April 21, 2025 • 34 mins
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast! We're celebrating our milestone 500th episode by looking to the future and how incoming AI tools might reshape legal education and practice. Thank you for listening!
In this episode we discuss:
- AI in legal education
- AI as an assistive tool for students with ADHD
- AI in legal practice
- Preparing for an AI-augmented career
- Ethical considerations when it comes to using AI
Resources
- CareerDicta (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/careerdicta/)
- Podcast Episode 430: The Paxton AI Founders Talk About Their AI Legal Assistant (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-430-the-paxtonai-founders-talk-about-their-ai-legal-assistant/)
- Podcast Episode 441: Exploring the Impact of AI on the Legal Profession (w/Gabe Teninbaum) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-441-exploring-the-impact-of-ai-on-the-legal-profession-w-gabe-teninbaum/)
- Podcast Episode 449: Implications of AI for the Legal Profession (w/Kevin Surace) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-449-implications-of-ai-for-the-legal-profession-w-kevin-surace/)
- Podcast Episode 480: Ethical Uses of AI in Law School (w/Professor Susan Tanner) (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/podcast-episode-480-ethical-uses-of-ai-in-law-school-w-professor-susan-tanner/)
Download the Transcript
(https://lawschooltoolbox.com/episode-500-the-next-generation-of-legal-careers-how-ai-is-reshaping-legal-education-and-practice/)
If you enjoy the podcast, we'd love a nice review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/law-school-toolbox-podcast/id1027603976) or your favorite listening app. And feel free to reach out to us directly. You can always reach us via the contact form on the Law School Toolbox website (http://lawschooltoolbox.com/contact). If you're concerned about the bar exam, check out our sister site, the Bar Exam Toolbox (http://barexamtoolbox.com/). You can also sign up for our weekly podcast newsletter (https://lawschooltoolbox.com/get-law-school-podcast-updates/) to make sure you never miss an episode!
Thanks for listening!
Alison & Lee
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alison Monahan (00:01):
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast.
Today, we're excited to behere for our 500th episode.
We're looking to the future andtalking about how AI might reshape
legal education and practice.
Your Law School Toolbox hosts are AlisonMonahan, that's me, and Lee Burgess.
We're here to demystify the law schooland early legal career experience,
(00:22):
so that you'll be the best lawstudent and lawyer you can be.
Together, we're the co-creators of the LawSchool Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and
the career-related website CareerDicta.
I also run The Girl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, pleaseleave a review or rating on
your favorite listening app.
And if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out to us.
You can always reach us via thecontact form on LawSchoolToolbox.com,
(00:44):
and we would love to hear from you.
And you can check out the Bar Exam Toolboxpodcast if the bar exam is on your radar.
And with that, let's get started.
Lee Burgess (01:00):
Welcome back.
Today we're looking to the future andtalking about how AI might reshape
the legal education and practice.
And this is our 500th episode.
How is that even possible?
Alison Monahan (01:14):
Crazy!
Lee Burgess (01:15):
I don't even want to count how many hours that means
I've talked into podcast recordings.
Alison Monahan (01:21):
Alright, everybody.
Well, if you have been under a rockfor the last several years, maybe
you haven't heard of Gen AI, buteverybody else is probably familiar
with ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, allthese tools that are definitely going
to be influencing the legal profession.
So, today we want to talk a little bitabout that, about how you might see them
in legal education, how that might behelpful for you, particularly if maybe you
(01:44):
have ADHD or something like that, and alsotalk a little bit about legal practice and
what you might be seeing in the workplace.
So Lee, I don't know.
What do you think?
Is AI going to transform everything?
Lee Burgess (01:57):
Well, I was pretty scared of AI.
I mean, you were talking about it prettyearly on, and I was definitely someone
who was like, "I am not touching thisChatGPT nonsense." I was very much
not into it, and I'm a full convert.
I mean, some of it's still veryintimidating, and maybe the computers will
take over the world, but I am startingto see the ways that it can benefit us.
(02:18):
We use it in our professionallife, I'm seeing how students are
using it, and I think it's veryinteresting what it has the capacity
to do in the legal profession.
So I'm excited to be talking aboutthis, but if anyone is still a little
freaked out by AI, I get it, becauseI was there maybe a year ago when
I think I had logged into nothing.
Alison Monahan (02:39):
Yeah, I think that's true.
I was like, "Have you never used Claude?
I'll show you Claude." And you were like,"I don't know." And then within about
30 minutes, you're like, "Wow, this isactually really helpful." Obviously, it's
not going to replace legal reasoning,it's not going to replace studying.
I think sometimes people have the ideathat you can just outsource all of your
case reading and briefing to an AI.
And it's like, that's notreally the point of law school.
(03:00):
But I think we're at the verybeginning stages of really a research
revolution in legal research.
So, if that's not something that peoplehave come across yet in school, I think
that's something you want to be aware of.
I also think AI has a lot of options thatcan help you with your study materials,
like generating practice questions,multiple choice, that kind of thing.
(03:21):
So I think it's interesting to kindof think through, what is even the
role of a lawyer or the role of lawschool in this changing timeframe.
And I don't think it's necessarily a hugeshift, but I think there are ways you
can probably be efficient as a student.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (03:36):
I think one of the interesting things too is, as this
technology is changing so fast, sometimesit can seem incredibly powerful,
and then I'm always surprised whenit does something completely wrong.
Where you're
Alison Monahan (03:48):
like, "Huh, that seems pretty obvious."
Lee Burgess (03:50):
Yeah, because the thing about the generative
AI is it's confidently wrong.
It will provide you quotes that are wrong,it will provide you law that is wrong.
It is just able to be wrong anddoesn't know that it's wrong or
doesn't tell you that it's wrong.
And so, I think that, as we think abouthow it is going to benefit students and
(04:12):
the legal profession, I still find itinteresting where we find its limitations
and where it becomes a powerful tool.
And so, if you are listening to thisand you're thinking, "I have also not
logged into one of these generativeAI apps or websites" - I get that.
But when you do start interactingwith it, just remember that it
(04:33):
is a bit of a flawed system.
Alison Monahan (04:35):
Right.
And I think that's across the board.
I've definitely had it generate somequestions and answers in a legal context
where it just confused the defendant andthe plaintiff or something like that.
I was studying for a different type ofexam and I asked it for some stuff, and
it just confidently made some things up.
And I told it it was wrong and itsaid, "Oh, sorry, you're right.
I'm wrong." And then it confidentlymade up something totally different
(04:58):
that was also totally wrong.
So, I think some of this is justunderstanding this is not like a magic
thing that you could just put stuff into.
It's great at things like summarizingor giving things in a different tone.
If you have something really lengthythat you're interested in, just
getting a bullet point summary of.
Things like that, totally amazing.
(05:18):
But if you ask it to actually draftyour legal writing memo, A) probably
not ethically appropriate, and B) alsoprobably not going to work all that well.
Lee Burgess (05:29):
Yeah.
I think it's also interesting touse it to look for inconsistencies
that is one way that I have used it.
I have fed it long documents andsaid, "Please find anything that
seems inconsistent." And it canquickly find things like that.
Somebody mentions that they'll followup with something later and they never
do - well, the AI can catch that.
Whereas a human might catch thatif you're reading pretty carefully,
(05:51):
but you may or may not catch that.
I think that's powerful.
It can find patterns.
Like you said, it can summarize.
So, when I think about it in the legalcontext, to me, I think, "Well, we
know that it can't be a lawyer yet."We know it can't be a doctor, right?
Even though they're having someinteresting use cases of it being able
(06:12):
to compare it a lot of data, right?
I think we've talked about using AIto do breast cancer screening and
the accuracy, because it can justlook at all sorts of data really
quickly and identify things that maybehumans wouldn't necessarily identify.
fascinating stuff, but it's still nota doctor that can interact with you.
And I think the legalcontext in the same thing.
(06:34):
It may be able to cut out some of thebusy work that lawyers do, but in the
end, at least yet, it is not a lawyer.
Alison Monahan (06:41):
Right.
And I do think it's potentially useful forbrainstorming ideas and things like that.
But ultimately, as an attorney or assomeone who is aspiring to be an attorney,
you are still employing your judgment asa person to decide, "Is that a good idea?
Does that make sense?
Would this be a good argument to make?"Not just blindly following what this
machine spits back to you and says veryconfidently, "This is the correct answer."
Lee Burgess (07:06):
Yeah.
But I think it is interesting.
