaintiffs and then for those of
- 1:21you who are not lawyers are people who are representing
- 1:24themselves, submitted fraudulent evidence to the court and the
- 1:28court basically dismissed their case because of that.
- 1:32We also have a very esteemed firm, Boise Schiller, that
- 1:37recently made some filings that at least one filing that was
- 1:43containing hallucinations and they're in hot water because of
- 1:47that. So now there seems to be a range
- 1:50of people who are using AI for legal tasks and are not
- 1:56necessarily doing the betting. But on the other hand, I
- 2:00recently saw a story about an improper who beat her landlord
- 2:04in a landlord tenant case, likely an eviction case using
- 2:08AI. And that was kind of a
- 2:10fascinating approach that she had used to minimize potential
- 2:13hallucinations when she was filing documents with the court.
- 2:16So it's kind of few things to throw around.
- 2:19That last one was the one I think that that might deserve
- 2:23the most unpacking. I, I think that the take away
- 2:25from, from my perspective on the hallucination side is if
- 2:30everyone is getting tagged by it, it's a it, it means that we
- 2:35need to do our best on quality control.
- 2:39And if a firm like Boy Schiller is, is getting tagged, that
- 2:44tells me that I need to make sure that if somebody's giving a
- 2:47brief to me that I've taken a look at it.
- 2:49It that if there's a case, it seems like it might be a little
- 2:52bit too good for us that it gets vetted.
- 2:54But Sherrod, I, I thought what this proper did was, was
- 2:59brilliant. Do you want to?
- 2:59Do you want to share that? Yeah.
- 3:01And going to your point, it doesn't seem to be an issue of
- 3:06resources, right? Because if this mega firm that
- 3:09has all these esteemed lawyers in it falls into the same trap,
- 3:13It's an issue of our people just stressed and just wanting to get
- 3:18something off their desk or they don't have time to vet it.
- 3:20And that's where I think the pitfall is, is our human nature
- 3:25to not necessarily pay as close as attention as we should.
- 3:28And I think everybody has the potential for that mistake that
- 3:32we just need to be hyper vigilant about.
- 3:35With somebody with the depth that Marshall has, when a lawyer
- 3:38comes to you and says, you know, I'm worried about my, my firm
- 3:43and, and my exposure. How do I have best, best
- 3:48practices to reduce my risk for AI use?
- 3:51Because I don't know if a paralegal is using it.
- 3:52And, and I do try and do my best for checking things.
- 3:56That's one and and two is. If I do end up making mistake,
- 4:00what should I do to fix it? Did you have any recommendations
- 4:04in that regard, Marshall? Yeah, on the first one, when it
- 4:07comes up all the time, I say you should have a policy in place
- 4:11that that creates boundaries for your staff as to when they can
- 4:15use it, how they can use it, etcetera.
- 4:17And and if they are doing it, they should provide training and
- 4:21force people to read these articles because it seems like
- 4:25since we've been doing this each month or so, there's a new firm
- 4:28that this happens to every month it's a new one.
- 4:32And I agree, it's kind of now run the gamut from, you know,
- 4:36mill Pi solo to, well, reputable, you know, very
- 4:40reputable firms. And I think that it's, you know,
- 4:46and as as Sherrod was talking, I was wondering, you know, when
- 4:49the lawyer who did that in the Bo's Schiller matter, you know,
- 4:55was it just sheer laziness, like really trying to get something
- 4:58off their desk? Because if you're actually doing
- 5:02it right and trying to get correct and accurate case law, I
- 5:06wonder how much time you're actually saving than just doing
- 5:10those searches through W law, which is still really efficient
- 5:13legal research. And you know, sure, you can
- 5:17definitely get cases quick, but if they're not accurate, then
- 5:21forget the risk component. But you're also just not
- 5:23actually saving any time. You, you know, you're just you,
- 5:27you've created something that's fake.
- 5:28So that's worthless. But if you're going to do it
- 5:31right, it might have taken more time, right?
- 5:33You might have to go and vet the cases.
- 5:35And also, if you have to go and vet the cases anyways, again,
- 5:39are you saving time versus just doing it properly through,
- 5:44through Westlaw or Lexus or whatever it might be?
