Judges To Generative AI: You’re Out Of Order! | There’s disorder in the courts, with no clarity in sight.
Judges To Generative AI: You’re Out Of Order! | There’s disorder in the courts, with no clarity in sight.
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Skipping ahead a bit:
>To be clear, these situations reveal an inability to meet basic competence obligations. **This isn’t an issue of technology competence. Instead, these instances highlight a failure by lawyers to carefully review documents submitted to the court.**
It’s not GenAI’s fault, it’s lazy lawyers who don’t check their paralegals work.
>It is this dereliction that is spurring judges into action. Courts across the country are grappling with this issue, with many judges signing orders that govern GenAI usage in their courtrooms. RAILS (Responsible AI in Legal Services) has compiled a running list of these efforts. Forty-eight documents are being tracked (for now), which include orders, guidelines, and rules that are either in progress or have already been issued.
>The approaches regarding regulating GenAI usage run the gamut and include: providing guidance about GenAI usage, requiring the disclosure of the use of GenAI, or banning its use altogether. As explained in the RAILS declaration statement, this haphazard and varied set of tactics, while well-intentioned, fails to provide much-needed consistency:
>>(T)he sheer number of these orders and lack of uniformity [in] their provisions can cause considerable confusion to litigants and practitioners who may have to appear in many different courts.
>In other words, there’s disorder in the courts, with no clarity in sight.
It’s so new they’re having trouble with it. Move fast and break stuff, but in like the private sector, not the courtroom.
>Given the increasing number of fake case citations, one thing is clear: the phenomenon highlights evidence of an even deeper problem. Namely, some lawyers are not reviewing their work before submitting it to the court — and this is not a new occurrence.
>Historically, cases that seemed out of place within the context of a document could be dismissed as mistakes or misinterpretations of case law. Now, however, false case citations undeniably demonstrate a failure to review submitted work. This type of negligence undoubtedly existed before, but it’s much easier to prove when the cited cases are nonexistent.
>In other words, the problem isn’t the technology, it’s attorney competency. This is a preexisting issue, and knee-jerk reactions to GenAI are not the solution. **While it’s tempting to react hastily to disruptive technologies, the legal community would be better served by developing robust, uniform educational guidelines on responsible AI use and emphasizing the timeless principles of careful review and thorough legal analysis.**
Stupid and lazy lawyers are a tale as old as time. They can be even stupider, FASTER with generative AI, but it’s not a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.