The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
Episode 39: Generative AI Part 1
The technological revolution waits for no one—not even lawyers. Generative AI is reshaping how legal professionals work, and understanding its potential could be the difference between thriving and merely surviving in tomorrow's legal landscape.
Commercial litigator and Husch Blackwell partner Emily Stedman cuts through the hype and fear surrounding generative AI to deliver practical insights for attorneys. Unlike search engines that retrieve existing information, generative AI creates content based on your prompts—think of it as a diligent summer associate rather than a replacement for your legal expertise. From drafting discovery requests in half the time to summarizing depositions and creating project plans, these tools create efficiency that allows attorneys to focus on what matters: strategy, client relationships, and the human elements of legal practice.
But with great power comes significant ethical responsibility. Emily tackles the critical concerns head-on: maintaining client confidentiality when using AI systems, verifying the accuracy of AI-generated content (particularly those pesky "hallucinated" legal citations), and fulfilling the ethical obligation to maintain technological competence. Enterprise solutions like Husch Blackwell's "Prompt Composer" offer closed-universe alternatives that maintain attorney-client privilege, while careful review processes ensure AI remains a tool rather than a replacement for legal judgment.
Whether you're AI-curious or AI-anxious, this episode provides the foundation you need to approach generative AI with confidence. And stay tuned—next week's episode will deliver specific examples of how Emily incorporates AI into her daily practice. The attorneys who learn to leverage these tools while maintaining their unique human value will define the next generation of legal excellence. Are you ready to join them?
Find out more at https://thegraceperiod.substack.com/.
Welcome to the Grace Period where we get real about attorney mental health and well-being and pull back the veil on the high-stakes world of big law. I'm your host, emily Logan Steadman. In this demanding profession, it is crucial that we don't lose ourselves in the hustle for billable hours. On the Grace Period, we have honest conversations about finding consistency, minimizing chaos, developing coping strategies and destigmatizing mental health. It is time to prioritize our shared humanity to find our grace period. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Grace Period. I'm Emily Steadman, a commercial litigator and partner at Hush Blackwell, an AmLaw 100 firm. I'm also someone who's passionate about making big law a little more human, a lot more efficient and a whole lot more sustainable, and today I'm going to talk about something that helps make it much more efficient and much more sustainable. Today, I'm kicking off a two-part series on generative AI. Today, we'll talk about what it is and why you should care, and a little bit about why it can make your life easier. On the next episode, I'll keep it practical and share examples of how I actually use generative AI in my day-to-day practice. These episodes, like all of them, will be short, honest and to the point. These episodes, like all of them, will be short, honest and to the point. So what is generative AI?
Speaker 1:Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence. It creates content, text, images, code, you name it but it can only do that based on prompts that you give it. The most famous example is ChatGBT, but you might have also heard of Grok on Twitter, or X or Claude, which is my personal favorite. There are also tools being built specifically for business professionals, like Copilot in the Microsoft suite. Then there's tools being built specifically for lawyers, like Co CoCouncil, owned by Thomson Reuters, or Harvey, which has recently partnered with Lexis.
Speaker 1:Now some of you are thinking two things. One, there's the group of you that's like yes, I'm all in on AI, can't wait to learn more about it, I want to use it more and more and more and more and, honestly, that's where I fall. Then there are those of you that are hesitant about it, and that makes total sense. But I encourage you to play with AI, to practice with AI. As I mentioned, it's only based on prompts you give it, and the more you practice and play around with it, the better you'll become at prompting it to get you to the outcome you desire. I'll also caution you this Generative AI is not Google. It is not where you go to, say, ask for a recipe that you want to cook tonight, or to ask when your favorite store is open on Sundays. Instead, think of generative AI as an assistant or, if you're in a big law firm, think of it as a summer associate. It knows a lot, it's smart and hardworking, but it also doesn't know a lot, and so you have to spend time with it, to craft it and to craft prompts that ultimately help it learn you and learn itself on what you want the outcomes to be.
Speaker 1:Again, these tools are not about searching or sorting or analyzing. They're about drafting, creating, summarizing. So you can do things like update email drafts, get summaries of depositions or draft legal documents a very first draft. So, again, traditional AI is about finding or predicting. Generative AI is about creating or predicting. Generative AI is about creating, instead of just pulling up, the right document. It can help you write the first draft or summarize a deposition into digestible paragraphs, or review an expert report and summarize it for you and give you sample questions for a deposition, and next week I'll talk more about those examples. Why should we care about any of this? Well, if you're interested in efficiency and organization and creating space for deeper, more strategic work. Ai is for you. Generative AI can help you get to a solid first draft faster a solid first draft faster.
