Along with the rest of the world, law firms have been embracing artificial intelligence (AI) in their operations. According to the American Bar Association’s 2024 Legal Technology Survey Report, 13% of US law firms perceive AI as mainstream, while 45% anticipate that it will go mainstream within the next three years.
In terms of usage, 30% of US law firms use AI tools, which is significantly higher than 11% in 2023. Firms see AI as a tool that saves time and enhances efficiency, especially in document management and review. The menial task of reading hundreds of emails, processing exhibits, and researching each day has always been a burden for legal professionals, especially for smaller firms. Instead of focusing on building their cases, lawyers would have to spend hours doing these menial tasks, compromising the time needed to prepare strategy in court. This challenge led lawyers to embrace AI in their firms.
However, there are several problems that arise from using AI in law firms. In a field where the life, liberty, and property of an individual are at stake, a missing exhibit or citing the wrong case law can be devastating. In this article, we will discuss why using AI in law firms does not solve the problem, and humans are still better at delivering outputs.
Humans Don’t “Hallucinate” Legal Cases
A federal judge discovered that the plaintiff’s lawyers used ChatGPT to research and cite fake cases in a 2023 New York case, to which said lawyers were fined, and the case was dismissed.
This isn’t just an isolated case, however. AI hallucination is an actual phenomenon where an AI manipulates or adds misleading information. It was revealed in a New York Times article that while AI is becoming more powerful, and despite the best efforts of human engineers, AI will always hallucinate. This is because AI cannot decide what is true or false.
Meanwhile, human users end up dealing with AI’s generated output by discerning the truthfulness of AI-generated information. Despite the convenience it markets itself to have, it is still humans who do extra work to fact-check AI information. AI is unable to fully grasp context, intent, or credibility, unlike humans. This impracticality and risk of misinformation defeats the purpose of AI in law firms, where accurate information is the standard.
Humans can Understand and Empathize with Clients, AI Cannot
When people are in conflict with the law, their emotions run high and they are unable to think rationally, which makes navigating a complex legal system even harder. Lawyers are there not only to lay out the legal strategy for the dispute, but also to be an empathetic voice to their clients’ concerns, in order to better serve the needs of their clients.
Even if a lawyer is empathic and capable of understanding the mental and emotional nuances of every case, dealing with multiple clients can be overwhelming, leading to compassion fatigue. Lawyers are prone to compassion fatigue. The risks are higher for lawyers who are regularly exposed to trauma and are required to listen empathetically to their clients’ concerns.
To address this, lawyers use AI chatbots to communicate with clients. These chatbots are available 24/7 to cater to the clients’ common inquiries. They are also efficient in taking and providing information to clients and can easily capture leads.
However, AI chatbots can be inaccurate. Aside from that, another downside of relying on AI chatbots is that they can’t listen empathetically to the client, which doesn’t allow the chatbot to address the underlying issues that caused the legal concern in the first place. AI chatbots aren’t capable of active communication, persuasion, lived experience, and ethical judgment, unlike humans.
Client’s Trust in Law Firms
In the world of legal practice, 78% of clients consider a lawyer’s emotional intelligence to be just as important as their legal expertise. Likewise, accurate information and jurisprudence are the key to creating effective and persuasive legal arguments. Empathy, active listening, and legal skills are not optional, but they uphold the client’s trust in the firm and the profession. While possible through AI, only humans possess these qualities and can expertly execute legal duties.
Professional legal receptionists are the solution for this kind of problem. Even virtually, legal assistants can do what AI chatbots can–but with empathy and human touch.
But this doesn’t mean hiring one should break the bank. Legal process outsourcing companies, like Ideal Ignite, offer professional virtual legal staff for a fraction of the price of hiring locally. Ideal Ignite’s Supervised Associate Pods are trained by lawyers for lawyers. When outsourcing from these legal pods, every transaction and query is professionally handled with care.