ChatGPT: Potential Technology in Law Done Wrong

A new law firm in Brooklyn, named Rains, is looking to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) tools into its business while being cautious about its limitations. The firm believes that AI can retain associates, as technology enables the team to systematize legal services, saving associates around 80 hours per week of data-entry work. This allows lawyers to gain the experience they need while doing more meaningful work and going home at night. As Rains has set up a subscription pricing model instead of charging retained plus hourly fees, the firm can offer its services at a lower cost to clients, particularly start-ups, that do not want to allocate large sums to legal work. The subscription model has so far helped the firm sign up 60 clients, including non-tech firms. In addition, Rains wants to use AI to help lawyers become better advisors. Generative AI models, such as ChatGPT, can free lawyers up to do the human work of understanding a business. Rains can hire people for their judgment and those that are willing to be great advisors, rather than do 80 hours of review per week. Leaders at Rains believe that training language models with its own selected information will ensure that the documents produced blend in with the company’s expectations of its work. The data could include research, contracts, term sheets, or complex case reviews. While Rains is looking for new ways to leverage AI in its business, the company is aware of privacy concerns that need to be addressed, particularly with large language models. The trend among firms is to experiment with AI technology while being wary of inadvertently feeding their client’s secret into a public model. Rains already has developed a tool to preserve client privacy and is looking to pioneer privacy in large language models. Law firms are increasingly relying on AI technology as their workload grows across various industries and forces them to scale their operations.