The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
The Grace Period: Shining A Light on Lawyer Wellbeing
Episode 40: AI for Attorneys: Real-World Applications
Legal practice is evolving rapidly with technological advancements, and generative AI stands at the forefront of this transformation. This eye-opening episode dives deep into practical applications of AI that can revolutionize how attorneys approach their daily work.
What if you could cut your discovery drafting time in half or prepare more thoroughly for depositions? Commercial litigation partner Emily Logan Stedman shares her real-world experiences using AI as a partner at an AmLaw 100 firm. Rather than theoretical possibilities, she offers concrete examples of how AI tools have enhanced her efficiency while maintaining the quality and personalization essential to effective legal representation.
From using AI to generate document categories for discovery requests to creating deposition outline frameworks and simulating challenging opposing counsel, Emily demonstrates how these tools can overcome procrastination hurdles and writer's block. She explains how AI helps with business development tasks like crafting engaging panel questions that receive consistent praise. Most valuably, she provides candid insights about using AI to combat imposter syndrome when facing more experienced opposing counsel by identifying potential weaknesses in legal positions and developing strategic responses.
The episode doesn't shy away from essential cautions. Emily emphasizes that confidentiality remains paramount, explaining the critical distinction between public AI platforms and enterprise solutions that protect attorney-client privilege. She reminds listeners that AI can "hallucinate" or fabricate information, making human oversight and professional judgment indispensable.
Ready to explore how AI might transform your practice? Start with low-stakes, non-confidential tasks to build comfort with these powerful tools while staying current with this rapidly evolving technology. These innovations aren't replacing attorneys – they're creating space for the strategic thinking and advocacy that truly define our profession.
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 Stedman. 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. Welcome back to the Grace Period. This is the final episode of season three of the Grace Period, so episode 40.
Speaker 1:I'm Emily. I am a commercial litigator and partner at Hush Blackwell, an Amlaw 100 firm. Today's episode is a continuation of last week's episode. We're talking about generative AI. Last week I talked about at a very high level what generative AI is and why you might want to care about it. Today I'm getting practical. I want to share how you can actually use these tools in your practice and how I use them in mine. So let's run through some real world use cases.
Speaker 1:First, drafting I actually don't use generative AI for drafting legal documents that often I'm still hesitant to give up the writing process wholesale to generative AI. Some of that's because I love writing and I think writing is uniquely and deeply personal and it's important that your writing reflects you and who you are, even your briefs and discovery requests. But I do like using it for ideation of drafts, and here's what I mean by that, and I talked a little bit about this first example. Last week I had a case where I needed to draft requests for production of documents and I was limited to 20 requests. So I told my firm's enterprise and proprietary AI meaning it protects attorney client privilege a little bit about the case and what I was looking to gather from discovery. I asked it to come up with 25 to 30 categories of documents, so more categories than I knew I was allowed to do in discovery. Why? Because I still want to choose what the categories are and it's easier to call back than to come up with more ideas. So it spit out 25 to 30 categories of documents and I use that as the foundation, as the idea for what my discovery request would be that I fully drafted myself. So think about it as if AI is getting you 70% of the way there and then you can focus on the details and the decisions and judgment and advocacy that really matters For those discovery requests. It took me 0.6 to draft them instead of probably a full hour or maybe 1.2 hours.
Speaker 1:You can also do the same with deposition outlines. Tell it who the witness is, tell it the purpose of the deposition. There are certain enterprise proprietary AI tools where you can upload documents and again it protects confidentiality and then it will spit back to you potential questions to ask that witness at a deposition. Now I don't use it to just spit out the deposition outline and then go from that. I use it as a starting point. Maybe I'm procrastinating, and it helps me get over that procrastination hump. Maybe I just don't know where to start, and it helps me get the ball rolling.
Speaker 1:Another great tool is deposition summaries. Now this is a place where AI is replacing associates. No one likes doing deposition summaries. Clients don't like paying for the time it takes to do them, so give that task to AI. Ai can condense the deposition transcript, summarize it, saving hours of time.
Speaker 1:I mentioned ideation. You can also think of that as brainstorming. You can have AI pretend to be opposing counsel and help you frame your argument, tell you the pros and cons of your argument. Have it pretend to be a judge at oral argument and it will outline or spot issues that maybe you've missed. Ai can generate task lists and project plans or even timelines for complex cases. I love a case calendar. Yes, I use my electronic calendar and I have all my deadlines docketed in my Outlook calendar, but I also like a paper calendar that shows sort of the overall big picture of what's coming down the pipe in a case, and AI can do that for you.