- 5:47So I, I, I think those are the, the interesting parts of what's
- 5:52going on here. And people I don't think are
- 5:54thinking thoroughly like as is this really beneficial to me?
- 5:59Sherrod will come back to the the the pro probe.
- 6:01He's haven't dropped that line, but this reminded me of there's
- 6:07a personal injury firm down in Los Angeles does very high end
- 6:11work and when I was a young lawyer I had heard that they had
- 6:15in essence a a New Yorker style fact checker.
- 6:18So they have an editor whose sole job is before any meet and
- 6:24confer any brief, anything goes out the door, that person has to
- 6:28go through it and review it and any citation in it gets QCD.
- 6:33It seems like a lot of effort to have one person on your staff
- 6:37who's just doing that. But that to me sounded like a, a
- 6:40great threshold. And it is something we we use a
- 6:43a variant of that where if somebody writes A brief,
- 6:45somebody else goes through and tries to poke holes in it to, to
- 6:48try and find something wrong with it before it goes out the
- 6:49door. Yeah, just as a side note, I was
- 6:52talking to a friend of mine who told me that one of our mentors
- 6:55had a job with a very prominent defense firm.
- 6:59And his job was when they needed to cite to an article about
- 7:03something, he would write that article and then they would cite
- 7:06to it. So.
- 7:10Go to the flip side. Of that.
- 7:11Coin, I like that. Yeah, that's a good one.
- 7:16I buried the lead a little bit, Sharad, in terms of the the pro
- 7:18per who's using a tool that might put us all out of business
- 7:22if if somebody keeps doing the anti hallucination method.
- 7:25So this was on a news video that I saw.
- 7:30Basically this lady supposedly beat her landlord, I'm assuming
- 7:35in an eviction case and she did it by using AI.
- 7:41In this way, she would go to 1 system, put in her prompt, get
- 7:46the response back, and then would take it to go to the
- 7:49second system and enter the response and have it vet the
- 7:54response and then take that response to a third one and have
- 7:58it vetted by the third one. So that, it seemed to me
- 8:01significantly reduced the chance of hallucination and made it so
- 8:06that whatever she was submitting passed muster and she apparently
- 8:10won the case, according to the news report.
- 8:12It's an interesting approach, Marshall.
- 8:14I think that approach is great for someone who doesn't have a
- 8:17law license, right? They don't have a way to know
- 8:21cuz cuz they're the only other thing they could do is Google
- 8:23it, right? So if they're just Googling
- 8:25these cases, you know, presumably they exist, but maybe
- 8:28they don't at this point, you know, and they don't know one
- 8:31way or the other. So she's still taking a
- 8:33calculated risk regardless of just having one system bet the
- 8:37other and then another vet those.
- 8:39But you know, she did it to a level where she's comfortable.
- 8:41And also there's the repercussions if it there were
- 8:46hallucinations are much different for her than there
- 8:48would be for any of us or any licensed lawyers out there.
- 8:53And then lastly, it kind of goes back to the point I made
- 8:56earlier, which is if that's what you have to do in order to make
- 9:00sure you're not getting hallucinations, you probably
- 9:04could just do the research in the same amount of time from,
- 9:08you know, just a legal research perspective and ensure that
- 9:11you're getting accurate information.
- 9:13I mean, I assume she was having a draft entire briefs for her,
- 9:16which is great. And I think it does provide a
- 9:20huge benefit to people who don't have access to a lawyer, who
- 9:24can't afford a lawyer from what they would have been filing
- 9:27before to what they can file now, excluding case law.
- 9:30Just just draft me an argument, you know, on these subjects or
- 9:35on this issue or here's my 5 facts.
- 9:37I'm going to do a phenomenal job for those people and I do think
- 9:40that they're going to have, they're going to see better
- 9:43results against these types of matters, you know, landlord,
- 9:47tenant matters, small neighbor disputes, whatever it might be.
- 9:51I think they're going to be very well off.
