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GPSolo Magazine

GPSolo July/August 2023: Disabilities in Law and in Law Practice

Maximizing Efficiency: Using ChatGPT While Working on the Road

Jeffrey M Allen

Summary

  • ChatGPT can provide valuable assistance to attorneys practicing on the road, enhancing their productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness.
  • ChatGPT can help the lawyers with legal research, document drafting, calendar and task management, client communication and support, workflow automation, and translation and interpretation.
  • But lawyers must carefully consider the ethical implications of its use, including such issues as reliability, confidentiality and data security, lack of accountability and transparency, and bias and discrimination.
Maximizing Efficiency: Using ChatGPT While Working on the Road
Thomas Barwick via Getty Images

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The demands on a modern attorney extend far beyond the confines of a traditional office. In an era of constant mobility, lawyers often find themselves working on the road—traveling to meet clients, attending court hearings, conducting depositions, or for a variety of other reasons. Although technology has evolved to the point that we can work on the road about as efficiently as in the office respecting most matters, traveling still presents some challenges that can make work on the road more difficult. ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI)–powered virtual assistant, can revolutionize the way attorneys work while on the move. In this article, we explore how ChatGPT can provide valuable assistance to attorneys practicing on the road, enhancing their productivity, efficiency, and overall effectiveness.

ChatGPT: Benefits for Mobile Lawyers

When ChatGPT first came out, it had severe limitations in comparison to the most recent iteration, ChatGPT 4. ChatGPT 4 has the ability to utilize legal analysis in its work, making it a potential assistant in a great many legal tasks. In fact, ChatGPT has advanced so far that it has the ability to successfully take and pass a bar exam (demonstrated in essays, multistate multiple choice, and a practical segment). ChatGPT 4 scored in the 90th percentile of bar examination takers, well above the pass rate and better than most of the examinees who passed the bar. This shows considerable advancement from its predecessor; ChatGPT 3 managed to pass some law school exams but failed the bar exam.

Expect that ChatGPT will continue to improve and acquire new capabilities while improving on those it already has. As it does so, it can evolve into an increasingly helpful supporting technology for most attorneys, both in and out of the office. For mobile attorneys, it can provide support that they otherwise would not likely have on the road. Some of the things ChatGPT can already do to assist lawyers in the office and on the road include:

Legal Research

Attorneys need access to comprehensive and up-to-date legal research. ChatGPT can act as a portable research tool, allowing attorneys to access case law, statutes, regulations, and legal opinions with just a few keystrokes. By leveraging its vast knowledge base and natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT can provide attorneys with quick answers to legal questions, helping lawyers stay informed and make well-founded decisions. Attorneys can ask ChatGPT about recent legal developments and precedent-setting cases or even seek clarification on complex legal concepts. It can also assist lawyers in formulating queries for their online law libraries.

Document Drafting

Drafting legal documents, such as contracts, pleadings, and demand letters, takes a fair amount of time. ChatGPT can act as a virtual assistant, providing suggestions, templates, and language recommendations to mobile lawyers during the drafting process. By inputting key information and desired outcomes, lawyers can receive tailored document templates that adhere to legal requirements and best practices. This feature not only can accelerate the drafting process but also can help ensure the accuracy and quality of legal documents. Additionally, ChatGPT can proofread and review documents, spotting errors, suggesting edits, and improving the overall quality of the written material.

Document Review

Analyzing and reviewing documents is a crucial part of a lawyer’s work. Mobile lawyers can leverage ChatGPT’s natural language processing capabilities to analyze contracts, legal briefs, and other legal documents. ChatGPT can assist in identifying relevant clauses, potential issues, and inconsistencies in existing documents, thus saving valuable time for lawyers. Furthermore, ChatGPT can generate summaries of lengthy documents, enabling mobile lawyers to extract key information.

Calendar and Task Management

Attorneys on the road need to deal with managing their schedules and staying on top of tasks. ChatGPT can serve as a personal assistant, helping attorneys organize calendars, set reminders for important deadlines, and manage to-do lists. Attorneys can use ChatGPT to schedule meetings, send meeting reminders, and prioritize tasks, helping them ensure that nothing falls through the cracks.

Client Communication and Support

Attorneys need to maintain effective communication with clients, even while away from the office. ChatGPT can assist in managing client inquiries, providing answers to frequently asked questions, and offering updates on case progress. Attorneys can leverage ChatGPT to compose and review client emails, respond to client questions promptly, and keep clients informed about the latest developments in their cases. Additionally, ChatGPT can assist in setting up virtual meetings or conference calls, enabling attorneys to stay connected with clients regardless of their physical location.

Translation and Interpretation

In an increasingly globalized legal landscape, attorneys may encounter language barriers while practicing on the road. ChatGPT can act as a language translation and interpretation tool, helping attorneys communicate with clients, witnesses, or colleagues who speak different languages. Attorneys can input phrases or questions, and ChatGPT will provide accurate translations or interpretations in real time, facilitating effective communication and avoiding misunderstandings.