We talked about brainstorming, howyou can have kind of an ongoing
iterative discussion with the AI.
We do this with Claude.
Claude is one of our favorites.
And I was asking for somebrainstorming on something.
And you can continue to ask it to drilldown, and then you will find its limits.
(07:27):
But sometimes you can get some goodcontent out of there, but you will
say, "Oh, this is getting repetitive."I think because it's so confident,
you sometimes forget until you diveinto it, that some of it is wrong or
repetitive, or it's just making things up.
Alison Monahan (07:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
I do think one of the things we'vebeen kind of looking at and exploring
is how some of these tools orconcepts even can be interesting
for students who might have ADHD.
So, a lot of the students we work withhave ADHD, a lot of students in law school
have ADHD, and this comes with specialparticular challenges around executive
functioning like organization, planning.
(08:06):
And I've seen some really interestingand pretty powerful tools in this
context where it'll help you sort ofbreak down the steps of something.
And I feel like that couldbe really useful for someone
who's feeling overwhelmed.
Maybe you're facing an open universe memothat you're drafting and you're just not
really sure how to get started on it.
(08:27):
So, I've seen someinteresting stuff there.
Lee Burgess (08:29):
Yeah.
I follow Instagram folks who talk aboutthis stuff, because that's how cool I am.
That's what's on my Instagramfeed, in case you were wondering.
But I was reading something on Instagramwhere they were talking about this
too - really focusing on using AI tohelp you make a to-do list, a task
list, and even help you prioritize tosay, "Here's my to-do list. How would
(08:50):
you recommend that I prioritize?"These kind of fundamental things that
can be roadblocks to folks with ADHD.
How can I schedule my eight hoursof work time today with breaks?
What are optimal times for these tasks?
I think that for folks with ADHD forwhom the planning is the stumbling block,
it can just give you a plan to startwith, and then you're editing something.
(09:12):
So I do think that can be really helpful,although I think there is the risk that
you go down a rabbit hole and you spenda ton of time messing with the AI to
perfect a schedule when you could havespent 20 minutes doing some other task.
Like most things, therecan be another side to it.
But it can help you make a studyschedule, it could help you suggest a
calendar, it could break down complexassignments, it could give you suggestions
(09:36):
on how to set deadlines for yourself.
It is a different kind of a taskmaster,but I think you have to understand
what it's doing when you ask itthose questions, because I think
sometimes it's not like they'regoing to give you the ideal schedule.
There's that other thing going aroundon social media - it's like, "Ask
ChatGPT for the most productiveday for someone who wants to be
(09:57):
a CEO." Have you seen this stuff?
No.
ask it Well, see, your Instagramfeed is different than mine.
But people will say, "Just tell mewhat I have to do every day to get to
some goal." And it will just give yousomething, and people are like, "Wow!"
So I went on and I was like, "Tell me howto pass the bar." And it had some okay
suggestions, but it wasn't life-changing.
(10:18):
But I think sometimes people justneed something to start with.
And if you want this to be a catalystto you actually doing the work, then
I think that can be really helpful.
Alison Monahan (10:27):
Right.
I think sometimes it's just that whitepage, blank page problem of like, "Okay,
I have all this stuff to do, I don'treally know where to get started on it."
You can have an endless conversation withClaude or ChatGPT or your favorite AI
about how you should structure your day.
But again, I do think also, likeyou said, you want to make sure
you're not spending all of your timechatting with your new virtual friend,
(10:50):
versus actually doing the work.
I'm imagining if I need to find anote topic or something, it could help
me brainstorm that, and maybe if Ihave a bunch of articles, potentially
summarize some of them for me.
I mean, at some point, if they becomerelevant, you're probably going to
actually need to read them yourself.
I think we've all saved a bunch of casesor printed out a bunch of stuff and
then found out 80% of it was basicallyirrelevant and was a total waste of time.
(11:13):
So, you could probably get throughsome of that faster if you had some
of these tools working for you.
Lee Burgess (11:18):
That's true.
I think you could also now use someof the tools within the tools - for
instance, Claude has the ability tocreate projects, where you can feed it
a lot of material and create a project.
So if I was brainstorming a note, andlet's say I was going to write the note on
- well, I'll just do what I wrote my notethat didn't get published on - Physician
(11:40):
Assisted Suicide for Alzheimer's Patients.
That was my very light topicthat I ended up not publishing.
So, if that's my topic, you have allof this stuff and you could then give
it 30 articles or whatever and say,"I'm looking for some themes, or what
are some open questions, or what arepeople talking about the future?" And
I think it could go through that dataset and help you brainstorm from that.
(12:02):
I think that be really powerful.
I remember looking for paper and notetopics, and sometimes it was really a
frustrating thing where you're just tryingto find circuit splits or you're trying
to find somewhere that there's some space.
And I think that you could usethese tools pretty effectively to
look for those patterns or look forthose holes that maybe sometimes
are hard to find on your own.
Alison Monahan (12:23):
No, I think that's right.
And somebody might be listening tothis thing saying, "Oh, that sounds
kind of like cheating." Obviously youwant to find out what your professor
is comfortable with you doing, but Ido think that sort of thing is actually
really useful when you think abouthow these tools are going to be used
in practice, because the reality is,lawyers are expensive, they typically
bill by the hour, and clients don'tnecessarily want to pay as much as they're
(12:45):
paying for certain qualities of work.
So I think, in practice, if you'rethinking, "How are these going to be
used?", I think as a law student, you needto be kind of understanding, "This is what
I might be expected to do." I would bekind of shocked if the average first-year
is now still drafting discovery responses.
That, to me, seems like somethingthat if firms are not having an AI
(13:08):
assistant deal with them... Again,obviously somebody has to look at it.
I mean, I remember draftingdiscovery responses.
They just were like, "Here's ourstandard template of responses to these
standard questions." And maybe out of50 requests, there would be like two
that we needed to really think about.
I mean, it was pretty rote.
Lee Burgess (13:24):
Yeah.
I think it's also important toremember that firms have been
using kind of generative softwarefor a while, for things wills and
trusts, and I bet in family law.
There are just some programs that havebeen out there a while that I think AI
may make it faster and easier to use.
(13:45):
But I do think that for law students,you don't always have a lot of visibility
into what's happening in the workplace.
I mean, discovery responses - you'renot seeing that in school.
Alison Monahan (13:55):
No, no.
Lee Burgess (13:57):
All of that, right?
Motions in limine, all of that stuff.
It wasn't until I got to my deskand they're like, "Do this", you're
like, "I don't know what that is."
Alison Monahan (14:03):
Right, like, "I'm sorry, how do I respond to these?"
And they're like, "Oh, here's thedocument, the template that shows
you how to respond to these."
Lee Burgess (14:11):
Cool.
And you're like, "Thanks, thanks."So, are there systems in place that
are going to make that easier, andsome of them going to be AI-powered?
Of course.
But I think that it may not inpractice feel as far away as what
some attorneys are doing now, becausethere has been a lot of streamlining.
There's been streamlining arounddocument review, and a lot of stuff
(14:32):
has changed over the last decade plus.
And firms are using technologyto be more efficient.
Even when you think about AInote-takers, that's something else
that we're seeing in legal meetings,which is creating documentation, it's
speeding up the ability of probablyparalegals and other assistants to
follow up with folks and keep records.
(14:53):
I mean, there's a lot of stuff thateveryone's adopting really fast, but I
think that's partly because it's justnot that different from some of the
stuff that they were already doing.
Alison Monahan (15:00):
Right.
I mean, you can imagine a stenographersitting in court or in a meeting
- that's been going on for generations.
It's just now an AI is taking the notesfor you summarizing them really fast.
So yeah, I think there're someinteresting things going on
around case strategy and analysis.
Some of this has beengoing on for a while.
I can remember 10 or 15 years ago,there were people who were starting
(15:21):
to look at how judges were behavingaround very granular types of things.
So, do they tend to grant certaintypes of motions or something not
just how was the case decided,but on a pretty granular level.
And I think that has increased a lot.
And just in this analysis piece of, ifyou can look at the entire universe of
stuff, maybe you can get a better senseof what you're really dealing with.
(15:43):
So, I think a lot of this is pretty on thecutting edge still, but I think there are
a lot of things around that that just givepeople more visibility into more data.
You could argue whether this is a goodor a bad thing or useful or not useful,
but I think it kind of is what it is.