- 9:55I'm bouncing around with a, a very unsmooth Segway to do a, a
- 10:01different topic. One of the notes I have in terms
- 10:03of conversations that we had was something related to frontline
- 10:06managed services. And I, I have a note, Sherrod,
- 10:09that this may have been a entity that you mentioned at one point,
- 10:15an AI tool that produces billables by sitting in and
- 10:18monitoring all e-mail and workflow.
- 10:20Does that ring any bells to you? I don't know if that's the
- 10:22company. I think the company I saw, it
- 10:26was something like mean time or something like that, and they
- 10:29log into every system that you have and then they can monitor
- 10:35every second of your life while you're working.
- 10:38And I haven't tried them. I don't know anything beyond
- 10:42that. But it seems like they were
- 10:45pitching to people who do hourly work, saying we'll make it a lot
- 10:48easier for you to keep track of your time by automatically
- 10:53essentially creating these time entries for you.
- 10:56Marshall, have you come across anything because I know you do
- 10:59some time billing, Yeah. I do and I was reading about it
- 11:03and we don't use it and I, I would not be going to rush to
- 11:08sign up and pay money A to allow this company just unfettered
- 11:12access to my firm's e-mail system.
- 11:15And I think any of these, when you start allowing that type of
- 11:17access, you got to do your first question is security.
- 11:21But, but beyond that, I think it presents an issue for me as far
- 11:25as the overbilling, right? I mean, just 'cause I get an
- 11:30e-mail doesn't mean I bill a .1 or a .2 or a point, whatever.
- 11:35You know, it may not warrant a time entry.
- 11:40So for it to just create entries because it sees emails and you
- 11:46know how long it would create that time entry for, it seems
- 11:51really suspect as well because some people read faster than
- 11:55other people. I mean, we have to build the
- 11:57amount of time that we spend on the particular task.
- 12:01And so those are my issues with that type of, you know,
- 12:06advertisement and allowing it to do that.
- 12:09Sure, I, it probably could go through my emails and create
- 12:13point ones all over the place, but I don't think that's how I
- 12:16bill my time. Most of those emails don't get
- 12:19billed. Well, I recognize that the
- 12:22majority of our listeners tend to be more on the contingent fee
- 12:25side and so time billing is less interesting.
- 12:29I do know that some contingent fee firms keep track of ours to
- 12:34help them understand how much time they put into a matter,
- 12:38what cases create value, what cases don't create value as as
- 12:41they go forward. And so I know that when people
- 12:44are looking at how to be efficient on that, efficiency is
- 12:48important. But as you point out, Marshall,
- 12:50so is security. We keep time because some of our
- 12:54cases are cases where we can file attorneys fees motion on
- 12:58right. So it's important to have
- 12:59accurate time and be able to do that.
- 13:02But again, it every phone call is not something that is billed
- 13:07and every e-mail isn't billed. We try to put our time entries
- 13:11in, in a way when if a judge looks at it, they're looking at
- 13:15it that this is billing for serious work that's being done
- 13:17to advance the case to the point that it got to as opposed to
- 13:23just, hey, we're nickel and diming this with every .1 entry
- 13:27that that's conceivable. And presumably you could create.
- 13:31I'm sure they can set it up to try to be as efficient as
- 13:35possible, but it's one of those things, and maybe this is a
- 13:39little bit naive to say from an AI perspective, but it just
- 13:43seems to me it's one of those things that requires a personal
- 13:46touch. You know, I read my emails
- 13:49different than my partner right next door reads his emails or my
- 13:53associate reads her emails and they all are expected to bill
- 13:57based upon that. And so it's so personal and it
- 14:01and it requires an exercise of judgement whether I'm going to
- 14:05bill it or not that that I don't think can be captured through an
- 14:10AI platform. That's how I look at that one.
- 14:13That makes sense. The, the security piece brings
- 14:16me to a, a separate but related, and I don't know that I'd
- 14:20necessarily categorize it as security, but the, the idea of,
- 14:24of having data about one's clients accessed by other
- 14:29sources and without using names of, of entities.
