If you haven't interacted with GenAI in some form during your legal research and writing, you more than likely will soon. GenAI has quickly taken the world by storm since ChatGPT's release in November 2022 and is expected to impact nearly every global industry in some way, shape, or form.
According to ChatGPT, these are the top 5 reasons why legal professionals should care about using GenAI in their research and writing:
It's important to remember that while GenAI tools can be helpful and streamline your research and writing, they should primarily be used as a starting point for research and writing, or at the very least complement your research and writing process. They are not, and should not be thought of as being, 1:1 with established research tools.
Most GenAI tools were trained on a large variety of internet data, and while some of that data certainly included legal knowledge these tools were not specifically trained for legal purposes, and as such struggle with complex legal work and sourcing accurate citations. GenAI for legal purposes can be best thought of as a type of secondary source: they can help jumpstart your research/writing, point you towards sources that may be relevant to your work, and aid you in crafting professional and compelling legal documents.
The rest of this section will focus on listing common tasks ChatGPT, or any other GenAI text model, can help you with during your research and writing. It draws substantial inspiration from Joe Regalia's "ChatGPT and Legal Writing: A Perfect Union?" – a resource that I strongly recommend you read – and incorporates specific examples generated by GPT.
The following examples are not intended to be exhaustive of GenAI's uses in legal research and writing. Instead, they should be used as inspiration for the multitude of ways powerful GenAI tools can streamline and/or aid your research and writing endeavors. All examples are currently taken from ChatGPT, with other GenAI models to come.
Reminder: While this guide primarily focuses on how to use ChatGPT for research and writing, its guidance applies to a majority of text-based GenAI tools.
ChatGPT (GPT) can help improve clarity and simplicity when discussing complex legal problems, providing plain language alternatives and explanations to help make legal writings more accessible to wider audiences. It can also help writers reduce the wordiness in their writing, helping the writer form concise examples and explanations of complicated legal concepts. Similarly, it can improve a user's writing by suggesting alternative verb usage or rephrasing text to adjust for the tone, and more.
It's important to remember that while GPT can be a valuable tool for improving your writing style, it should complement, not replace, your own expertise and writing style.
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Examples: Prompt 1: Pick better verbs in this sentence to convey [emotion or imagery]: [text to be improved] Prompt 2: Rewrite this paragraph to be more concise and cohesive in its transitions: [text to be improved] Prompt 3: Paraphrase this quote: [quotation] |
GPT can be highly useful in quickly summarizing legal documents/texts like cases, briefs, motions, statutes, and more to help you quickly find the major points and topics of the text. However, its effectiveness depends on various factors, such as the complexity of the text provided, the quality of your input, and any specific requirements you may have for the summary.
GPT is excellent at summarizing relatively straightforward documents/texts like statutes and regulations, but more complex documents like court opinions with complex judicial reasoning are at higher risk of generating a hallucination.
When asked to summarize 16 USCS § 1538, GPT said the following:
Similarly, when asked to summarize 16 USCS § 1538, Copilot* said the following:
*The conversation style for this answer was set to "more balanced." View the more detailed "more precise" style summary here.*
Remember: always be sure to practice due diligence by checking the GPT's summaries with the actual text provided to ensure their accuracy – especially in situations where precision and accuracy are paramount!
GPT is excellent in aiding creative endeavors, but the more creative you ask it to be, the less trustworthy any facts or data it gives you are. As Regalio puts it, think of GPT as more of a "muse" than an actual writer when brainstorming ideas and more. Additionally, it can act as a starting point for brainstorming specific content you may want to include in your work or act as a reminder of the kinds of content/questions/topics you should be thinking about.
For example:
In general, one of the hardest parts about writing is often starting your writing. While GPT isn't great at providing legal facts (yet, at least), it excels at providing a quick outline for a motion, starter text for formal sections like procedural standards, or basic templates for documents you've never written before.
According to GPT, some of the ways it can help in this effort include:
Please see the "Sample Contract, Pleading, & Motion" tab for examples of drafting different legal documents with GPT (with more to come!).
When working with data, numbers, or other classifiable sets of information, GPT is great at organizing, classifying, and summarizing everything. As always, due diligence must be taken to double-check that its information is correct, but this use of GPT or any other GenAI can save a significant amount of time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Be sure that your data is structured and well-defined to limit potential inaccuracies in the chatbot's response.
GPT is excellent at translating text because the task is well-defined and doesn't require dealing with facts. If you encounter text in a different language or need to translate your text to a different language, GPT can be a helpful resource.
Regarding GPT's accuracy in translation, it's been shown to perform relatively the same as Google Translate. When using any online translation tool, it's important to remember that the tool, even if it's an LLM, often does not understand the context of the words being translated, nor does it understand common colloquialisms from a given language
Outside of translating text from one language to another, GPT can also be used to simplify complex concepts or terminology so they are easier understood, and can even provide tips on how you can explain it well to others
When asked to explain the Eggshell Skull Rule in plain language, GPT said the following:
Similarly, Copilot* said:
*Please note that the conversational style was set to "more balanced" for this answer*
GPT shouldn't be relied on for critical facts in complex cases/opinions/etc., but it is useful for simple factual research that can easily be compared to the original document. For example, GPT can save a lot of time searching for legislative changes, especially older legislation, highlighting the most significant changes to various acts over the years.
When asked to track the changes in the Americans with Disabilities Act 1990, GPT responded:
It's important to remember that GenAI tools won't always give you your desired response on the first try; it's a continual process of refinement and prompt engineering. The outputs generated by GenAI can vary due to factors like your input prompt, the model version, and inherent randomness in the generation process. GenAI offers near-unlimited possibilities, but achieving your desired response often requires extensive experimentation and guidance.
Users need to be actively engaged in the creative and iterative process of interaction and prompt engineering to harness the full potential of these tools. If you find the AI output lacks the necessary level of detail, you can request the AI to expand on its response by specifying the additional information needed. Conversely, if the AI's response is overly verbose, you can ask it to condense its response into a summarized output using bullet points of a preferred level of brevity.
And remember: ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR FACTS AND CITATIONS!