Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI

Trial attorney. Helping you use AI in real cases. Reporting back honestly. Follow and supercharge your lit workflow. NOT LEGAL ADVICE.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

AI can be a great tool in the legal field, for lawyers and clients alike. But you need to be aware of its limitations and potential pitfalls.
Clients: AI CANNOT replace your lawyer.
Lawyers: AI CANNOT replace your brain.
Use it right.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

A user sued OpenAI claiming ChatGPT gave them specific, actionable legal advice—and it was wrong—and they acted on it. The UPL question for AI products is not hypothetical anymore. The cases that define where "general information" ends and "legal advice" begins will shape what AI legal tools are permitted to do. First court to draw that line clearly draws it for everyone.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@CaseFunders I agree!

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

Law schools are adding AI courses. The California Bar is proposing AI competence requirements in the ethics rules with disciplinary teeth. Courts are sanctioning attorneys who don't verify output. The profession is coming at this from three directions at once. It's a structural problem worth recognizing.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

1/4 You know what's super annoying?

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@gordon_cassie I literally thought the same thing as soon as I saw the link.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@DavidShulmanFL Yeah, that would definitely be bad. I think one of the better ways to counter that kind of nonsense is have AI clauses in your retainer agreements. The client is on full notice what you do and don’t do with AI. That serves to defang the anti-AI zealots.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

ABA Formal Opinion 512 says AI literacy is competence under Rule 1.1. California is writing that into its ethics rules with disciplinary teeth. Florida just enacted a certification requirement effective June 15. The profession had three years of advisory opinions and sanctions warnings. Now the rules themselves are changing. The attorneys who treated this as a theoretical ethics question are about to find out it isn't.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

1/6 I'm only now writing about this but a couple weeks ago an artist posted a real Monet on X and told people it was AI-generated.

Hundreds of replies explained exactly why it was inferior. No cohesion of elements. High school art 101. Looks like somebody trying to replicate Monet and achieving 20% of it.

None of these geniuses could tell they were looking at the real thing.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

Change how you approach case evaluation: run your theory through Claude as opposing counsel. Feed it your facts, tell it to represent the other side, ask it to identify the three weakest points in your case. Then ask it to construct the strongest version of the defense theory.

The output isn't always right. But it finds gaps you're too close to your own case to see. Takes twenty minute or less. Cheaper than losing summary judgment on an argument you could have shored up in week one.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

Oral argument prep: after the brief is filed, run the argument through Claude as the panel. Feed it both briefs and the relevant cases. Ask for the five hardest questions a skeptical judge would ask. Then answer each one out loud.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@TwistNH7 The lawyers "risk sanctions and problems like that" part. Not the "actively harming lawyers" part. The lawyers harmed by AI are doing it to themselves.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

83% of attorneys now have access to AI tools. 22% trust them enough to rely on output without heavy verification. That 61-point gap is the legal profession's actual AI problem, and nobody selling a $50/month subscription is closing it. They sell access to the model. The workflow knowledge, the verification habits, the understanding of where AI fails in legal contexts—none of that ships with the product.

The gap closes one of two ways: attorneys build competence through actual use and honest feedback loops, or they get sanctioned into it. The profession is currently doing both simultaneously.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@TwistNH7 Yes, that is most certainly true.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

At this point, I don't think it's controversial to say that lawyers SHOULD be using AI. The ones that don't will almost certainly be left behind as the AI revolution continues. However, the big problem as illustrated by the post is that using it requires being responsible. Unfortunately, that seems to be beyond a lot of lawyers.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

83% of attorneys now have access to AI tools. 22% trust them enough to rely on output without heavy verification. That 61-point gap is the legal profession's actual AI problem, and nobody selling a $50/month subscription is closing it. They sell access to the model. The workflow knowledge, the verification habits, the understanding of where AI fails in legal contexts—none of that ships with the product.

The gap closes one of two ways: attorneys build competence through actual use and honest feedback loops, or they get sanctioned into it. The profession is currently doing both simultaneously.

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@daniellevine

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@SplinteredEsq True. Which I've never understood. But this isn't even an AI thing. I meet lawyers every day who do the bare minimum. I'm like bro, why did you even get into this profession? 🤣

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@Harbiola0709 Absolutely brother. Good luck!

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

@AMandoSch I blame everything on AI. No client response? AI response bot didn't do it. Mail didn't get sent out? AI mail bot didn't do it. Missed a deadline? AI calendar bot screwed up. I'm starting to get a lot of pissed off clients and judges though...

[Lawyer.exe | Trial by AI @litigationai]

California's proposed amendments to Rules 5.1 and 5.3 are the ones that should concern law firm management. The amendments would require supervising attorneys to ensure that associates and staff using AI tools are doing so in compliance with the rules. A partner who signs a brief isn't insulated because an associate ran it through AI and didn't verify the output. The supervision duty extends to the AI workflow, not just the final work product.

Existing supervisory responsibility applied to a new context. Codifying it means "I trusted the associate" stops being a complete answer.