- 14:33I, I know that it has come up. And I believe, Sharad, you
- 14:36brought this to our attention that some of the companies who
- 14:40are offering services out there, say, for demand packages or
- 14:43other places are both doing a good job of providing the demand
- 14:47package drafting, but also offering a kind of a back end
- 14:50where they're gathering data on what the resolutions are with
- 14:54the expectation that at some point they're building some sort
- 14:56of Colossus variant. Do you have any more insight on
- 15:00that, Sharon? Well, I actually did speak with
- 15:03an executive at one such company who is now told me that they are
- 15:07discontinuing or they have discontinued that practice
- 15:11because it wasn't really getting them the data that they need it.
- 15:14So I don't know what that means, but as of right now that company
- 15:18is no longer offering that incentive of tell us what your
- 15:22case settled for and we'll you know, give you some additional
- 15:25credits toward our our service. That I think answers the
- 15:29question, but I, I don't know that long term that it, it
- 15:32necessarily closes that, that arena.
- 15:35And, and, and I think we've talked about this a little bit
- 15:37in the past, Colossus being the database that, that insurance
- 15:41companies use to tell you that your case is worth $1347.62
- 15:46based on similar incidents across the, the country.
- 15:51The more granular this data gets and the more AI can do data
- 15:59analysis and and data science, the more it seems like we're
- 16:03going to start getting big data feedback on valuation on cases.
- 16:11That's an interesting concept because there are now firms out
- 16:17there that are doing big data analysis on jury results.
- 16:22And there's apparently research that was done that indicates
- 16:26that AI is actually notoriously bad at predicting the results.
- 16:33And one of the researchers who was giving a presentation at a
- 16:37conference that I went to indicated that there was one of
- 16:40the AI models initially was fed the information and said this
- 16:44case is worth $250 million. And then they said, well, can
- 16:49you tell us how you got to that number?
- 16:51And the response came back, oh, thank you for pointing that out.
- 16:55I re evaluated it in the case is worth 1.2 million.
- 17:00So that's a huge variance. And he used that as a very
- 17:04extreme example of how it got it wrong.
- 17:07But for the most part they were saying that the the AI itself is
- 17:12really poor at determining what the case value is.
- 17:16And quite frankly, you know, we've talked about this, Miles.
- 17:19I think the idea that somebody else got a $100,000 verdict on
- 17:24the same case and that somehow drives my value, your Marshall's
- 17:29value, is absurd because there's too many variables to say yes,
- 17:34this case is instructive in terms of what the result is
- 17:37going to be. And in the instances that I've
- 17:39actually done it, I've had some trials come up and I've just
- 17:42been curious and using it as an opportunity to sort of try and
- 17:46learn, hey, what did you be likely to do in these
- 17:49circumstances? And without coaching it, it's
- 17:53really bad. But the second you start to say,
- 17:55well, a verdict of this number or a verdict of this number or
- 17:59what about these defenses, it's like a golden retriever.
- 18:02It then just starts to want to please you and it and it
- 18:05understands where you're going. And so then you're just getting
- 18:08kind of what you want. But I don't think it's accurate
- 18:12at all. And so, you know, 'cause it'll
- 18:15be like, Oh yes, I could see these defenses being really
- 18:17strong after I've pointed those defenses out.
- 18:22And then I can ask for the weaknesses of those defenses and
- 18:24then it will point out the weaknesses of those defenses.
- 18:27But it didn't do it beforehand. And so, you know, sort sort of
- 18:32like just telling me things I already know and wasn't very
- 18:35useful in helping me try and learn something new or come at
- 18:40something from a different direction, like as if I would be
- 18:43dealing it with the jury. And I think a lot of that is
- 18:47just like trial lawyer experience and that true human
- 18:51connection that you try to make with jurors.
- 18:54To your point, you're odd that like just cause someone got
- 18:56100,000 in some jurisdiction doesn't mean on the same facts
- 19:01same case could be like everything identical.
- 19:03You bring a totally different flavor to your case.
- 19:06With 12 different people you can get a completely different
- 19:10result. Yeah, I just get tired of
- 19:12hearing from, you know, opposing counsel.
