The power of automation can be alluring, but for some organizations, the risks of leveraging these powerful tools bring risks. Generative AI, while promising for legal practices, comes with challenges that must be weighed before adoption to avoid not just embarrassing situations but potential liability.
Has Your Firm Weighted the Risks of AI?
Generative AI risks in law practices are tied to the accuracy, bias, and attribution struggles that continue to be addressed by AI vendors, along with the obvious concerns about the privacy of data fed into AI tools as prompts or examples. For law firms, some are particularly troubling.
- Accuracy and Bias: Generative AI models are susceptible to errors and biases. The lack of reliability of AI-generated legal documents such as misleading summaries of sensitive cases can have serious consequences. Stringent rules should be in place demanding human oversight of any AI outcomes to avoid bias and inaccuracies, a significant element of the ethical use of AI in law offices.
- Legal Nuance: The law is complex and riddled with nuance. Generative AI, which excels at identifying and following patterns, struggles to understand or apply the subtleties of legal arguments. Again, lawyers must carefully review and verify AI-generated outputs before relying on them.
- Data Privacy: Legal practices handle sensitive data ranging from property acquisitions to divorce cases. Training generative AI models by inputting private information raises privacy concerns. Evaluating the use of AI and creating clear guidelines for its use to ensure compliance with data protection regulations is critical.
- Lack of Transparency: Generative AI outcomes rarely include attribution, making it difficult to understand where information was mined to inform AI content. This lack of transparency is troubling in legal settings where attribution and references to prior rulings are paramount to court arguments both pro and con.
- Ethical Considerations: The use of AI in legal practices raises ethical questions about oversight and accountability. These ethical considerations should be explored and then addressed in a detailed generative AI policy before the use of AI tools is accepted by a law practice. One key element of any AI policy is designating the role responsible for accountability when it comes to AI-created legal mistakes
Guidance on Ethical Use of AI in Law Firms
Purposely mitigating the risks of AI in law firms must be part of any practice’s due diligence when it comes to layering any AI tool into its suite of productivity tools. The potential legal, financial, and reputational risks connected with AI go well beyond protecting personal data and confidentiality. Any legal firm knows its success relies almost entirely on clients’ trust in their expertise, making research and exhaustive, thoughtful evaluation of AI tools a must. One place to start is the following list of considerations recommended by Deloitte. Law firms of all sizes should also craft a thorough AI policy before deploying any AI solutions.
- Should data access be limited to authorized personnel?
- What role should physical and logical access control mechanisms, such as authentication systems play in AI tools?
- What specific policies and procedures for the use of Generative AI tools will be adopted and how will they be maintained?
- Who and how will those processes and procedures be compliance audited?
- What training and awareness sessions for employees on the ethical, lawful, and secure use of this technology are appropriate?
- What technical and organizational measures (e.g., AI governance, anonymization, encryption, and secure storage) should be put in place to ensure data entered or used by AI tools are protected against unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or loss of availability?
- Will legal specialists and technologists be involved in the designing of controls to protect personal data and confidentiality from the early stages of any AI project?
- Will there be available AI expertise in-house or contractually available externally?
Discuss AI in Law Firms with Providers
Deloitte continues with several key questions to ask any AI tool provider, given that one of the top risks with AI tools is their web-based availability. Any cloud-based tool is that much more susceptible to cyber attacks. It isn’t a question of if a top AI tool will be hacked, but when. Before contracting with an AI vendor, validate the process for securing data, understand that tool’s unique privacy policy, and discuss:
- Liability: Can your practice hold the Generative AI solution provider liable for potential IP infringements, data or confidentiality breaches, and other risks?
- Insurance: Especially when dealing with smaller AI solution providers, organizations will consider whether the provider would be able to pay any claims or whether relevant insurance is available.
- Business continuity: Since AI solutions may become essential to day-to-day business operations, due consideration is likely to be given to the impact that unavailability may have on your law practice as usage becomes more integrated with daily productivity.
- Privacy and confidentiality: Fully understand the vendor’s policy on data entered into the tool in terms of confidentiality and data privacy.
- Cybersecurity: What steps is the vendor taking to protect the tool itself and any stored data from hackers, ransomware, or breaches?
Before any legal practice invests in cutting-edge AI solutions, significant research should be done and a full deployment, appropriate security awareness training, and policy creation project plan created to ensure no single piece of data is at risk with the introduction of generative AI. Following that thoughtful path toward AI will enable your law firm to avoid the dangers of AI legal tools while also empowering your team’s productivity.
Daniel Haurey Jr. is the president and founder of managed IT services provider Exigent Technologies, which he founded in 1997. Under his leadership, the MSP has earned accolades ranging from Channel Futures MSP 501 to being named SonicWall’s 2024 MSP Growth Partner of the Year. Dan is a true entrepreneur, dedicated to growing, investing in, and mentoring small businesses. You can find him on LinkedIn, where he regularly posts about technology, business, leadership, and community.