Lee Burgess (15:59):
And I think if you think about commercial litigation, which
both of you and I did, back in theday, the idea was that you could just
drown someone in paperwork, right?
You could drown somebody
in documents.
I'm sure you sat in rooms whereyou were all supposed go through
documents as fast as you could.
There was a lot of that manpower.
And now if you're just looking forcertain things, computers are going
(16:23):
to be able to do that for you at amuch more efficient pace than lawyers
will do it, and also much cheaper.
And so, I think also it's going tolighten this load of how we litigate,
because just burying people in paperworkisn't going to quite work same anymore.
You think about movies and TV showswhere they start unloading the boxes
of discovery (16:41):
"Here it comes", and then they're like, "No, the corporation is
filling our small practice with allthese boxes and we're never going to
be able to get through it." And nowthe machine's going to do, right?
It's going to be different.
Alison Monahan (16:54):
Right.
I think that's a potential leveler too.
If people are thinking like, "Well, Idon't really either want BigLaw, or BigLaw
is not feasible for me" if you learn howto use these tools or even develop some
of your own or whatnot, you can actuallycompete on a more level playing field
with people who are not moving so quickly.
And the same thing with the researchtools that are coming on board.
We've talked to Paxton AIbefore, super interesting stuff.
(17:15):
And a lot of it, as a law student,you can just get exposure to and kind
of play with and see what it does.
And they're moving so quickly thateven in a couple of years, they'll be
far more advanced than they are now.
But I think the more you can doit as a student to get exposure
to that, probably the better.
Lee Burgess (17:30):
Yeah.
I also think around client management,there are a lot of opportunities.
There are a lot of projectmanagement systems that have
come out in this new AI realm.
But you think about client managementsystems, for those who haven't really
thought about it, when you havea bunch of clients, you have all
this information, you're requiredto keep all this information.
Alison Monahan (17:46):
You've got conflicts, all this stuff.
Lee Burgess (17:48):
You've got conflicts and client trust accounts and money,
and you also have intakes and you allthese different people communicating
with the client, and how are yougoing to track all of that stuff?
It's not just in your email.
And AI is going to not only help withthat, but probably prompt follow-ups,
if you haven't heard from someone.
Folks we know that have been using someof this AI-powered project management
software, that's a lot of what theyappreciate, is that the software says,
(18:10):
"It's been six weeks since you talked toso and so. Have you reached out again?" Or
it automatically sends the email to justsay it's time to set up the next meeting.
And how that's going to be linkedto the notes that are being
taken, those automatic AI notes.
How do we capture what's in those?
So, I think it is veryinteresting when you think about
it from a business perspective.
(18:31):
I think a lot is changing, but I thinkthat it's going to allow smaller firms
to be able to manage things a lot better,because they're going to have this data.
Back in the olden days of yore, when Iwas working in political public relations,
one of the things my boss made me do waskeep file folders when I was communicating
with different press outlets.
(18:52):
One of my jobs was to call thepress and try and get our stories
planned, and da da da da da.
But she called it the"hit by the bus" plan.
I like to say "abducted byaliens", because I feel like it's
little less gory, but dramatic.
But she was like, "If you get hit bya bus, I need to be able to walk on to
your desk and pick up the SacramentoBee folder and know exactly who you've
(19:14):
been talking to." I had to take notesevery time that I met with somebody.
And it was a pretty great system, in thesense that she's like, "I just know I can
pick it up and take ownership over it."And I think that with more technology
in law firms, you're going to see alot more of that, except it's not a
file folder just going be fingertips.
But you're going to have meeting notesand all this data, and if your attorney
(19:37):
is not available, someone else can justpick up that electronic file and jump in.
And I think that's goingto be a powerful thing.
Alison Monahan (19:44):
Yeah.
I'm thinking of a situation thatsomebody I know who's a public defender
was telling me about, where she had alot of clients in jail and apparently
they're supposed to release the jailhouserecordings that they have, but they
always did it at the very last second.
The day before they're supposed to bein court, she's like, "This is like
hundreds of hours, what are we supposedto do?" Poof, not a problem now.
(20:06):
You can just upload thosefiles in probably minutes.
You can have an exact transcriptif you want the transcript.
You can have comments, you could havebullet points, anything that seems weird.
Whatever you want, basically.
Lee Burgess (20:18):
You could search for vocabulary or names.
Alison Monahan (20:21):
Exactly, like "Tell me if they were talking about anything
that seems weird." Whatever, Idon't know what's in these tapes.
I've never listened to them, butapparently it's usually the sort of
thing where it's 100 hours and there'relike a couple of minutes that are
actually really important, but youdon't know where those minutes are.
So, stuff like that, the needle ina haystack type of stuff, I think is
(20:41):
an absolutely perfect use of an AI.
Lee Burgess (20:43):
Yeah.
But what I don't think AI is goingto replace anytime soon is what it
is to be a lawyer interacting withclients and managing crises, which
is basically what lawyers generallyspeaking, even if you're transactional.
It's maybe not a fire drill typecrisis, but there's some sort
(21:03):
of big thing happening, right?
You don't call a lawyer unless something'seither wrong or you're trying to
prevent something from going wrong.
Those are really your two scenarios.
And I do think that thoserules are still going to exist.
People will still want advice.
It's not like lawyers are goingto disappear, but you do need
to be willing to be savvy.
And I think one of the things that,if you take nothing else from this
(21:26):
podcast, is, don't be like I was a yearago and just say, "This stuff scares
me, I don't want to interact withit", because you dragged me into this.
And now I'm all in.
Alison Monahan (21:36):
Now you're always like, "Oh, I found this amazing use
case." And I'm like, "Oh, great.
That's fantastic, Lee." I'm gladyou're really into Claude now.
That's great.
Exactly, I know.
But I do think that you have to somewhatget over your own mixed feelings about
it, or this intimidation factor, andjust start to play with it, because it
is going to help you in practice of law.
(21:57):
And I'm sure that they're startingto talk about things like this in
interviews and things like that.
So, you don't want to get an interviewquestion about using any of of
these kind of futuristic tools andthen saying, "Oh, I'm not really
into technology." Right, yeah.
And lawyers necessarily known as thebiggest technologists of any profession.
But I think that you've gotto get up to speed on this.
I mean, anyone who's a knowledge worker- which lawyers definitely are dealing with
(22:20):
reading and writing and information aregoing to be massively impacted by this.
I think that's just the reality.
But I do think that what you saidearlier, about we still need judgment
and humans, and that human relationshippiece actually becomes even more critical.
So, if a client is in a crisis situationand you're like, "Oh well, I went to
ChatGPT and it told me this" that'sprobably not really going to fly.
(22:43):
They need empathy, they need hand-holding,they need you to be supportive - whatever
it is that they're hiring you to do,along with the legal aspect of it.
So, I think there's still alot of human work to be done.
And even just learning how to learn andthat sort of thing, being self-directed
in your learning and learning abouttools like this, and just being able to
(23:05):
use them creatively, I think is going tobe such a big piece of adapting to this
new world and being successful in it.
Yeah,
Lee Burgess (23:14):
I know.
When people suggest that AI isgoing to replace all people...
I was just in my car, and likemost people, my car has Siri.
I don't like to talk to Siri, butI do like it when Siri reads me
text messages while I'm driving.
But the new Siri update, itspeaks with much more inflection.
And so, my husband texts me back and itwas like, "Nice!" And I'm like, "What?" My
(23:40):
son was home sick from school and it wasmore like, "He hasn't thrown up", and it
was like, "Nice!" And I'm like, "That'sodd." It felt odd to me in the car.
It felt like Siri was overstepping.
Its purpose was to just, without toomuch emotion, read me the text message.
I wasn't having a conversationwith the talking AI.
So, I do think that there are thesethings where I'm like, "I'm not
(24:04):
calling having a conversation withthis computer." Not when I'm in crisis.
That is not who I want to talk to.
We are a ways from that, because if thetext message reading annoys me, you know.
Alison Monahan (24:16):
Yeah.
I got a new iPhone and it made mepick which voice I wanted, but they
didn't have the old voice and theyall kind of sounded weird for a while.
But yeah, I think things like that, theysound silly, but that's the point, is,
we're as humans so conscious of nuancesin voice and things like that, that a
voice that talks like this is probablynot going to be something that people
(24:37):
want to listen to for legal advice.
Lee Burgess (24:39):
Or a voice that when you say, "Well, this really horrible
thing happened", and it's like,"Nice!" nobody wants to hear that.
"Oh no!
