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I agree with you in respect to the greatest risks in that industry. Just thought it's worth mentioning that LLM's unsurprisingly are not immune to hallucinating

I agree with you in respect to the greatest risks in that industry. Just thought it's worth mentioning that LLM's unsurprisingly are not immune to hallucinating cases. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-lawyers-keep-citing-fake-cases-invented-by-ai/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-lawyers-keep-... Using them for coding makes it easy to self check its work (assuming those pieces of work are "verifiable"). As proofreading will still need to happen, what do you think the appetite for lawyers is to do this kind of work? Do you think it will drive fees down significantly? Empower younger lawyers at firms who probably are the ones doing this checking for the partners? (Or will that just create a further divide). I'm genuinely asking as I am not in law but all my family is and it's nice to see someone here that's thought about the impacts in that space.

ray_kay777 24d ago
With access to good databases and tool use, hallucinations are basically a thing of the past (and very easy to verify). The hallucination issue typically comes from people using free ChatGPT or similar - tech usage and literacy is often poor and there's a lack of understanding of the risks of using something without proper legal database tools. Most lawyers would not have the faintest idea of what tool use in the context of an LLM even means. It's still seen as a magic box rather than a tool for real work. Will it drive down fees significantly? Doubt it, there's not enough pressure on them, and the industry is resistant to change. Firms don't want to make a big deal about using it because clients will then ask why they're not getting a discount. Will it empower younger lawyers? Not as much as I'd like. I'm very fortunate to have an employer that lets me use Claude Code for my work (to a limited extent). I think for 99.9% of lawyers it's not an option available to them, through a mix of concerns around AI usage and concerned IT departments. There could be great benefits, but it would rely on having to break out of traditional private practice which would make it difficult to get enough work. I think in the near term LLMs will have much the same impact on the legal industry as it has on the software industry.

ray_kay777 24d ago

With access to good databases and tool use, hallucinations are basically a thing of the past (and very easy to verify). The hallucination issue typically comes from people using free ChatGPT or similar - tech usage and literacy is often poor and there's a lack of understanding of the risks of using something without proper legal database tools. Most lawyers would not have the faintest idea of what tool use in the context of an LLM even means. It's still seen as a magic box rather than a tool for real work. Will it drive down fees significantly? Doubt it, there's not enough pressure on them, and the industry is resistant to change. Firms don't want to make a big deal about using it because clients will then ask why they're not getting a discount. Will it empower younger lawyers? Not as much as I'd like. I'm very fortunate to have an employer that lets me use Claude Code for my work (to a limited extent). I think for 99.9% of lawyers it's not an option available to them, through a mix of concerns around AI usage and concerned IT departments. There could be great benefits, but it would rely on having to break out of traditional private practice which would make it difficult to get enough work. I think in the near term LLMs will have much the same impact on the legal industry as it has on the software industry.