The Generative AI newsletter for legal pros everywhere.

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Thank you for reading, sharing, and engaging! You keep the pressure on me to deliver every day. I won’t let you down!

Ok, today we will:

1. give thanks and shoutout to those that referred readers

2. look at ChatGPT scary things

3. create the Generative AI Legal Productivity Specialist role

4. talk news you can use

Referral Shoutouts!!

Huge thank you both for thinking enough of this newsletter to share it with others!

Glenn Meier, Of Counsel at Greenberg Traurig

Barbora Obračajová, Dentons, Head of Project Management for Europe Corporate / M&A Practice Group

🧨 🚔 Smooth Criminal

A law professor was accused of sexual harassment via a Washington Post article. A mayor in Australia was convicted in a bribery scandal 20 years ago.

These are bad things for sure. And for sure, none of them is true. ChatGPT made them up! 

We are definitely in the fuzzy (and frightening) front end of sorting out legal liability for numerous issues.

Paraphrasing an article reporting on this, the statements fabricated about these two people are definitely harmful.

Now, sit back and consider the following questions and let me know if you have clear answers to any of them.

• Who made the statements?

• Was it OpenAI, who developed the software?

• Was it Microsoft, which licensed it and deployed it under Bing?

• Is it the software itself, acting as an automated system? If so, who is liable for prompting that system to create the statement?

• Does making such a statement in such a setting constitute “publishing” it, or is this more like a conversation between two people?

• In that case, would it amount to slander?

• Did OpenAI or ChatGPT “know” that this information was false, and how do we define negligence in such a case?

• Can an AI model exhibit malice?

• Does it depend on the law, the case, the judge?

While these are all crucial questions and it is horrible what these two individuals have experienced, these are not reasons to avoid using ChatGPT!

I cannot stress this enough ➡️ ChatGPT is a tool. It is not THE ANSWER.

We cannot rely on it. We must learn its strengths and weaknesses. Doing so helps combat future issues as we work the kinks out now. Burying our heads in the sand or fighting back is a loser’s game.

GenAI is here. It is getting better exponentially. And it is creeping into more of our personal and professional lives every day.

Use Case: Creating the Generative AI Legal Productivity Specialist role

Have you seen these yet?

Nope, neither have I. Will we? I bet we will.

Now my fear is that some won’t make it a real role. It will be just a title that the firm can use to drum up some PR. (They don’t do that, do they? 😈 )

But I am thinking the time is ripe.

It is best to invest now when we are still in the early days. Things will only get more expensive, confusing, and challenging. By deploying a role like this now, a firm can create an evergreen learning system to help them continue to advance all the while making strides based on making progress right here right now inside the firm.

▶︎▶︎Prompt

For this one, I am going to list out all the prompts here. I will include a link to the full document of prompts and responses below.

The reason I am doing this is that I want you to get a clear picture of how I and ChatGPT collaborated in putting this together. Yes, we collaborated. We conversed. While I have shared technical prompts, template prompts, and other types of ways to prompt, I want to show you the flow and ease of just talking with ChatGPT.

I thought of this as working with colleagues at times, or an intern, or an expert. The beauty of ChatGPT is that I can access all three at any time.

For the complete document of the responses that I include, know this:

• I did edit them for format and substance (maybe 10 to 20%)

• This content is yours! Use it to help your organization hire its first Generative AI Legal Productivity Specialist.

▶︎▶︎PROMPTs

I need to create a new type of role within a large law firm. This role is to be a specialist in using generative AI for productivity gains of employees and to improve business performance. A role like this does not exist. Can you help me craft a job title, role description, key responsibilities, and required credentials?

What resources, tools, and support would this role require to be successful?

Please list out the most likely functions within a law firm this role could report to. Be sure to include the Finance team among others. Organize each in an Excel-like format.

Reply with a table only - not text above or below. Each team has its own row.

There should be three columns. Column 1 is the team/function name. Column 2 is 2 best reasons why it should. Column 3 is 2 best reasons it shouldn't. Column 4 is for describing specific key areas of focus. Be pithy. Use no filler language.

Ok, now you are 20 yr large law firm veteran leader. You have been a pioneer in advancing innovation in the legal profession and know the specific and idiosyncratic challenges that managing lawyers through change can bring. Using your expertise, detail the most likely and the most unconventional challenges and objections to this role. Include for each, a clear strategy for how to address and overcome them.

Please now combine the business case and the last response into a complete presentation/pitch to the executive committee.

Use whatever structure/framework you think is most effective at communicating the ideas and content in a manner that lawyers will best understand and positively react to. Maybe include a detailed project plan for how to communicate the benefit of this role to the firm, and how to introduce it throughout the firm.

Be careful not to suggest time savings by lawyers if they use AI - remember, lawyers bill by the hour, so time savings can impact their revenue. It is best to call out any time savings as being directly related to lawyers' tasks that they cannot bill for such as admin work, client development, training, etc.

As a serious and sometimes cynical law firm leader, here are some potential questions and challenges that I might have regarding this idea and a new role:

Now take on the role of the 20yr law firm veteran once again. You have seen many projects succeed and fail over the years. You know the unique challenges of working with lawyers and law firms.

To the best you can, provide clear, detailed responses to each of these questions. They once you have done that, generate a key set of assumptions the leaders must acknowledge and agree to that you know will make this effort a success.

As a 20-year law firm veteran, I would provide the following responses to the questions raised by the serious and cynical law firm leader:

💣💥🤯 BOOM!!

Here is a link to the full document (pdf) for you.

Now go convince your bosses you need this role. If you want to be in this role (I know some of you do), study this. You can use it to prepare your own materials, cover letters, etc. to go make this happen.

News you can Use: 

 Beware of Scams as Chat “AI” apps/clones appear.

More people are getting ripped off - either their $ and/or their data. Many so-called apps are nothing more than UI skins (user interface pages) that sit on top of what runs ChatGPT. They are positioning these as unique and different - but in truth, they have the same capabilities as ChatGPT because that is what they use.

🤠 It’s the wild west; what can I tell you?

Here is their recipe for building and scamming:

1. Access OpenAI API (APIs connect apps to other data sources/apps)

2. Access GPT-3 (cheaper to just use what is already built)

3. Build a basic user interface (app design)

4. Create a website

5. Call it something (“Chat____”)

6. Copy-n-paste basic T&Cs/Privacy language (or not, many don’t have them)

7. Tweet out screenshot/demo

8. Get listed in one of 100s AI newsletters

9. Charge $

10. Users think they are accessing something new

11. User data and $ goes ???

That's a wrap for today. Stay thirsty & see ya next time! If you want more, be sure to follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not legal advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any legal decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.