Embracing AI in Legal Practice to Meet ABA Model Rule 1.1

The American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct inform and guide many important decisions in the practice of law. Competence, as referenced in Model Rule 1.1, has always been a vital part of the attorney/client relationship.

As the legal field has evolved, Rule 1.1 has expanded to include more than just a competence with the law. Comment 8, in particular, has established the need for technological competence. This includes staying up-to-date with technological advances and having the ability to consider both potential benefits and potential risks.

The Role of AI in Legal Practice

The introduction of easily-accessed consumer-facing artificial intelligence has caused seismic shifts in many aspects of both industry and daily life. However, use of AI in the legal field has its own nuances and concerns that must be taken into account.

AI can dramatically simplify some of the most time-consuming aspects of practicing law, such as discovery and research. It has the potential to shape the future of the legal system, cutting down on both human error and the time investment required. When you consider the pace of innovation in artificial intelligence, it becomes clear that AI in the legal field is bound to change things dramatically.

But AI offers more than just opportunities; it also presents risks. Client data privacy and the reliability of AI as a fact-finding tool are two major areas that need to be considered closely before adopting any new tools.

Benefits and Risks of AI in Legal Practice

Artificial intelligence offers a huge number of benefits to law and its practice. Some benefits of AI are:

• Reducing human error. Human brains are not ideal for evaluating and manipulating large amounts of data. Machine learning, on the other hand, is excellent at evaluating data both quickly and consistently.
• Making it easier to find relevant information. AI essentially turns disparate information into a searchable database. This database is not just limited to simple searches for identical text; instead, AI tools often offer sophisticated searching abilities that rely less on specific phrasing and therefore include more relevant results.
• Enhanced ability to see the big picture. Sometimes it's difficult to see the patterns present when evaluating large amounts of information. AI can help track these through-lines to tease out the most information from documents. .
• Increased speed. It's possible for AI to evaluate, synthesize, and sort data much faster than a human could.
• Less likely to make judgments based on emotion. Although we try to be objective, everyone has some situations where their judgment is at risk of being clouded by emotion. AI programs can be much more consistent in evaluating data and situations based on logic rather than feeling.

However, it's also important to evaluate the risks associated with relevant technology. For artificial intelligence, some of these include:

• Data privacy and security. Many companies regularly train their AI models on the data that their users input. This may not be problematic if the information entered is not sensitive; it is substantially more troubling in the case of privileged information and protected private information (PPI). Any model used in a legal setting must appropriately consider data security.
• Bias in the model. Although AI technologies may be less likely to make inconsistent or emotional judgments, bias at the programming level can have ramifications that can't always be anticipated.
• Hallucinations. Sometimes AI models, particularly those intended for creative purposes, present unverified and/or untrue information as fact. These are referred to as hallucinations. Citing data and references can help ensure that these hallucinations are kept to a minimum.

Ensuring Competence with AI Tools

Training and Development

AI tools are complicated and often require training to fully understand their features and shortcomings. It's important for lawyers to have a firm understanding of what these tools can and can't do, their limitations, and their shortcomings.

A general course in AI use is a good starting point, but it's important for attorneys to participate in training on the exact tools and models they plan to use. Although there is a degree of similarity between many of these programs, there are also vital differences. Understanding the nuances of the AI solution you plan to use is necessary for technology competence.

For general AI tools, like ChatGPT, there is some training provided by the tool's creator. However, learning the specifics of how to best use the model is often relegated to third-party training and informal learning from sites like Reddit. CLE can provide some information; however, since these technologies are both new and changing all the time, CLE can quickly become out-of-date.

The easiest way to ensure that you're meeting your ethical duty towards competency is to choose an AI solution that offers extensive onboarding, documentation, and ongoing support.

Evaluating Reliability and Credibility

Although training is vital, all the training in the world cannot replace careful and thoughtful attention given to choosing the right AI model and program for your purposes. General AI programs are unlikely to have the appropriate security measures in place; in addition, many such programs do not offer source citations for the information that they provide.

Many of these models also have a history of extended outages and downtime, suggesting that they cannot be relied upon to be available at any given time.

Programs that are specifically created with the legal field in mind provide the best opportunity to ensure security, reliability, and credibility through the use of cited sources and references.

Meeting the Requirements of ABA Model Rule 1.1

Artificial intelligence is not going away, and use of it is no longer optional for lawyers to maintain the requisite knowledge necessary to meet their obligations to clients. While Model Rule 1.1 states that lawyers should keep abreast of changes in the law, its scope has expanded further to include a duty of technology competence.

Fortunately, there are a number of AI programs created with the legal system in mind. These allow lawyers to meet their competence requirements while, at the same time, safeguarding information.

If you're looking for a solution for your practice, we'd love to show you a demo of David AI. We have a number of features that will help you incorporate AI in a secure environment that was created to meet the specific needs of the legal field. Contact us today to schedule your free demo.