ChatGPT and other conversational artificial intelligence built with large language models could radically change how the legal industry operates, giving early adopters a major advantage.
For instance, conversational AI can automate routine tasks such as document review and contract analysis for lawyers, and help them perform legal research and writing much more efficiently. Law firms also can use it to create blog posts and social media content for marketing purposes.
“If you are a lawyer who is not using this stuff, your opponents are. They are going to do better work than you,” says Noah Waisberg, an entrepreneur, former corporate lawyer and co-author of the book AI for Lawyers. “For most people, it’s going to give them an edge, and I don’t know why you wouldn’t take an edge.”
OpenAI’s Generative Pre-Transformer models, called GPT, are the most well known of the large language models, which can understand, process and respond to human language. Google also recently launched an experimental preview version of its conversational AI tool, Bard. In addition, Microsoft’s BingAI search engine has OpenAI’s GPT technology embedded in it. In February, Meta introduced LLaMA, which stands for Large Language Model Meta AI. It is available to academics, policymakers and others who apply for a noncommercial license.
Daniel Martin Katz, a law professor at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Chicago-Kent School of Law, says even more large language models are in the works. He says we’re in the early stages of this technology. Overall, the AI hardware and services market is expected to grow to $90 billion by 2025, up from $36 billion in 2020, according to UBS.
“There’s been a material increase in the capabilities of these tools, of these large language models, particularly with GPT but just in general, and that does bear on the type of work that lawyers do,” Katz says. “This is important for lawyers because we have technology that’s finally pretty good at language, and that has always been a challenge.”
A LexisNexis survey from March revealed 57% of consumers are aware of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. But awareness was significantly higher among lawyers at 86%, and half had already used it in their work or were planning on doing so.
According to the survey, “84% believe generative AI tools will increase the efficiency of lawyers, paralegals or law clerks,” In addition, “It’s not just the practice of law; 61% of lawyers and 44% of law students also believe generative AI will change law schools and the way law is taught and studied.”
Conversational AI is a tool that will create new opportunities and free up lawyers from tedious tasks, says Waisberg, who founded Kira Systems, a legal tech startup that used AI to help lawyers conduct contract review, in 2011 in Toronto. He sold the company in 2021 to Chicago-based Litera. He then became CEO of Zuza, a contract-analysis tool.