3 ms·

I know one ! She's got international experience and connections but moved to a small town. She was a magic circle partner years ago. Now she has a FTTP connec

by sgt101 2y ago

I know one ! She's got international experience and connections but moved to a small town. She was a magic circle partner years ago. Now she has a FTTP connection and has picked up a bunch of contracts that she can deliver on with AI. She underbid some big firms on these because their business model was traditional rates, and hers is her cost * x (she didn't say but >1.0 I think) Basically she uses AI for document processing (discovery) and drafting. Then treats it as the output of associates and puts the polish on herself. She does the client meetings too obviously. I don't think her model will last long - my guess is that there will be a transformation in the next 5 years across the big firms and then she will be out of luck (maybe not at the margin though). She won't care - she'll be on the beach before then.

habinero 2y ago
Oof. That's quite possibly malpractice, and she could potentially lose her license if her clients twig to it. [0] Lawyers have a duty of care and of candor and of confidentiality, and a ChatGPT-ish model like that can violate all three. -- [0] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/ethics-opinions/aba-formal-opinion-512.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/p...
- sgt101 2y ago
  I think she's quite open with the clients about what she's charging for and how she's delivering. I think "quite possibly malpractice" does a lot of work. It's "quite possibly malpractice" to use an associate to draft an opinion. The associate could secretly take photos of the document and sell them to the opposition or the press, the associate could make stuff up, the associate could get drunk in a bar and tell everyone what they are doing. Who knows. You better have appropriate management controls, working practices and training in place! Even partners do this stuff sometimes though... It could also be malpractice to use a networked computer to prepare documents - that could be hacked into and your duty of care could be shown to be breached. If there's no deception and appropriate care is taken then is there an issue?
  - habinero 2y ago
    Yes, there absolutely could be. I'm not saying "it's probably malpractice" just to say it, I'm saying it because the ABA has put out guidelines saying that, and so have most state bars. If you're putting client data into ChatGPT, for example, that's violating your duty of confidentiality. Telling someone you're doing it doesn't excuse it. And yes, many of the other situations you mentioned would also be grounds for censure or losing your license. An associate is an attorney, you might be confusing the term with paralegal. An associate doing those things would likely lose their license. And law offices are required to use best practices for security controls.

by sgt101 2y ago

habinero 2y ago

Oof. That's quite possibly malpractice, and she could potentially lose her license if her clients twig to it. [0] Lawyers have a duty of care and of candor and of confidentiality, and a ChatGPT-ish model like that can violate all three. -- [0] https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/professional_responsibility/ethics-opinions/aba-formal-opinion-512.pdf https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/p...

sgt101 2y ago
I think she's quite open with the clients about what she's charging for and how she's delivering. I think "quite possibly malpractice" does a lot of work. It's "quite possibly malpractice" to use an associate to draft an opinion. The associate could secretly take photos of the document and sell them to the opposition or the press, the associate could make stuff up, the associate could get drunk in a bar and tell everyone what they are doing. Who knows. You better have appropriate management controls, working practices and training in place! Even partners do this stuff sometimes though... It could also be malpractice to use a networked computer to prepare documents - that could be hacked into and your duty of care could be shown to be breached. If there's no deception and appropriate care is taken then is there an issue?
- habinero 2y ago
  Yes, there absolutely could be. I'm not saying "it's probably malpractice" just to say it, I'm saying it because the ABA has put out guidelines saying that, and so have most state bars. If you're putting client data into ChatGPT, for example, that's violating your duty of confidentiality. Telling someone you're doing it doesn't excuse it. And yes, many of the other situations you mentioned would also be grounds for censure or losing your license. An associate is an attorney, you might be confusing the term with paralegal. An associate doing those things would likely lose their license. And law offices are required to use best practices for security controls.