- 19:14You're not Miles Cooper or Marshall Cole when you're trying
- 19:16cases, so. A variant I think of, of, of
- 19:21what we're talking about. At one point our firm tried
- 19:24using a Monte Carlo simulator for analysis for our portfolio
- 19:29for the bank. And, and I think most people
- 19:33know this, but on the contingent fee side, if you're using a line
- 19:35of credit, your bank wants to know what the value of your
- 19:37cases are. And so, you know, usually once a
- 19:40quarter, once every six months, you provide an estimate to the
- 19:44Bank of these are the X number of cases that I have and by name
- 19:48here they are. And this is when I think it's
- 19:50going to resolve and this is how much I think it's going to
- 19:52resolve for in terms of the net fee.
- 19:54And when we a Monte Carlo simulator was it was a very
- 19:58fancy spreadsheet that was pulled together.
- 20:00They kind of gave a high end and a low end on what those
- 20:03estimates would be run through multiple times and, and what
- 20:06have you. And our our take away after
- 20:10having played with it for about a year and a half was nothing
- 20:15beat our. Whether you call it gut
- 20:18instinct, limbic system, you know, 25 years of, of seeing how
- 20:22cases turn out, we were always pretty much spot on on
- 20:27valuation. We were always about six months
- 20:30to a year off on how long it was going to take.
- 20:33We knew those, those, those, those challenges.
- 20:35So we, we had, we adjusted for them.
- 20:38And my take away from this was after doing this for as long as
- 20:43we've done it, we seem to be better than machines on the gut
- 20:48instinct valuation. And I don't see anything so far
- 20:52that tells me that that's going to change.
- 20:56And, and I think I'm, I'm just saying a variant of what what
- 20:59you Marshall and and and trod both said.
- 21:01I think you're absolutely right on that because there's too many
- 21:05variables, right? You change a few jurors in that
- 21:08same trial and you may have a different outcome.
- 21:11And we know that from talking to our jurors at the end of our
- 21:14trials. The one thing I found that it's
- 21:17interesting to do with the AIS, our practice management system
- 21:21just had a new release and roll out of an upgraded AI system and
- 21:25it's a significant upgrade. So I have a case going to a
- 21:29mandatory settlement conference. So I took both our statement and
- 21:33theirs that I put it in and I said, all right, review this as
- 21:38an expert, do an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of both
- 21:43sides. And we have what are what can
- 21:46each side do to like bolster their arguments and that sort of
- 21:49thing. And he actually did a pretty
- 21:51good job of giving me an honest and balanced analysis of the
- 21:55weaknesses in our case and weaknesses in their case.
- 21:57And at the end of it, it said, you know, which maybe was the
- 22:01part of the people pleaser piece of it.
- 22:03It said the defense seems to be underestimating the value of the
- 22:07OR the severity of the damages that or the injuries that your
- 22:11client sustained. So it was an interesting piece
- 22:15of feedback. But in my opinion, it's only a
- 22:18data point, right? Because to me, I want to talk to
- 22:22other human beings who look at my case and say, well, OK, So
- 22:26what? Or Oh my God, that's horrible.
- 22:28How can this person be put through that?
- 22:30Those are more instructive, in my opinion, than having a
- 22:34machine kind of give me what I I may want to hear.
- 22:38Sometimes when you are in cases and you keep hearing from
- 22:42defence counsel and adjusters about how terrible your case is
- 22:45or how they're going to win or how they've had eight other
- 22:47cases like this and they defence them all you, you start feeling
- 22:51a little bit like, oh, well, I must, I must be seeing this
- 22:54wrong. And, and the answer is no.
- 22:57If, if you, if you're in the game, if you're, if you're
- 23:00working with your colleagues, if you're spitballing the case and,
- 23:03and round tabling it with friends and everyone's saying
- 23:05like, no, they're missing something, that each, each case
- 23:09is unique, that these these are, these are humans going through
- 23:11human experiences. Fortunately, defense counsel
- 23:15will be able to put that in writing in that same case,
- 23:17saying that he was going to win and quote, see you at trial.
- 23:21So I, I, I really thanked him for putting that in writing and
- 23:24guaranteeing the win on an open policy case.