Speaker 1:We all also have opposing counsel or parties that grind our gears, that annoy us. So maybe you give AI the email and have it tone it down for you. Take a beat before you send that angry email. Or maybe you're uncomfortable being a little more aggressive. I was like that as a junior associate and you have it beef it up for you and make it a little more aggressive.
Speaker 1:One example that I love I'll give you two more is for all of the business development work we do outside of just the law in terms of business development, the more likely you'll be asked to be on a panel, to organize a panel or to be the one who asks the panels or one person, the questions. So at a panel or a fireside chat, we all ask the same questions over and over. There's very little creativity in this. So my favorite thing to do is to tell AI who the panelists are, their job titles, their ages, whatever's important about them, what the topic of the panel is, who's in the audience and what the overall tone of the meeting is. Is it professional, approachable, casual, a combination of all of that. And then I say I'm going to ask the panelists one to two questions each. Please create three to five questions for each panelist for my review. That way you have the starting point and every time I've done this and not told people that I've used the generative AI to do this. Everyone's obsessed with the questions. They think they're really great and creative a little outside of the box.
Speaker 1:I'm notoriously bad at coming up with titles for panels. Generative AI can do that for you. So again, those things where maybe it's not your strength or you don't have enough mental capacity to figure it out, in that moment, particularly ideation generative AI can get you over that hump. Writer's block is no longer a thing in my life. The other thing I love to have generative AI do is to pretend to be somebody. The other thing I love to have generative AI do is to pretend to be somebody.
Speaker 1:So I had a meet and confer with an opposing counsel coming up, and I've had a little bit of imposter syndrome. In this case, it's the first time I'm the lead partner on a complex matter and opposing counsel is probably 15 to 20 years my senior. So I described opposing counsel to generative AI. I told generative AI what we were going to be discussing on the call, and I asked generative AI to give me the strengths and weaknesses of my positions and how to combat the weaknesses if pointed out by opposing counsel. Generative AI is great at pretending to be people like that.
Speaker 1:Another tip is to tell generative AI ask me questions one at a time until you have enough understanding to produce the output that I'm asking you to make, and that way it learns more information and doesn't just assume what you want. And again, it's important to tell it to ask you questions one at a time, rather than spit out 10 questions and have you type in an essay answering all 10 of those questions. Again, I want to remind you, though if you're using just public chat GBT, claude Grok on Twitter or X that's not confidential, so you want to. If you're talking about firm matters or client matters, you want to keep it very high level, very vague and not disclose any confidential information. It would destroy attorney-client privilege, for example. If you're starting to explore legal specific things, you need to make sure you're on a closed universe that doesn't share your information with other sources.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're curious about AI, you should be cautious. But here's my advice Start small. Try using AI for non-client, non-confidential work at first. So organizing your to-do list, coming up with a meal plan. I've used it to talk through how to have a workout plan that supports my one to three time a week playing tennis. So cross training for tennis. I've talked to it about how I sometimes struggle to have discipline in my personal life, even though I'm extremely disciplined in my professional life, and what are some things I can try to hold myself more accountable outside of work.
Speaker 1:Next, never copy and paste an AI output into anything, or, if you do, into, like a Word document. You should 100% be reviewing it, updating it, making it your own and giving it your own voice. You need to also make sure that you're following any guidelines on AI use put down by the ABA, your state bar or your firm, and you need to stay curious. You must keep learning. This tech is evolving and it's evolving fast. That is why it's important to experiment in low stakes ways so that you stay up to date, but also get those reps in and practice with it.
Speaker 1:I talked a little bit about this last week, but I want to caution you again. Ai hallucinates. It makes things up. If it doesn't know the answer, it will guess. So, again, it is not a substitute for your legal judgment and it is not confidential. If you're using an open universe public platform like ChatGBT, so you should never, ever, ever, be putting sensitive or confidential client data into a public AI tool. Confidentiality is still a number one requirement in our profession and you need to keep that in mind at all times when interacting with generative AI.
Speaker 1:So, to sum it up, generative AI can truly be a game changer for efficiency, getting over procrastination or writer's block, boosting your organization and creating space in your day for other, deeper, more critical thinking, more strategic work. So start small, stay curious and remember these tools are here to help you do your best work. They are not here to replace you, your assistant, your paralegal, your colleagues or your associates. If you have good case uses on how you've been using AI, please reach out and share them. I love hearing all the creative ways that people are using AI to boost their practice, boost their professional brand, boost their life outside of work. You name it, I want to hear it. Thank you for joining me on this episode of the Grace Period. I hope this discussion has provided some insights on practical uses for generative AI.
Speaker 1:As an attorney, 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.