Legal Knowledge Base Creation

Attorneys frequently encounter unique legal scenarios and, while on the road, may not have immediate access to colleagues or legal resources for guidance or assistance. ChatGPT can help in the analysis of such situations. It can also help by serving as a knowledge base, allowing lawyers to document their experiences, strategies, and insights. By feeding ChatGPT with case summaries, strategies, and successful arguments, lawyers can create a personalized legal knowledge base. Attorneys can continuously update the knowledge base and access it to assist them in future cases, thus enhancing their expertise and efficiency.

Workflow Automation

Mobile lawyers often find it challenging to manage their workload efficiently due to the absence of a physical office and support staff. ChatGPT can automate routine administrative tasks, such as scheduling appointments, sending reminders, organizing case files, and managing deadlines. By integrating ChatGPT with existing practice management software, mobile lawyers can streamline their workflow, reduce manual effort, and focus on the core aspects of their legal practice.

Potential Pitfalls

ChatGPT can prove very helpful, but it comes with warnings and cautions. The adoption of ChatGPT in a law practice raises significant ethical and practical considerations. Some lawyers may come to rely too much on ChatGPT, especially now that it has demonstrated its legal analytical skills and writing ability by passing a bar examination. While that should work well respecting administrative tasks, it can pose some risks in connection with asking it to do legal work, such as drafting a brief or a memorandum of points and authorities. It also potentially raises ethical issues. The concerns associated with the use of ChatGPT in the legal profession include:

Reliability and Accountability

One of the primary ethical concerns when using ChatGPT in a law practice is the reliability and accuracy of the information it provides. While ChatGPT can analyze vast amounts of legal data and offer responses based on patterns and preexisting knowledge, it has some critical limitations. ChatGPT may generate inaccurate, not up-to-date, or contextually inappropriate responses. Lawyers must ensure that they have independently verified all information provided by ChatGPT to avoid potential errors or misinterpretations. That is especially true if you use ChatGPT to assist you in preparing a document to file with the court.

Confidentiality and Data Security

Lawyers have a professional and ethical obligation to maintain client confidentiality. Utilizing ChatGPT creates a risk of breaching client confidentiality if you transmit sensitive information to the AI system, where it might be stored. Law firms must adopt stringent data security measures to protect client data, including encryption, secure servers, and restricted access protocols. It is crucial to ensure that ChatGPT is designed to prioritize data privacy and that you have appropriately anonymized or de-identified confidential information before giving it to ChatGPT.

Lack of Accountability and Transparency

The lack of accountability and transparency provides another concern associated with ChatGPT in a law practice. The AI system’s complex and difficult-to-understand inner workings make it challenging to determine how ChatGPT arrives at its conclusions. This lack of transparency may hinder lawyers in effectively representing their clients and justifying their legal strategies. Attorneys must exercise caution and skepticism when relying on ChatGPT’s suggestions and ensure they can explain and justify their decisions based on known legal principles.

Bias and Discrimination

AI systems such as ChatGPT get trained on large datasets, which can inadvertently include biased or discriminatory information. If the underlying training data contains biases related to race, gender, or other protected characteristics, ChatGPT may produce biased responses. Lawyers must exercise caution about relying solely on ChatGPT’s outputs. Do not adopt its conclusions without critically evaluating the information on which it relies for potential bias. Legal professionals should regularly review and update the training data to mitigate the risk of perpetuating discriminatory practices or outcomes.

Human Judgment and Responsibility

While ChatGPT can provide valuable insights and support to lawyers, attorneys must remember that legal practice involves exercising human judgment. The final responsibility for legal advice and decisions rests with the human lawyer, not the AI system. Lawyers must critically assess the information provided by ChatGPT, applying their legal expertise, professional judgment, and appropriate ethical considerations. Attorneys using any AI system to assist in making legal decisions or preparing legal documents should make their clients aware of the limitations of AI technology and help them understand that the integrity and accountability of legal services require human oversight.

Conclusion

Mobile lawyers face unique challenges in practicing law efficiently while constantly being on the move. However, the integration of ChatGPT into their legal practice can assist attorneys in overcoming these challenges. ChatGPT’s ability to provide legal research, analyze documents, facilitate client communication, automate workflows, assist in drafting, and create a personalized legal knowledge base empowers mobile lawyers to practice law efficiently and deliver exceptional legal services. By leveraging the capabilities of AI, mobile lawyers can thrive in today’s digital era and provide effective legal representation to their clients, regardless of their physical location. ChatGPT can streamline various aspects of a lawyer’s work, saving time, improving productivity, and enhancing the overall quality of legal practice in a mobile setting. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, attorneys using ChatGPT can revolutionize the way lawyers work and pave the way for a more agile and adaptable legal profession.

Legal professionals, however, must approach the use of ChatGPT with careful consideration of its limitations and of the ethical implications involved in its use. Lawyers should prioritize reliability, accuracy, confidentiality, data security, fairness, and transparency when incorporating ChatGPT into their legal workflows. By ensuring that human judgment and responsibility remain at the forefront and by independently verifying citations and legal recommendations and conclusions from ChatGPT, legal professionals can effectively navigate the challenges associated with the use of AI technology such as ChatGPT in the legal profession.

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