Alison Monahan (24:47):
Oopsie!" You're like, "What?" That's just off.
Lee Burgess (24:52):
It's off.
We're a ways away from that.
I'm just saying.
I take the self-driving Waymo carsin San Francisco, I'm fine with that.
But it's the communication stuff whereI'm like, "I can't." I will literally
let the computer drive me around, butI really don't want to talk to it.
Alison Monahan (25:06):
That's fair.
Lee Burgess (25:07):
That's fair.
Alison Monahan (25:09):
Yeah, and I think that does bring up this question of, what
should people be doing in law school?
And I think some of it ispaying attention to this, maybe
taking classes in it, whatnot.
But also, really developing thosepeople skills and your emotional
intelligence and things like that, Ithink are so important, and probably
even more important going forward.
Lee Burgess (25:26):
Yeah.
I also think, as you mentioned earlier,you have to be good at learning,
because I think that the changes intechnology and the ways that we move
within the world are at lightning speed.
I mean, much faster than it was forour parents, much faster than it was
even when we began practicing law.
(25:47):
How many years have we had an iPhone?
There was a time before the iPhone.
But when that came out,we all had Blackberries.
A lot of stuff has changed,but it's changing much faster.
And so, to be able to be nimble,I think, is something that you
really want to take to heart.
And that means that you have to notbe afraid of learning new things.
Try out these tools.
Try and at least understand what'shappening in the landscape so you
(26:10):
can dive in and learn them, becausea lot of people maybe at your
BigLaw firm aren't ready to do that.
Alison Monahan (26:17):
Yeah.
No, and I think that is kind of athroughline I found throughout legal
education and legal practice anddoing what we do now, is most lawyers
actually like to learn things, so Ithink people are pretty well situated.
I mean, they're not always into scienceand math and technology and that kind of
thing, but we are good at learning things.
That's what lawyers do.
If you're working on a case, it wasalways this situation of like, "Okay.
(26:41):
Now you need to get up to speed on thiswhole universe that you knew nothing
about yesterday. And we need you to bean expert within the most short period
of time possible." And so, I think thatis actually something that people are
good at, and I would lean into that.
Lee Burgess (26:57):
Yeah.
I remember going to of my first meetingsabout the first trial team that I was
placed on, and I'm sitting in this office,and the senior associate turns to me and
he says, "So, this is about welding rods.
Do you know what that is?" And I'm like,"No." And he's like, "Okay, I'll tell you
in two minutes, but you should go figureout what that is." And so I'm back at
(27:19):
my desk being like, "What is a weldingrod?" And then I spent a decent chunk
of time trying to understand it, so Icould go do the legal work associated
with it, because that's part of whatis - you have to figure out what you're
talking about, because it can comeat you in tons of different contexts.
Alison Monahan (27:37):
Yeah, I remember when I was at trial on a hardware case, and
another associate who was a friend ofmine came out of court one day and he's
like, "I finally think I understandelectricity. Our expert was like Mr.
Wizard out there!" We had to figureout how to present to a jury that had
no one who'd finished college, thisvery complicated case about... I don't
(28:01):
remember what exactly it was, but ithad to do with voltage regulators.
And to understand a voltage regulator, youhave to understand how electricity works.
So we had to find and coach thisexpert - who was some insane PhD, multi
PhD guy - how to convey this to a jury.
And it was very interesting,but that stuff's not easy.
Lee Burgess (28:21):
No.
I watched a patent trial on dialysismachines, and what they were fighting
over was the screen and the touch pador whatever of the dialysis machine.
And it was weeks of discussing that.
And I remember sitting in that placegoing, "I don't know that I follow
(28:42):
this, so I'm pretty sure that the juryis not following this", because taking
really complicated concepts and makingthem simple is very, very hard to do.
But I think that is somethingthat AI can help you out with.
Alison Monahan (28:54):
I was going to say, who might be good at that?
Our new friend Claude, I bet, couldtake this very complicated concept and
distill it down so that someone at maybea 7th grade level could understand it.
That sort of thing wouldactually be really useful.
Lee Burgess (29:10):
Yeah.
I think one of the things when youstart messing with these tools that
I have learned is you have to be veryspecific about what you want it to do.
So in that case, I think the mistakesI made in my early Claude use were,
I was not giving it enough direction.
It really wants to know, "I want youto do this, and I want it to be written
so someone with a 7th grade readinglevel can understand it. I want it to
(29:34):
be in this tone. This is the audience,this is the purpose of it." And the
more prompting you give it, the better.
I think the other thing law studentsneed to consider is, what are the
ethical ramifications of this?
When can you use it in a trial?
When can you use it ingenerating things for clients?
I've been doing my CLE, because it's mytime to turn in all my CLE, and I did
(29:58):
do a CLE on how to copyright work thatmay have been influenced by AI, which
was actually a fairly interesting CLE.
So, thanks to peoplewho put that together.
But these are things wehaven't really thought about.
And so, if you're not takingcopyright classes, you may
not be talking about that.
And if you're not talking about it, maybein your Ethics classes, you should ask.
(30:20):
Ask the professors, "This is coming upfor us. Who's talking about this? Who's
writing about it?" Or write a paper on it.
I
was going to say, greatLaw Review note topic.
Oh, that's a great newLaw Review note topic!
Yeah, ripe for discussion, right?
And it's a wild, wildwest out there, right?
We don't have a lot of precedent forwhat to do with all this technology.
(30:43):
So, it's a cutting edge time, butyou do want to make sure that you
are participating and not opting out.
Alison Monahan (30:51):
Yeah, and I think writing a note or a paper on some of
this would just be such a great wayto kind of dive into the material,
get familiar with it, use it.
Who's not going to ask you aboutthat if that's on your resume?
Lee Burgess (31:01):
Oh, totally, especially a law firm partner who might be in their
sixties who's like, "I don't even knowwhat some of this stuff really is",
unless they practice law in this area.
Yeah,
Alison Monahan (31:13):
I think that would actually be like a really great
option people, because everybody isgoing to want to talk about that.
And if you can talk about that in ameaningful, understandable type of way,
I think that might actually give youa really big leg up in the job market.
Lee Burgess (31:27):
Yeah, and then you could take that note and feed it to Claude and ask
it for some great LinkedIn posts about it.
Oh, yes, quoting directly from yourown piece, using as much language
that comes out of your own piece, soit is just pulling your own language.
Oh, very powerful stuff.
See, now everybody has their note topic.
You're welcome.
Alison Monahan (31:49):
Or at least an idea for notes, and you can go generate
some of those and brainstorm.
But yeah, even now we're actuallygetting excited about that, because
it's something we hadn't thought aboutprobably until that exact moment.
But you can take that and run with it,and I think it would be really useful.
Lee Burgess (32:02):
Yeah.
So, I know we're almost out of time, butI hope that what folks can get from this
is that although some of this AI stuffcan be scary and some of the headlines
around it are really intimidating thatyou will see in the news, when they
start talking about how it's going totake over the world - we have a while
until the computers take over the world.
And that may be true, but that'sa very, hopefully, far away time.
(32:24):
I try not to think about that stuff.
But I will say that sometimes when youread those things, it can feel like,
"Oh well, I shouldn't be interactingwith it at all." And I just think
that that's not a practical way toapproach the new frontier that is AI
and technology in the legal profession.
I think you want to participate,and just make sure that you're
ready to pivot and learn new things,because they're coming for you.
(32:48):
New things are coming for you.
Alison Monahan (32:50):
Absolutely.
I totally agree, and I think that the moreyou can get in there and play with it, the
better off you're probably going to be.
Lee Burgess (32:58):
Yeah.
Well, I would like to take one last secondbefore we wrap up and just thank everybody
for listening to 500 episodes of us.
Alison Monahan (33:06):
I don't think... I remember reminiscing earlier today in
my head, I think we had the idea forthis podcast in a bar with a friend
of ours who had an LSAT podcast.
I don't know why we were day drinkingwith this person, but for some
reason we were all day drinking.
Lee Burgess (33:20):
We were trying to record a podcast about it, I think.
Alison Monahan (33:22):
That's right, maybe that was the thing.
remember that was like, "Why werewe in the bar at like 2:00 in the
afternoon?" But he was like, "Youguys should really start a podcast."
And we took it and ran with it.
And here we are, 500 episodes later.
Lee Burgess (33:34):
And millions of downloads.
I mean, millions upon millions.
Yeah.
So, thank you all for listening.