- 23:27Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I think it's just, it's
- 23:30important outside of the AI side of things on the, the trial
- 23:34where the, the, the litigator side of things is to have faith
- 23:37in one's ability to, to analyze the case and move forward on it,
- 23:42even when you know the defense is, is telling you how they're
- 23:46going to crush you eight ways from Sunday.
- 23:47And if you don't have an idea of that and and haven't learned it
- 23:52on your own and are relying upon AI for that, I think like get
- 23:56ready to lose or get ready to have a number that you're not
- 24:00going to be happy with because you without the ability to
- 24:04independently analyze it, take it as a data point, like you
- 24:08said, and, you know, consider all the other factors, including
- 24:12who the lawyer is on the other side making that, you know,
- 24:16chest pounding statement. I mean, it could be the worst
- 24:19lawyer ever that you're not worried about it or the best and
- 24:22say, well, he, you know, he's going to do a really good job or
- 24:25she's going to do amazing. So whatever platform you're put
- 24:28it isn't going to know or understand those.
- 24:31That's an excellent point because if the AI or one data
- 24:36point is a determining factor in how you value your case, maybe
- 24:39you need to refer that case to the lady who beat her landlord
- 24:43as a pro per. I mean, you're basically taking
- 24:48the human and your experiences as a human being out of the
- 24:52equation, which to me is the worst possible approach in
- 24:56evaluating and advising your clients.
- 24:59That's what I really like about what we do versus other
- 25:03industries, at least it from litigation, right?
- 25:06We're in court different than transactional lawyers and things
- 25:09like that. And it's certainly different
- 25:11than people at finance where it's very data-driven.
- 25:14There's a lot of objectivity to it.
- 25:16It's black and it's white. I mean, we, the three of us deal
- 25:21in so many Shades of Grey and never is something black and
- 25:26white. I mean, it's just very, very
- 25:28rare. And so, you know, once you
- 25:30decide it's grey, right, it's just what shade of grey.
- 25:33And I think that's where the skills that you develop as a
- 25:38trial lawyer, if you're going to be in court or writing legal
- 25:41briefs requires the understanding of all that nuance
- 25:46that goes along with it, which is very, very important.
- 25:49And I think in the times I use AI to try and get that type of
- 25:54experience, it, it tries its best, right?
- 25:56It does, you know, I get some value out of it, but it's
- 25:59because I know what's valuable and what's not.
- 26:01And I know how to input the data in the 1st place.
- 26:05All of which is built upon those years of experience, you know,
- 26:09reading judges, being in front of judges, understanding all
- 26:12that nuance that it certainly can't do because it just doesn't
- 26:16know those people or how they play a role in whatever we're
- 26:19doing. And going back to the idea of,
- 26:24of knowing your cases for younger lawyers who are
- 26:27listening to this, who haven't had that experience and, and who
- 26:29may be more inclined to rely on ChatGPT or or Claude.
- 26:35A reminder that one of the great things about the plan of Spar is
- 26:39that almost all of us are willing to help each other out.
- 26:43Meaning a phone call, having some people over to lunch, doing
- 26:47doing it in person and spitballing a case.
- 26:50I mean I learned valuation on cases from hanging out with
- 26:52great lawyers and now I feel I have a pretty good valuation.
- 26:57Even with that, I'm likely to call up or get together with a
- 27:03few of my friends to to spitball case if I've if I've got
- 27:06questions about it. I appreciate the inference there
- 27:09that the defense bar does nothing well.
- 27:12It. Which is.
- 27:13Search it and this I've never worked the defense side.
- 27:18What I hear from the defense side is the plaintiffs bar is so
- 27:21collegial and so willing to share things with each other
- 27:24that you make it hard for us on the defense side because we we
- 27:28don't always do that in the same way.
- 27:30We don't have the listeners, we don't have the the deep social
- 27:34connections in the same way. And maybe I'm wrong, Marshall,
- 27:37but that's that's that is what I've heard.
- 27:39No, no, it's totally accurate. And we, we try our best.
- 27:42I think you, you all are a much tighter organization.
