AI requires intelligent use

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock (with no wi-fi) for the past 12 months, you won’t have avoided the explosion in use of generative AI; the worlds of legal education and practice are no exceptions.

Law students are currently grappling with the impact that AI is having on their method of study and mode of assessment; and lawyers in practice are facing the challenge of how to use the software effectively and responsibly. So, how can aspiring lawyers position themselves to harness the benefits that AI can offer?

1. Educate yourself on the possibilities and limitations of the software

We can be fairly sure that generative AI software, such as ChatGPT, isn’t going away; in fact, its capabilities and uses will continue to expand. Therefore, it’s important to understand what it can do, how it works and, perhaps most crucially, what it can’t yet do very well.

Generative AI can be a useful study aid for law students. It can be used to generate knowledge-testing questions or flashcards to help with revision. It could also offer advice on the structure of a piece of work or alternative ways to phrase a sentence.

However, it shouldn’t be used to conduct legal research or draft an assessed piece of work for the following reasons:

• Generative AI can “hallucinate” by inventing law that doesn’t exist. As lecturers, we’ve already seen examples of this in student work and there have been cases in which judges have found invented caselaw being relied upon by litigants. The software can generate false, but convincing, citations for the invented law so the problem isn’t immediately obvious. In acknowledgement of the issue of hallucination, ChatGPT carries the warning “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information”. Law students will have access to much more specialised and reliable legal research tools that should be used to identify and verify relevant law. 

Read LCN’s News for more on the errors AI can produce: ‘US lawyers fined after submitting citations generated by ChatGPT’.

• The content may not answer the question or say anything of substance. Some of the most important skills to develop through the study of law are the ability to analyse a legal problem, and then to apply and evaluate the relevant law. Unless there’s data already available on the specific issues present in your question, generative AI software will not be able to find the answer and it will not be creative in analysing and evaluating. It’s often quite obvious to lecturers when generative AI has been used; for example, the submission is “wordy” but doesn’t say anything of real substance.
   
• You’d be dishonestly presenting work as your own. This is arguably the most important reason to not submit AI-generated work as your own. It’s wrong, in the same way as copying a fellow student’s work or paying an essay writing service. Guidance and rules surrounding the use of AI may vary between institutions but it’s unlikely that any will allow students to use generative AI without specifically attributing the work to it. Anti-plagiarism software is developing fast to assist the detection of the use of generative AI but, in most cases, this will only help to prove what lecturers already know.

2. Don’t become over-reliant

Universities already assess students in a variety of ways; only some of which could be directly completed by generative AI. Law schools will be aware, when designing assessments, of the need to ensure that student understanding and skills are tested without the risk of AI involvement.

In post-graduate vocational courses for aspiring solicitors and barristers, there’s very little scope for AI to assist. Although ChatGPT is reportedly able to achieve a score of 50% on part one of the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) – SQE1  – the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s centralised assessments are completed in test centres preventing candidates any access to books or the internet. Skills assessments on vocational courses are often oral and will all be under exam conditions.   

Find out what to expect from the SQE assessments in this Oracle.

Some employers are changing recruitment methods to make them less susceptible to the use of AI or are requiring candidates to confirm they’ve not used it.

Find out how some firms have updated their application guides in relation to the use of AI via LCN’s News.

There’s a reason that most analysts don’t think that AI will result in lawyers becoming obsolete; there’s a human element to being a lawyer. Lawyers must be able to provide oral advice to a client or submissions to a judge in real time. They need to show empathy and be creative in finding and negotiating opportunities and solutions for a client. These tasks can’t be done by AI, so you need to engage with your legal education in a meaningful way that will enable you to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to be a well-rounded and successful lawyer.  

Shoosmiths looks at the pros and cons of using AI to complete legal work in this Commercial Question – read it now to find out what’s on the minds of lawyers at the firm.

3. Stay up to date on the impact of AI

The regulation of AI is a new area of law that students can see develop as they study.  There’s already an interesting difference in the regulatory approach being taken by the UK, when compared to the EU. Over the next few years, we can analyse the impact of this and current law students could become experts in the field.

Joshua Masson provides an analysis on AI regulation in this Wrestle with PESTLE article.

When you’re applying for legal roles, research the position that an employer has taken regarding AI. Make sure you comply with any rules the employer has in its recruitment process, but also educate yourself on how it’s being used by the employer. You can then show that you’ve engaged with this issue and that you can add value to this developing area of practice.

Some bigger firms will likely be using their own internal generative AI systems to help to allay ethical concerns over the confidentiality of client information. However, these systems are expensive to create, so you can expect many employers to be using off-the-shelf products or none at all.

Above all, aspiring lawyers must use AI intelligently. University is an opportunity to experiment and discover how generative AI can support you to become a better lawyer. This is the approach that will be taken by the most successful people in practice, and you need to be ready for it!

Megan Shirley is a senior lecturer at Nottingham Law School.