It has been a great ride.
We love hearing from folksthat they listen to it.
It's pretty cool.
So, thanks for sharing your time with us.
We're glad you find it to be helpful.
And I hope that we're goingto continue talking about the
future of AI and technology.
(33:56):
And as I learn more exciting thingsfrom my friend Claude - who sometimes
I thank, which is also weird.
I was like, I shouldn'thave to thank the AI.
But I think it's fun to talk about.
So, I'm sure we'll keep talking about it.
Alison Monahan (34:10):
I agree.
If you enjoyed this episode of theLaw School Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you have any questions or comments,please don't hesitate to reach out to
Lee or Alison at lee@lawschooltoolbox.comor alison@lawschooltoolbox.com.
(34:31):
Or you can always contactus via our website contact
form at LawSchoolToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!
Welcome back to the Law School Toolbox podcast.
Today, we're excited to behere for our 500th episode.
We're looking to the future andtalking about how AI might reshape
legal education and practice.
Your Law School Toolbox hosts are AlisonMonahan, that's me, and Lee Burgess.
We're here to demystify the law schooland early legal career experience,
(00:22):
so that you'll be the best lawstudent and lawyer you can be.
Together, we're the co-creators of the LawSchool Toolbox, the Bar Exam Toolbox, and
the career-related website CareerDicta.
I also run The Girl's Guide to Law School.
If you enjoy the show, pleaseleave a review or rating on
your favorite listening app.
And if you have any questions,don't hesitate to reach out to us.
You can always reach us via thecontact form on LawSchoolToolbox.com,
(00:44):
and we would love to hear from you.
And you can check out the Bar Exam Toolboxpodcast if the bar exam is on your radar.
And with that, let's get started.
Lee Burgess (01:00):
Welcome back.
Today we're looking to the future andtalking about how AI might reshape
the legal education and practice.
And this is our 500th episode.
How is that even possible?
Alison Monahan (01:14):
Crazy!
Lee Burgess (01:15):
I don't even want to count how many hours that means
I've talked into podcast recordings.
Alison Monahan (01:21):
Alright, everybody.
Well, if you have been under a rockfor the last several years, maybe
you haven't heard of Gen AI, buteverybody else is probably familiar
with ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, allthese tools that are definitely going
to be influencing the legal profession.
So, today we want to talk a little bitabout that, about how you might see them
in legal education, how that might behelpful for you, particularly if maybe you
(01:44):
have ADHD or something like that, and alsotalk a little bit about legal practice and
what you might be seeing in the workplace.
So Lee, I don't know.
What do you think?
Is AI going to transform everything?
Lee Burgess (01:57):
Well, I was pretty scared of AI.
I mean, you were talking about it prettyearly on, and I was definitely someone
who was like, "I am not touching thisChatGPT nonsense." I was very much
not into it, and I'm a full convert.
I mean, some of it's still veryintimidating, and maybe the computers will
take over the world, but I am startingto see the ways that it can benefit us.
(02:18):
We use it in our professionallife, I'm seeing how students are
using it, and I think it's veryinteresting what it has the capacity
to do in the legal profession.
So I'm excited to be talking aboutthis, but if anyone is still a little
freaked out by AI, I get it, becauseI was there maybe a year ago when
I think I had logged into nothing.
Alison Monahan (02:39):
Yeah, I think that's true.
I was like, "Have you never used Claude?
I'll show you Claude." And you were like,"I don't know." And then within about
30 minutes, you're like, "Wow, this isactually really helpful." Obviously, it's
not going to replace legal reasoning,it's not going to replace studying.
I think sometimes people have the ideathat you can just outsource all of your
case reading and briefing to an AI.
And it's like, that's notreally the point of law school.
(03:00):
But I think we're at the verybeginning stages of really a research
revolution in legal research.
So, if that's not something that peoplehave come across yet in school, I think
that's something you want to be aware of.
I also think AI has a lot of options thatcan help you with your study materials,
like generating practice questions,multiple choice, that kind of thing.
(03:21):
So I think it's interesting to kindof think through, what is even the
role of a lawyer or the role of lawschool in this changing timeframe.
And I don't think it's necessarily a hugeshift, but I think there are ways you
can probably be efficient as a student.
Yeah.
Lee Burgess (03:36):
I think one of the interesting things too is, as this
technology is changing so fast, sometimesit can seem incredibly powerful,
and then I'm always surprised whenit does something completely wrong.
Where you're
Alison Monahan (03:48):
like, "Huh, that seems pretty obvious."
Lee Burgess (03:50):
Yeah, because the thing about the generative
AI is it's confidently wrong.
It will provide you quotes that are wrong,it will provide you law that is wrong.
It is just able to be wrong anddoesn't know that it's wrong or
doesn't tell you that it's wrong.
And so, I think that, as we think abouthow it is going to benefit students and
(04:12):
the legal profession, I still find itinteresting where we find its limitations
and where it becomes a powerful tool.
And so, if you are listening to thisand you're thinking, "I have also not
logged into one of these generativeAI apps or websites" - I get that.
But when you do start interactingwith it, just remember that it
(04:33):
is a bit of a flawed system.
Alison Monahan (04:35):
Right.
And I think that's across the board.
I've definitely had it generate somequestions and answers in a legal context
where it just confused the defendant andthe plaintiff or something like that.
I was studying for a different type ofexam and I asked it for some stuff, and
it just confidently made some things up.
And I told it it was wrong and itsaid, "Oh, sorry, you're right.
I'm wrong." And then it confidentlymade up something totally different
(04:58):
that was also totally wrong.
So, I think some of this is justunderstanding this is not like a magic
thing that you could just put stuff into.
It's great at things like summarizingor giving things in a different tone.
If you have something really lengthythat you're interested in, just
getting a bullet point summary of.
Things like that, totally amazing.
(05:18):
But if you ask it to actually draftyour legal writing memo, A) probably
not ethically appropriate, and B) alsoprobably not going to work all that well.
Lee Burgess (05:29):
Yeah.
I think it's also interesting touse it to look for inconsistencies
that is one way that I have used it.
I have fed it long documents andsaid, "Please find anything that
seems inconsistent." And it canquickly find things like that.
Somebody mentions that they'll followup with something later and they never
do - well, the AI can catch that.
Whereas a human might catch thatif you're reading pretty carefully,
(05:51):
but you may or may not catch that.
I think that's powerful.
It can find patterns.
Like you said, it can summarize.
So, when I think about it in the legalcontext, to me, I think, "Well, we
know that it can't be a lawyer yet."We know it can't be a doctor, right?
Even though they're having someinteresting use cases of it being able
(06:12):
to compare it a lot of data, right?
I think we've talked about using AIto do breast cancer screening and
the accuracy, because it can justlook at all sorts of data really
quickly and identify things that maybehumans wouldn't necessarily identify.
fascinating stuff, but it's still nota doctor that can interact with you.
And I think the legalcontext in the same thing.
(06:34):
It may be able to cut out some of thebusy work that lawyers do, but in the
end, at least yet, it is not a lawyer.
Alison Monahan (06:41):
Right.
And I do think it's potentially useful forbrainstorming ideas and things like that.
But ultimately, as an attorney or assomeone who is aspiring to be an attorney,
you are still employing your judgment asa person to decide, "Is that a good idea?
Does that make sense?
Would this be a good argument to make?"Not just blindly following what this
machine spits back to you and says veryconfidently, "This is the correct answer."
Lee Burgess (07:06):
Yeah.
But I think it is interesting.
We talked about brainstorming, howyou can have kind of an ongoing
iterative discussion with the AI.
We do this with Claude.
Claude is one of our favorites.
And I was asking for somebrainstorming on something.
And you can continue to ask it to drilldown, and then you will find its limits.
(07:27):
But sometimes you can get some goodcontent out of there, but you will
say, "Oh, this is getting repetitive."I think because it's so confident,
you sometimes forget until you diveinto it, that some of it is wrong or
repetitive, or it's just making things up.
Alison Monahan (07:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
I do think one of the things we'vebeen kind of looking at and exploring
is how some of these tools orconcepts even can be interesting
for students who might have ADHD.
So, a lot of the students we work withhave ADHD, a lot of students in law school
have ADHD, and this comes with specialparticular challenges around executive
functioning like organization, planning.
(08:06):
And I've seen some really interestingand pretty powerful tools in this
context where it'll help you sort ofbreak down the steps of something.
And I feel like that couldbe really useful for someone
who's feeling overwhelmed.