- 27:45The listservs are much larger. I completely agree for younger
- 27:49lawyers to take advantage of all that stuff.
- 27:51We certainly have it on the defense side.
- 27:53It's just not as expansive. I mean, the membership is not
- 27:58there, but we, we certainly do our best and, and share what we
- 28:01can. But no, I agree with you on on
- 28:04your side of the aisle. It's tremendous.
- 28:07I will put a little caveat out there about the listeners and
- 28:09listeners are a great place to gather information.
- 28:13I I've shared this story more than once, but it's worth
- 28:15sharing again. They are more porous than one
- 28:18might think. And so do not list your entire I
- 28:21have a case with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah against so and
- 28:24so and so and so. And my client is willing to
- 28:26settle for X. If you do that, there's a
- 28:28reasonable chance that they that might find its way into the
- 28:32wrong hands. And, and I share this only
- 28:33because there's probably 20 years years ago, I posted on the
- 28:36list of asking for feedback on judges in San Mateo County.
- 28:40The next day at trial call, I see the defence counsel flipping
- 28:44through some pieces of paper and it's printouts of the emails
- 28:46from our list or with with the conversation of the judges.
- 28:50Yeah, yeah. A friend of his knew he was
- 28:52going to trial. It was, it was no malicious
- 28:54piece. A friend of his knew he was
- 28:55going to trial in San Mateo and says like, oh, well, this might
- 28:57help you out. So.
- 29:00Well, having been on both sides of the aisle, I agree that there
- 29:04are certain factors on the defense that make it a lot
- 29:07harder to collaborate and help each other out, and that's a
- 29:11much longer conversation. But what I found on the
- 29:14plaintiff side is you're right, there's so many people willing
- 29:17to help. But I also find that I can call
- 29:21my friends on the defense and run stuff by them, and they call
- 29:25me to run stuff by me. Just a few days ago, a friend of
- 29:29mine, he has a very serious case on the defense side.
- 29:31He called me up. He's like, what do you think?
- 29:33And I give him my honest evaluation in terms of the
- 29:36strengths and weaknesses of his case.
- 29:38And those are things that the individual relationships built
- 29:43for us where a computer can't simulate that sort of
- 29:48interaction. And for me to call you guys and
- 29:51say, hey, I got this issue. What do you think?
- 29:53Am I just totally off base or do I have a reason to believe that
- 29:58this is a good approach that we're taking, are hugely
- 30:02valuable and for young lawyers, build those relationships, get
- 30:06mentors and call us, call other people because people want to
- 30:11help younger lawyers get better because that's how we end up
- 30:15with the profession sustaining and being a solid profession as
- 30:19opposed to everybody keeping their knowledge to themselves
- 30:21and not really helping the younger generation come up.
- 30:25I do think that as Marshall referenced, I think the golden
- 30:29retriever earlier, the if, if you are running this by your AI
- 30:35thinking partner there, there is a a substantial risk that it's
- 30:38going to give you false hope because it wants to please
- 30:44anything else that people think is is particularly timely that
- 30:48we should cover before we wrap for this this month's session.
- 30:52One, one other thing is and we, we, we touched on it earlier
- 30:57maybe before recording or I don't recall, but it's sort of
- 31:01the AI fatigue and you know, obviously we're hearing about
- 31:05it. We're hearing about it.
- 31:06We're using it, we're using it. But I think it was Miles.
- 31:09You were saying that most people are not finding it actually to
- 31:13be effective and either saving time or they just don't know one
- 31:18way or the other and they're just using it blindly.
- 31:20There's a, a study that people have been citing to that 95% of
- 31:24the industries who have implemented it in some fashion
- 31:26are not finding a meaningful increase in productivity.
- 31:29Forgive me, I don't have the site off the top of my head.
- 31:32And so that's I think something that's percolating in the back
- 31:35along with the conversations about AI bubbles and and
- 31:40circular investing. So, but I, I cut you off,
- 31:42Marshall, I'm sorry. No, no.
- 31:43That, that I, I, that was it. And I, I just think it's really
- 31:46interesting and for our industry when we see at least a once a
- 31:50month, almost a new firm or incident with, with people doing
- 31:54something wrong. You know, how long until people
- 31:58say, I'm not going to risk it, right?