Speaker 1:I once had discovery requests. I knew I was limited to 20 requests for documents. I told it a little bit about the case. I told it that I was limited to 20 document requests and I asked it to give me categories of documents based on the information I had given it. So instead of taking one hour or 1.2 hours to draft discovery requests, I did it in 0.6. So that leaves room for more actual lollering and breathing room when you're drafting. It also can create checklist templates and project plans for you.
Speaker 1:It's like having a super organized assistant or associate at your fingertips. Also, it allows you to spend less time on repetitive work. So you have more time for that strategy, for client relationships, for business development, for taking on more complex tasks and cases. And if you're worried about AI taking your job, don't be. I think a lot of the claims about AI replacing summer and first-year associates is overstated. Plus, no one's talking about it replacing mid-level or senior associates. And how can we have more of those if we all of a sudden are out of first-year associates of those if we all of a sudden are out of first-year associates. Instead, ai will be used to make our work more efficient and more cost-effective for clients. It will also allow us to leverage technology to do less drudge work, but it does not replace our judgment or our advocacy, and that's a good transition into our ethical obligations.
Speaker 1:There are many when it comes to AI. The first is confidentiality. You should not be putting any confidential information into a public AI or open universe AI system. What I mean by open universe is, for example, chat. Gpt can pull from the whole universe of the internet. My firm, hush Blackwell, has in its own enterprise generative AI. We call it prompt composer. It's a closed universe so I can actually give it information and it maintains attorney-client privilege because it's only pulling from firm information. Now that also means that in the beginning it's not really a great tool because it needs time to learn that information be prompted over and over again so it gets better and learns more about what attorneys at my firm want and need from it.
Speaker 1:Next is accuracy. Ai is not Google. Ai is not Westlaw, so if you're using it to come up with legal citations, one, you shouldn't be, two, you should run every legal citation through Westlaw. So if you're using it to come up with legal citations, one, you shouldn't be Two. You should run every legal citation through Westlaw or Lexis or your case database of choice, to make sure the case actually exists. Generative AI can hallucinate, it guesses at things and if it doesn't know the answer, it makes it up. So you have an ethical obligation to review it any output for accuracy and so that you're not relying on AI to do the actual thinking, lawyering, judging or advocating for you.
Speaker 1:The ABA state bars are starting to issue ethics opinions on the use of AI. I encourage you to read them. They give a lot of high level, very practical advice on how to use AI. Again, it's a tool. It's not a substitute for your expertise. So trust, but verify Trust, but review it every time, but verify Trust, but review it every time. And lastly, we have an ethical obligation to stay on top of technological developments. The ABA rules require us to do that.
Speaker 1:So, just like back in the day when email came about, people were hesitant about it. They didn't understand why it would matter or had. Most people probably didn't have the foresight to understand how email would come to dominate the profession in our daily lives, but there was an obligation to understand what it was and to implement it in our practices if it was going to make things better for us and our clients. Ai is no different. It's okay to be hesitant us and our clients. Ai is no different. It's okay to be hesitant, it's okay to be even a little fearful of it, but you should not write it off and you will be left behind if you do so. That's a very high level, very basic introduction to generative AI what it is at a very high level, and things you should consider as you prepare or continue to play around with it and use it in your practice.
Speaker 1:Next week, I'll talk you through some examples of using generative AI and how I use it in my practice, as well as what works, what doesn't and how you can get started safely and smartly. If you have questions or you have really great examples of how you're using AI, please reach out and share them with me. I love learning about this and hearing all the creative ways that attorneys are using it to support their practice. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. I hope this discussion has provided some insights about generative AI, using it to support their practice. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. I hope this discussion has provided some insights about generative AI.
Speaker 1:Remember you don't have to sacrifice your well-being for career success. By prioritizing self-care, setting boundaries and seeking support, you can survive and even thrive in the law and in big law Until next time. Take care of yourselves and each other. That is the path to our grace period. Disclaimer all views and opinions expressed in this episode are strictly my own. This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute professional advice of any kind, including legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is created by listening to this podcast.
