A new study from the Blickstein Group reveals some disturbing trends for law firms that represent businesses, particularly large ones. The Study is entitled Legal Service Delivery in the Age of AI. The Study was done jointly by FTI Technologies, a consulting group, and Blickstein. It looks at law department legal operations.Continue Reading GenAI, Legal Ops, and The Future of Law Firms: A Wake-Up Call?
“Bad news is a headline, and gradual improvement is not.”
Bill Gates
All too often, those of us in the legal tech writing community report on things that won’t happen but should, things that aren’t being adopted but should be, or things that are outright failures. This tendency is particularly true when it comes to access to justice issues. We often cite the failure of technology to make any dent in the problem.
Granted, we have a serious access to justice gap that may get worse before it gets better.
But as I have written before, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about the good things that are going on that do impact access to justice for the underprivileged and, for that matter, everyone. I recently wrote about New York City’s use of AI to help people in various small and doable ways. I recently came across another tool called descrybe.ai that is doing the same.Continue Reading descrybe.ai: Bridging the Access to Justice Gap One Piece at a Time With Democratized Legal Information
As most of you know, I covered the world’s largest consumer products show, CES, in early January for Above the Law. I offered various stories on what I thought was important from a legal standpoint, which you can find here.
One thing I didn’t mention in my coverage was quantum computing. CES offered some 3 hours of presentations on quantum computing. I didn’t write on it. It’s because a), like most of you, I don’t really understand it, and b) I’m not sure what it can and can’t do for legal that’s different than what we have now. The second question begs the question about its impact on lawyers and legal.
Recent DevelopmentsContinue Reading Quantum Computing: It Giveth. But May Taketh Away
We have all heard over and over again about lawyers who use Gen AI and fail to check the citations the tools provide. The dangers of hallucinations and inaccuracies when using Gen AI tools are well known, and a Court will likely have little sympathy for the lawyer who fails to check sources.
But what if an expert witness uses Gen AI to come up with nonexistent citations to support their declarations or testimony?
That very thing just happened in a case pending in Minnesota federal court, as reported by Luis Rijo in an article in PPC Land. Ironically, the expert in question, Professor Jeff Hancock, the Stanford Social Media Lab Director, offered a declaration in a case challenging the validity of a Minnesota statute regulating deepfake content in political campaigns. Hancock subsequently admitted using ChatGPT to help draft his declaration. The declaration included two citations to nonexistent academic articles and incorrectly attributed the authors in another citation.Continue Reading Did Your Expert Use ChatGPT? You Might Want to Ask
It’s a wrap. CES 2025 is finally over. Here’s my post for Above the Law summarizing my ten top takeaways in general. And the three things I think may most impact legal over the next year or so: the advent of AI agents, deepfakes and how AI will affect law firm managment and supervsion of
A CES panel last week considered the future of work as AI becomes more and more engrained. Like most businesses, law firms need to think about what the AI tools mean for the future of legal work. What do law firms and, for that matter, lawyers and legal professionals need to do to prepare for
Lies. Scams. Disinformation. Misinformation. Voice cloning. Likeness cloning. Deepfakes. Manipulated photographs. Manipulated videos. They all pose tough questions for lawyers, judges and juries.AI has exploded the possibilities of all these things to the point that it’s almost impossible to trust anything. Lack of trust has enormous implications for lawyers, judges, and the way we resolve
Lots of talk at CES about agentic AI. What is it and what can AI agents do for lawyers and legal professionals? AI agents have the potential to improve efficiency and client satisfaction, but they may also raise some challenges. Here is my post for Above the Law on the issues.
CES may be a strange place to learn some law practice management lessons but I did. Here’s my post for Above the Law on just this subject.
On a Sunday evening January 5, the Consumer Technology Association offered its 2025 Tech Trends presentation at CES as well as its Unveiled event offering media a sneak peak at this year’s exhibitors. Here is my summary of the Trends and how those trends might impact legal. I also talk what I thought was cool