- 32:00I'm not going to do it for at least litigation purposes or, or
- 32:06B, it's just actually not saving us any time and and it's not
- 32:10worth the monetary investment. And so it'll be interesting to
- 32:13watch this develop over the next couple episodes because I'm sure
- 32:18it's going to just morph into a large topic just as these things
- 32:23continue. Because I sort of optimistically
- 32:26expected those horror stories of, of hallucinated briefs to go
- 32:31down. Not like there's enough journals
- 32:35out there, daily journals, newspapers, friends talking
- 32:38amongst friends, listservs, right where this gets brought
- 32:42up. And it's just a reminder of how
- 32:44many lawyers there are out there.
- 32:46But I just would have thought you would, it would have been
- 32:49nipped. That would it be it?
- 32:51You wouldn't see it anymore. And for us to be here at however
- 32:54many episodes in continually talking about a new one is
- 32:57surprising to me. I do think it, it is, while it's
- 33:03wise to be mindful about the uses, I do still like using
- 33:09Claude as a thinking partner. I do still like throwing things
- 33:12in there, iterating on on strategies about cases.
- 33:17It's sometimes there are things that get thrown up that I don't
- 33:22know, I I necessarily would have thought of, but but it's it.
- 33:26There is a risk of parking your brain if if you if you just rely
- 33:32on AI. The AI summary of this episode
- 33:35is going to say that we are down on AI because we've spent most
- 33:37of our time talking about getting together with colleagues
- 33:40and, and how AI is not as reliable a resource.
- 33:43I do think it still has utility and and relevance and you need
- 33:49to make sure that it's it's being done in a right fit way.
- 33:52I think if you read the would read the summary from most of
- 33:54our episodes, it would seem it would read that way, but but it
- 33:58really isn't the cakes, you know, it's just sort of like
- 34:01just exercise extreme caution and it can do amazing things.
- 34:06Well, it's kind of like exercise, right?
- 34:08I want to be able to do 50 push ups in a row, but I don't want
- 34:11to do the work that leads to being able to do 50 push ups in
- 34:15a row. And with AI, people are saying,
- 34:18well, it's not increasing my productivity.
- 34:20Well, the question is, how are you using it?
- 34:22How are you investing some time in the beginning to set it up so
- 34:26it actually does what you wanted to do in the way you wanted to
- 34:30do it? And those are all important
- 34:32things that we have to consider when we're evaluating whether or
- 34:35not AI does help us or doesn't help us.
- 34:39But like you said, you know, the MIT study that you pointed us to
- 34:43about how that's affecting, you know, people's mentality and how
- 34:47we're looking at this, This isn't new because there was
- 34:51another study that was done and they found that if you have your
- 34:54phone sitting in front of you on your desk versus behind you
- 34:59versus in another room, you're more focused and effective when
- 35:04the phone is no longer in front of you and it's in another room.
- 35:08And that just tells us that our brains are wired to constantly
- 35:12seek this stimulus that the phones and technology provides.
- 35:16So how do we use that knowledge to help put our process in place
- 35:24in a way that allows us to gain maximum productivity versus
- 35:28allowing us to spin our wheels and say, oh, well, you know
- 35:31what? I put this prompt in, it gave me
- 35:33garbage. And I it, it's, it's terrible.
- 35:35I don't want to use it anymore. Just a a a tangent on your
- 35:40comment about the phones. I don't, I won't be able to
- 35:44credit the original origination on this, but somebody referred
- 35:48to as an adult pacifier and I thought that that was about the
- 35:53most apropos thing I think I've heard in a long time.
- 35:56I I'm not feeling great. I'm going to grab my phone.
- 35:59All you got to do is look at the stats at how many times a day we
- 36:02pick up our phones. It's insane.
- 36:05Yeah, as always, I, I, I love our conversations.
- 36:09I love the work put put into beforehand because it it helps
- 36:13me stay current on all these things.
- 36:15So thanks for joining us everyone out there, for all of
- 36:19you doing justice out there. Happy hunting.
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