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Lawyers notoriously struggle with technology. The legal profession is one of wood-paneled courtrooms and leather-bound lawbooks\u2014not apps and chatbots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The infamous Lawyer Cat of the early pandemic Zoom era<\/a> is an especially hilarious example of what happens when lawyers are forced to embrace tech they wouldn\u2019t otherwise touch.<\/p>\n And when lawyers use artificial intelligence, it often goes just as poorly.\u00a0<\/p>\n A Massachusetts lawyer was sanctioned for citing nonexistent cases hallucinated by ChatGPT<\/a> in an official court filing, and California recently fined an attorney $10,000 for similar AI-hallucinated errors<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise, then, that lawyers can be reluctant to embrace the large language models (LLMs) and AI agents that other professions are adopting in droves.<\/p>\n A particular quirk of the legal profession, though, may soon force their hand by threatening lawyers with malpractice if they don\u2019t<\/em> adopt AI. <\/p>\n And the same dynamic could apply to fields like accounting or medicine, catapulting these highly impactful, AI-skeptical fields to the forefront of AI adoption, whether they like it or not.<\/p>\n Since this is a story about lawyers, I\u2019ll pause for a moment to offer the disclaimer that I\u2019m a reporter, not a lawyer, and nothing in here is legal advice\u2014it\u2019s based on my own research and multiple off-the-record conversations with practicing attorneys. If you\u2019re in the profession, you\u2019ll want to consult with your own bar association about these changes.<\/p>\n Most people merely need to be good enough at their jobs. <\/p>\n Even if my metaphors are a bit staid or a specific piece I’ve written lacks ample, alluring alliteration, I\u2019ve done my job as a Fast Company<\/em> contributor if I\u2019ve reported the news truthfully and kept you reasonably well informed.<\/p>\n Lawyers are held to a different standard. In many cases, they\u2019re bound by multiple fiduciary duties<\/a>\u2014legal obligations to treat their clients in specific ways.<\/p>\n Cases need to be confidential, for example, and lawyers can\u2019t sell out their clients to the other side.<\/p>\n But lawyers are also legally obligated to be competent and to charge their clients reasonable fees<\/a>\u2014keeping those fees as low as possible while still meeting their clients\u2019 legal needs.<\/p>\n In the past, that\u2019s generally meant avoiding unnecessary legal research that could run up the bill, for example, or avoiding expensing lavish meals and other frivolities to your client\u2019s account.<\/p>\n Now, though, AI may be on the brink of changing the definition of what it means to be \u201ccompetent.\u201d And AI\u2019s ability to make tasks easier and faster could spell fiduciary trouble for lawyers and other professionals who don\u2019t embrace the tech.<\/p>\n Again, lawyers are often reluctant to embrace new tech. Faced with the risk of made-up cases and big fines, many lawyers have simply chosen to opt out of testing or using AI altogether.<\/p>\n A formal opinion from the American Bar Association<\/a> (ABA), though, makes clear that it may soon cease to be an option.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the ability to quickly create new, seemingly human-crafted content in response to user prompts, generative AI (GAI) tools offer lawyers the potential to increase the efficiency and quality of their legal services to clients,\u201d the ABA says.<\/p>\n Yes, these tools can make errors, the ABA acknowledges, and \u201clawyers may not abdicate their responsibilities by relying solely on a GAI tool.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the ABA cautions its members not to be too cautious about AI use. <\/p>\n \u201cEmerging technologies may provide an output that is of distinctively higher quality than current GAI tools produce, or may enable lawyers to perform work markedly faster and more economically,\u201d the opinion says.<\/p>\n If that happens, the ABA cautions, it could trigger the fiduciary duty to be competent and to minimize fees. The tools could become \u201cubiquitous in legal practice\u201d and establish \u201cconventional expectations regarding lawyers\u2019 duty of competence.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, AI could become so useful in the legal profession that lawyers who eschew it are wasting their client\u2019s time, or providing inferior representation.<\/p>\n The ABA gives the example of email and PDFs. \u201cA lawyer would have difficulty providing competent legal services in today\u2019s environment without knowing how to use email or create an electronic document,\u201d the ABA says.\u00a0\u201cAs GAI tools continue to develop and become more widely available, it is conceivable that lawyers will eventually have to use them to competently complete certain tasks for clients.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, because of their fiduciary duties, failing to do this wouldn\u2019t simply be bad form\u2014it could potentially count as malpractice.\u00a0<\/p>\n To drill in the point, the ABA extends its email metaphor, saying that lawyers who fail to use the era\u2019s most up-to-date technology are \u201cpotentially liable for malpractice.\u201d The clear implication is that the same penalty could apply to AI laggards, once the tech advances enough.<\/p>\n Off the record, multiple lawyers have told me that that moment is either fast approaching or already here.\u00a0<\/p>\n The ABA\u2019s opinion was written in 2024, when LLMs were far less powerful and accurate. Today, one longtime attorney told me, LLMs often write up lists of relevant cases\u2014or even entire briefs\u2014in minutes that are just as good as those a lawyer might produce after hours in a traditional law library.<\/p>\n The potential obligation to use AI is apparently already appearing in lawyers\u2019 yearly continuing education materials. And as LLMs get better and better, their power to save time and produce superior output\u2014and the resulting\u00a0duty for lawyers\u00a0to embrace them\u2014will only intensify.<\/p>\n If LLMs and other generative AI tools advance to the point that lawyers are forced to use them in order to remain competent, the legal profession could suddenly be forced to the forefront of AI adoption.<\/p>\n Firms would be tripping over themselves to get their attorneys up to speed on the latest AI tech. And countless companies would undoubtedly spring up to apply AI to every aspect of the law. It would be a gold mine for AI app builders and consultants.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s unlikely that the impact would remain in the legal field\u2014multiple other AI-skeptical professions could become subject to similar ethical and legal duties, and experience the same rapid, forced adoption.<\/p>\n Doctors, for example, take a professional oath to \u201cdo no harm.\u201d While the American Medical Association is clear that doctors shouldn\u2019t be penalized<\/a> for failing to adopt today\u2019s AI, other sources point out that as LLMs advance<\/a>, a failure to use AI could end up putting patients at unnecessary risk.<\/p>\nForced by fiduciaries<\/h2>\n
Be Efficient, Or Else<\/h2>\n
Forced to the Forefront<\/h2>\n