Maybe you're facing an open universe memothat you're drafting and you're just not
really sure how to get started on it.
(08:27):
So, I've seen someinteresting stuff there.
Lee Burgess (08:29):
Yeah.
I follow Instagram folks who talk aboutthis stuff, because that's how cool I am.
That's what's on my Instagramfeed, in case you were wondering.
But I was reading something on Instagramwhere they were talking about this
too - really focusing on using AI tohelp you make a to-do list, a task
list, and even help you prioritize tosay, "Here's my to-do list. How would
(08:50):
you recommend that I prioritize?"These kind of fundamental things that
can be roadblocks to folks with ADHD.
How can I schedule my eight hoursof work time today with breaks?
What are optimal times for these tasks?
I think that for folks with ADHD forwhom the planning is the stumbling block,
it can just give you a plan to startwith, and then you're editing something.
(09:12):
So I do think that can be really helpful,although I think there is the risk that
you go down a rabbit hole and you spenda ton of time messing with the AI to
perfect a schedule when you could havespent 20 minutes doing some other task.
Like most things, therecan be another side to it.
But it can help you make a studyschedule, it could help you suggest a
calendar, it could break down complexassignments, it could give you suggestions
(09:36):
on how to set deadlines for yourself.
It is a different kind of a taskmaster,but I think you have to understand
what it's doing when you ask itthose questions, because I think
sometimes it's not like they'regoing to give you the ideal schedule.
There's that other thing going aroundon social media - it's like, "Ask
ChatGPT for the most productiveday for someone who wants to be
(09:57):
a CEO." Have you seen this stuff?
No.
ask it Well, see, your Instagramfeed is different than mine.
But people will say, "Just tell mewhat I have to do every day to get to
some goal." And it will just give yousomething, and people are like, "Wow!"
So I went on and I was like, "Tell me howto pass the bar." And it had some okay
suggestions, but it wasn't life-changing.
(10:18):
But I think sometimes people justneed something to start with.
And if you want this to be a catalystto you actually doing the work, then
I think that can be really helpful.
Alison Monahan (10:27):
Right.
I think sometimes it's just that whitepage, blank page problem of like, "Okay,
I have all this stuff to do, I don'treally know where to get started on it."
You can have an endless conversation withClaude or ChatGPT or your favorite AI
about how you should structure your day.
But again, I do think also, likeyou said, you want to make sure
you're not spending all of your timechatting with your new virtual friend,
(10:50):
versus actually doing the work.
I'm imagining if I need to find anote topic or something, it could help
me brainstorm that, and maybe if Ihave a bunch of articles, potentially
summarize some of them for me.
I mean, at some point, if they becomerelevant, you're probably going to
actually need to read them yourself.
I think we've all saved a bunch of casesor printed out a bunch of stuff and
then found out 80% of it was basicallyirrelevant and was a total waste of time.
(11:13):
So, you could probably get throughsome of that faster if you had some
of these tools working for you.
Lee Burgess (11:18):
That's true.
I think you could also now use someof the tools within the tools - for
instance, Claude has the ability tocreate projects, where you can feed it
a lot of material and create a project.
So if I was brainstorming a note, andlet's say I was going to write the note on
- well, I'll just do what I wrote my notethat didn't get published on - Physician
(11:40):
Assisted Suicide for Alzheimer's Patients.
That was my very light topicthat I ended up not publishing.
So, if that's my topic, you have allof this stuff and you could then give
it 30 articles or whatever and say,"I'm looking for some themes, or what
are some open questions, or what arepeople talking about the future?" And
I think it could go through that dataset and help you brainstorm from that.
(12:02):
I think that be really powerful.
I remember looking for paper and notetopics, and sometimes it was really a
frustrating thing where you're just tryingto find circuit splits or you're trying
to find somewhere that there's some space.
And I think that you could usethese tools pretty effectively to
look for those patterns or look forthose holes that maybe sometimes
are hard to find on your own.
Alison Monahan (12:23):
No, I think that's right.
And somebody might be listening tothis thing saying, "Oh, that sounds
kind of like cheating." Obviously youwant to find out what your professor
is comfortable with you doing, but Ido think that sort of thing is actually
really useful when you think abouthow these tools are going to be used
in practice, because the reality is,lawyers are expensive, they typically
bill by the hour, and clients don'tnecessarily want to pay as much as they're
(12:45):
paying for certain qualities of work.
So I think, in practice, if you'rethinking, "How are these going to be
used?", I think as a law student, you needto be kind of understanding, "This is what
I might be expected to do." I would bekind of shocked if the average first-year
is now still drafting discovery responses.
That, to me, seems like somethingthat if firms are not having an AI
(13:08):
assistant deal with them... Again,obviously somebody has to look at it.
I mean, I remember draftingdiscovery responses.
They just were like, "Here's ourstandard template of responses to these
standard questions." And maybe out of50 requests, there would be like two
that we needed to really think about.
I mean, it was pretty rote.
Lee Burgess (13:24):
Yeah.
I think it's also important toremember that firms have been
using kind of generative softwarefor a while, for things wills and
trusts, and I bet in family law.
There are just some programs that havebeen out there a while that I think AI
may make it faster and easier to use.
(13:45):
But I do think that for law students,you don't always have a lot of visibility
into what's happening in the workplace.
I mean, discovery responses - you'renot seeing that in school.
Alison Monahan (13:55):
No, no.
Lee Burgess (13:57):
All of that, right?
Motions in limine, all of that stuff.
It wasn't until I got to my deskand they're like, "Do this", you're
like, "I don't know what that is."
Alison Monahan (14:03):
Right, like, "I'm sorry, how do I respond to these?"
And they're like, "Oh, here's thedocument, the template that shows
you how to respond to these."
Lee Burgess (14:11):
Cool.
And you're like, "Thanks, thanks."So, are there systems in place that
are going to make that easier, andsome of them going to be AI-powered?
Of course.
But I think that it may not inpractice feel as far away as what
some attorneys are doing now, becausethere has been a lot of streamlining.
There's been streamlining arounddocument review, and a lot of stuff
(14:32):
has changed over the last decade plus.
And firms are using technologyto be more efficient.
Even when you think about AInote-takers, that's something else
that we're seeing in legal meetings,which is creating documentation, it's
speeding up the ability of probablyparalegals and other assistants to
follow up with folks and keep records.
(14:53):
I mean, there's a lot of stuff thateveryone's adopting really fast, but I
think that's partly because it's justnot that different from some of the
stuff that they were already doing.
Alison Monahan (15:00):
Right.
I mean, you can imagine a stenographersitting in court or in a meeting
- that's been going on for generations.
It's just now an AI is taking the notesfor you summarizing them really fast.
So yeah, I think there're someinteresting things going on
around case strategy and analysis.
Some of this has beengoing on for a while.
I can remember 10 or 15 years ago,there were people who were starting
(15:21):
to look at how judges were behavingaround very granular types of things.
So, do they tend to grant certaintypes of motions or something not
just how was the case decided,but on a pretty granular level.
And I think that has increased a lot.
And just in this analysis piece of, ifyou can look at the entire universe of
stuff, maybe you can get a better senseof what you're really dealing with.
(15:43):
So, I think a lot of this is pretty on thecutting edge still, but I think there are
a lot of things around that that just givepeople more visibility into more data.
You could argue whether this is a goodor a bad thing or useful or not useful,
but I think it kind of is what it is.
Lee Burgess (15:59):
And I think if you think about commercial litigation, which
both of you and I did, back in theday, the idea was that you could just
drown someone in paperwork, right?
You could drown somebody
in documents.
I'm sure you sat in rooms whereyou were all supposed go through
documents as fast as you could.
There was a lot of that manpower.
And now if you're just looking forcertain things, computers are going
(16:23):
to be able to do that for you at amuch more efficient pace than lawyers
will do it, and also much cheaper.
And so, I think also it's going tolighten this load of how we litigate,
because just burying people in paperworkisn't going to quite work same anymore.
You think about movies and TV showswhere they start unloading the boxes
of discovery (16:41):
"Here it comes", and then they're like, "No, the corporation is
filling our small practice with allthese boxes and we're never going to
be able to get through it." And nowthe machine's going to do, right?
It's going to be different.
Alison Monahan (16:54):
Right.
I think that's a potential leveler too.
If people are thinking like, "Well, Idon't really either want BigLaw, or BigLaw
is not feasible for me" if you learn howto use these tools or even develop some
of your own or whatnot, you can actuallycompete on a more level playing field
with people who are not moving so quickly.
And the same thing with the researchtools that are coming on board.
We've talked to Paxton AIbefore, super interesting stuff.
(17:15):
And a lot of it, as a law student,you can just get exposure to and kind
of play with and see what it does.
And they're moving so quickly thateven in a couple of years, they'll be
far more advanced than they are now.
But I think the more you can doit as a student to get exposure
to that, probably the better.
Lee Burgess (17:30):
Yeah.
I also think around client management,there are a lot of opportunities.
There are a lot of projectmanagement systems that have
come out in this new AI realm.
But you think about client managementsystems, for those who haven't really
thought about it, when you havea bunch of clients, you have all
this information, you're requiredto keep all this information.
Alison Monahan (17:46):
You've got conflicts, all this stuff.
Lee Burgess (17:48):
You've got conflicts and client trust accounts and money,
and you also have intakes and you allthese different people communicating
with the client, and how are yougoing to track all of that stuff?
It's not just in your email.
And AI is going to not only help withthat, but probably prompt follow-ups,
if you haven't heard from someone.
Folks we know that have been using someof this AI-powered project management
software, that's a lot of what theyappreciate, is that the software says,
(18:10):
"It's been six weeks since you talked toso and so. Have you reached out again?" Or
it automatically sends the email to justsay it's time to set up the next meeting.
And how that's going to be linkedto the notes that are being
taken, those automatic AI notes.
How do we capture what's in those?
So, I think it is veryinteresting when you think about
it from a business perspective.
(18:31):
I think a lot is changing, but I thinkthat it's going to allow smaller firms
to be able to manage things a lot better,because they're going to have this data.
Back in the olden days of yore, when Iwas working in political public relations,
one of the things my boss made me do waskeep file folders when I was communicating
with different press outlets.
(18:52):
One of my jobs was to call thepress and try and get our stories
planned, and da da da da da.
But she called it the"hit by the bus" plan.
I like to say "abducted byaliens", because I feel like it's
little less gory, but dramatic.
But she was like, "If you get hit bya bus, I need to be able to walk on to
your desk and pick up the SacramentoBee folder and know exactly who you've
(19:14):
been talking to." I had to take notesevery time that I met with somebody.
And it was a pretty great system, in thesense that she's like, "I just know I can
pick it up and take ownership over it."And I think that with more technology
in law firms, you're going to see alot more of that, except it's not a
file folder just going be fingertips.
But you're going to have meeting notesand all this data, and if your attorney
(19:37):
is not available, someone else can justpick up that electronic file and jump in.
And I think that's goingto be a powerful thing.
Alison Monahan (19:44):
Yeah.
I'm thinking of a situation thatsomebody I know who's a public defender
was telling me about, where she had alot of clients in jail and apparently
they're supposed to release the jailhouserecordings that they have, but they
always did it at the very last second.
The day before they're supposed to bein court, she's like, "This is like
hundreds of hours, what are we supposedto do?" Poof, not a problem now.
(20:06):
You can just upload thosefiles in probably minutes.
You can have an exact transcriptif you want the transcript.
You can have comments, you could havebullet points, anything that seems weird.
Whatever you want, basically.
Lee Burgess (20:18):
You could search for vocabulary or names.
Alison Monahan (20:21):
Exactly, like "Tell me if they were talking about anything
that seems weird." Whatever, Idon't know what's in these tapes.
I've never listened to them, butapparently it's usually the sort of
thing where it's 100 hours and there'relike a couple of minutes that are
actually really important, but youdon't know where those minutes are.
So, stuff like that, the needle ina haystack type of stuff, I think is
(20:41):
an absolutely perfect use of an AI.
Lee Burgess (20:43):
Yeah.
But what I don't think AI is goingto replace anytime soon is what it
is to be a lawyer interacting withclients and managing crises, which
is basically what lawyers generallyspeaking, even if you're transactional.
It's maybe not a fire drill typecrisis, but there's some sort
(21:03):
of big thing happening, right?
You don't call a lawyer unless something'seither wrong or you're trying to
prevent something from going wrong.
Those are really your two scenarios.
And I do think that thoserules are still going to exist.
People will still want advice.
It's not like lawyers are goingto disappear, but you do need
to be willing to be savvy.
And I think one of the things that,if you take nothing else from this
(21:26):
podcast, is, don't be like I was a yearago and just say, "This stuff scares
me, I don't want to interact withit", because you dragged me into this.
And now I'm all in.
Alison Monahan (21:36):
Now you're always like, "Oh, I found this amazing use
case." And I'm like, "Oh, great.
That's fantastic, Lee." I'm gladyou're really into Claude now.
That's great.
Exactly, I know.
But I do think that you have to somewhatget over your own mixed feelings about
it, or this intimidation factor, andjust start to play with it, because it
is going to help you in practice of law.
(21:57):
And I'm sure that they're startingto talk about things like this in
interviews and things like that.
So, you don't want to get an interviewquestion about using any of of
these kind of futuristic tools andthen saying, "Oh, I'm not really
into technology." Right, yeah.
And lawyers necessarily known as thebiggest technologists of any profession.
But I think that you've gotto get up to speed on this.
I mean, anyone who's a knowledge worker- which lawyers definitely are dealing with
(22:20):
reading and writing and information aregoing to be massively impacted by this.
I think that's just the reality.
But I do think that what you saidearlier, about we still need judgment
and humans, and that human relationshippiece actually becomes even more critical.
So, if a client is in a crisis situationand you're like, "Oh well, I went to
ChatGPT and it told me this" that'sprobably not really going to fly.
(22:43):
They need empathy, they need hand-holding,they need you to be supportive - whatever
it is that they're hiring you to do,along with the legal aspect of it.
So, I think there's still alot of human work to be done.
And even just learning how to learn andthat sort of thing, being self-directed
in your learning and learning abouttools like this, and just being able to
(23:05):
use them creatively, I think is going tobe such a big piece of adapting to this
new world and being successful in it.
Yeah,
Lee Burgess (23:14):
I know.
When people suggest that AI isgoing to replace all people...
I was just in my car, and likemost people, my car has Siri.
I don't like to talk to Siri, butI do like it when Siri reads me
text messages while I'm driving.
But the new Siri update, itspeaks with much more inflection.
And so, my husband texts me back and itwas like, "Nice!" And I'm like, "What?" My
(23:40):
son was home sick from school and it wasmore like, "He hasn't thrown up", and it
was like, "Nice!" And I'm like, "That'sodd." It felt odd to me in the car.
It felt like Siri was overstepping.
Its purpose was to just, without toomuch emotion, read me the text message.
I wasn't having a conversationwith the talking AI.
So, I do think that there are thesethings where I'm like, "I'm not
(24:04):
calling having a conversation withthis computer." Not when I'm in crisis.
That is not who I want to talk to.
We are a ways from that, because if thetext message reading annoys me, you know.
Alison Monahan (24:16):
Yeah.
I got a new iPhone and it made mepick which voice I wanted, but they
didn't have the old voice and theyall kind of sounded weird for a while.
But yeah, I think things like that, theysound silly, but that's the point, is,
we're as humans so conscious of nuancesin voice and things like that, that a
voice that talks like this is probablynot going to be something that people
(24:37):
want to listen to for legal advice.
Lee Burgess (24:39):
Or a voice that when you say, "Well, this really horrible
thing happened", and it's like,"Nice!" nobody wants to hear that.
"Oh no!
Alison Monahan (24:47):
Oopsie!" You're like, "What?" That's just off.
Lee Burgess (24:52):
It's off.
We're a ways away from that.
I'm just saying.
I take the self-driving Waymo carsin San Francisco, I'm fine with that.
But it's the communication stuff whereI'm like, "I can't." I will literally
let the computer drive me around, butI really don't want to talk to it.
Alison Monahan (25:06):
That's fair.
Lee Burgess (25:07):
That's fair.
Alison Monahan (25:09):
Yeah, and I think that does bring up this question of, what
should people be doing in law school?
And I think some of it ispaying attention to this, maybe
taking classes in it, whatnot.
But also, really developing thosepeople skills and your emotional
intelligence and things like that, Ithink are so important, and probably
even more important going forward.
Lee Burgess (25:26):
Yeah.
I also think, as you mentioned earlier,you have to be good at learning,
because I think that the changes intechnology and the ways that we move
within the world are at lightning speed.
I mean, much faster than it was forour parents, much faster than it was
even when we began practicing law.
(25:47):
How many years have we had an iPhone?
There was a time before the iPhone.
But when that came out,we all had Blackberries.
A lot of stuff has changed,but it's changing much faster.
And so, to be able to be nimble,I think, is something that you
really want to take to heart.
And that means that you have to notbe afraid of learning new things.
Try out these tools.
Try and at least understand what'shappening in the landscape so you
(26:10):
can dive in and learn them, becausea lot of people maybe at your
BigLaw firm aren't ready to do that.
Alison Monahan (26:17):
Yeah.
No, and I think that is kind of athroughline I found throughout legal
education and legal practice anddoing what we do now, is most lawyers
actually like to learn things, so Ithink people are pretty well situated.
I mean, they're not always into scienceand math and technology and that kind of
thing, but we are good at learning things.
That's what lawyers do.
If you're working on a case, it wasalways this situation of like, "Okay.
(26:41):
Now you need to get up to speed on thiswhole universe that you knew nothing
about yesterday. And we need you to bean expert within the most short period
of time possible." And so, I think thatis actually something that people are
good at, and I would lean into that.
Lee Burgess (26:57):
Yeah.
I remember going to of my first meetingsabout the first trial team that I was
placed on, and I'm sitting in this office,and the senior associate turns to me and
he says, "So, this is about welding rods.
Do you know what that is?" And I'm like,"No." And he's like, "Okay, I'll tell you
in two minutes, but you should go figureout what that is." And so I'm back at
(27:19):
my desk being like, "What is a weldingrod?" And then I spent a decent chunk
of time trying to understand it, so Icould go do the legal work associated
with it, because that's part of whatis - you have to figure out what you're
talking about, because it can comeat you in tons of different contexts.
Alison Monahan (27:37):
Yeah, I remember when I was at trial on a hardware case, and
another associate who was a friend ofmine came out of court one day and he's
like, "I finally think I understandelectricity. Our expert was like Mr.
Wizard out there!" We had to figureout how to present to a jury that had
no one who'd finished college, thisvery complicated case about... I don't
(28:01):
remember what exactly it was, but ithad to do with voltage regulators.
And to understand a voltage regulator, youhave to understand how electricity works.
So we had to find and coach thisexpert - who was some insane PhD, multi
PhD guy - how to convey this to a jury.
And it was very interesting,but that stuff's not easy.
Lee Burgess (28:21):
No.
I watched a patent trial on dialysismachines, and what they were fighting
over was the screen and the touch pador whatever of the dialysis machine.
And it was weeks of discussing that.
And I remember sitting in that placegoing, "I don't know that I follow
(28:42):
this, so I'm pretty sure that the juryis not following this", because taking
really complicated concepts and makingthem simple is very, very hard to do.
But I think that is somethingthat AI can help you out with.
Alison Monahan (28:54):
I was going to say, who might be good at that?
Our new friend Claude, I bet, couldtake this very complicated concept and
distill it down so that someone at maybea 7th grade level could understand it.
That sort of thing wouldactually be really useful.
Lee Burgess (29:10):
Yeah.
I think one of the things when youstart messing with these tools that
I have learned is you have to be veryspecific about what you want it to do.
So in that case, I think the mistakesI made in my early Claude use were,
I was not giving it enough direction.
It really wants to know, "I want youto do this, and I want it to be written
so someone with a 7th grade readinglevel can understand it. I want it to
(29:34):
be in this tone. This is the audience,this is the purpose of it." And the
more prompting you give it, the better.
I think the other thing law studentsneed to consider is, what are the
ethical ramifications of this?
When can you use it in a trial?
When can you use it ingenerating things for clients?
I've been doing my CLE, because it's mytime to turn in all my CLE, and I did
(29:58):
do a CLE on how to copyright work thatmay have been influenced by AI, which
was actually a fairly interesting CLE.
So, thanks to peoplewho put that together.
But these are things wehaven't really thought about.
And so, if you're not takingcopyright classes, you may
not be talking about that.
And if you're not talking about it, maybein your Ethics classes, you should ask.
(30:20):
Ask the professors, "This is coming upfor us. Who's talking about this? Who's
writing about it?" Or write a paper on it.
I
was going to say, greatLaw Review note topic.
Oh, that's a great newLaw Review note topic!
Yeah, ripe for discussion, right?
And it's a wild, wildwest out there, right?
We don't have a lot of precedent forwhat to do with all this technology.
(30:43):
So, it's a cutting edge time, butyou do want to make sure that you
are participating and not opting out.
Alison Monahan (30:51):
Yeah, and I think writing a note or a paper on some of
this would just be such a great wayto kind of dive into the material,
get familiar with it, use it.
Who's not going to ask you aboutthat if that's on your resume?
Lee Burgess (31:01):
Oh, totally, especially a law firm partner who might be in their
sixties who's like, "I don't even knowwhat some of this stuff really is",
unless they practice law in this area.
Yeah,
Alison Monahan (31:13):
I think that would actually be like a really great
option people, because everybody isgoing to want to talk about that.
And if you can talk about that in ameaningful, understandable type of way,
I think that might actually give youa really big leg up in the job market.
Lee Burgess (31:27):
Yeah, and then you could take that note and feed it to Claude and ask
it for some great LinkedIn posts about it.
Oh, yes, quoting directly from yourown piece, using as much language
that comes out of your own piece, soit is just pulling your own language.
Oh, very powerful stuff.
See, now everybody has their note topic.
You're welcome.
Alison Monahan (31:49):
Or at least an idea for notes, and you can go generate
some of those and brainstorm.
But yeah, even now we're actuallygetting excited about that, because
it's something we hadn't thought aboutprobably until that exact moment.
But you can take that and run with it,and I think it would be really useful.
Lee Burgess (32:02):
Yeah.
So, I know we're almost out of time, butI hope that what folks can get from this
is that although some of this AI stuffcan be scary and some of the headlines
around it are really intimidating thatyou will see in the news, when they
start talking about how it's going totake over the world - we have a while
until the computers take over the world.
And that may be true, but that'sa very, hopefully, far away time.
(32:24):
I try not to think about that stuff.
But I will say that sometimes when youread those things, it can feel like,
"Oh well, I shouldn't be interactingwith it at all." And I just think
that that's not a practical way toapproach the new frontier that is AI
and technology in the legal profession.
I think you want to participate,and just make sure that you're
ready to pivot and learn new things,because they're coming for you.
(32:48):
New things are coming for you.
Alison Monahan (32:50):
Absolutely.
I totally agree, and I think that the moreyou can get in there and play with it, the
better off you're probably going to be.
Lee Burgess (32:58):
Yeah.
Well, I would like to take one last secondbefore we wrap up and just thank everybody
for listening to 500 episodes of us.
Alison Monahan (33:06):
I don't think... I remember reminiscing earlier today in
my head, I think we had the idea forthis podcast in a bar with a friend
of ours who had an LSAT podcast.
I don't know why we were day drinkingwith this person, but for some
reason we were all day drinking.
Lee Burgess (33:20):
We were trying to record a podcast about it, I think.
Alison Monahan (33:22):
That's right, maybe that was the thing.
remember that was like, "Why werewe in the bar at like 2:00 in the
afternoon?" But he was like, "Youguys should really start a podcast."
And we took it and ran with it.
And here we are, 500 episodes later.
Lee Burgess (33:34):
And millions of downloads.
I mean, millions upon millions.
Yeah.
So, thank you all for listening.
It has been a great ride.
We love hearing from folksthat they listen to it.
It's pretty cool.
So, thanks for sharing your time with us.
We're glad you find it to be helpful.
And I hope that we're goingto continue talking about the
future of AI and technology.
(33:56):
And as I learn more exciting thingsfrom my friend Claude - who sometimes
I thank, which is also weird.
I was like, I shouldn'thave to thank the AI.
But I think it's fun to talk about.
So, I'm sure we'll keep talking about it.
Alison Monahan (34:10):
I agree.
If you enjoyed this episode of theLaw School Toolbox podcast, please
take a second to leave a review andrating on your favorite listening app.
We'd really appreciate it.
And be sure to subscribeso you don't miss anything.
If you have any questions or comments,please don't hesitate to reach out to
Lee or Alison at lee@lawschooltoolbox.comor alison@lawschooltoolbox.com.
(34:31):
Or you can always contactus via our website contact
form at LawSchoolToolbox.com.
Thanks for listening, and we'll talk soon!
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