As generative artificial intelligence advances, the legal industry is grappling with whether the technology will augment the work of lawyers—or replace them altogether. Last year, a seasoned appellate advocate conducted an experiment: Could generative AI do a better job than he did arguing before the Supreme Court?
Adam Unikowsky, a partner at Jenner & