Artificial intelligence has become a powerful tool for finding information, but it’s important to understand its role when you’re dealing with a legal problem. Our law firm, serving Charleston to Myrtle Beach, handles many case each year, which means we have noticed trends develop as AI has entered the market. Here are some of our most important observations.
AI Can Be Helpful – With Limits
AI can explain general legal concepts, define unfamiliar terms, and help you organize your thoughts. However, it doesn’t know all the facts of your situation, and it can confidently provide information that is incomplete, outdated, or simply incorrect. Legal advice requires the expertise and judgment of a lawyer.
Overusing AI Can Increase Your Legal Fee
Some clients spend hours asking AI questions, generating lengthy documents, and emailing AI-created pages to their attorney. While the effort is understandable, your lawyer still has to read, evaluate, verify, and often correct everything that was generated. That takes time, and the more time your attorney has to spend reading and correcting the AI-generated information you sent, the more money out of your pocket.
In many cases, it’s more efficient—and less expensive—to simply explain the facts of your situation and ask your questions directly to your lawyer.
AI Can Sound Confident, and Still be Wrong
One of AI’s biggest weaknesses is that it rarely tells you when it’s uncertain. Instead, it often presents answers with confidence, even when those answers contain errors or don’t apply to your situation.
Most people ask AI a leading question or a question that assumes a conclusion. AI most often simply validates the askers hopes. “Should I take this medicine for a cough?” or “Is my business partner wrong to take money from the account to pay for person trips? ” The framing of the question will contain a bias because people don’t usually ask objective questions, and the certainly don’t give all the relevant evidence.
A response that sounds professional is not always a response that is legally accurate. When your rights, finances, family, or business are involved, relying on incorrect information can create costly problems.
Your Lawyer’s Judgment Is the Difference
Many attorneys use AI tools strategically to improve efficiency or assist with legal research. When used appropriately, these tools can help lawyers work more effectively while still applying their professional judgment and experience.
Think of it like flying on an airplane. You want the pilot to know how and when to use autopilot because it can improve efficiency and assist with the flight. But you do not want passengers trying to operate the controls simply because the technology exists.
The Bottom Line
AI can be a helpful resource, but it is not a substitute for legal advice. Used incorrectly, your AI use may cost you more time, more money, and more legal fees than you expected. We have seen an dramatic increase in the amount billed across all practice areas because now our team has to spend time answering long AI generate list of questions, most of which are not relevant to solving the problems we were hired to solve.
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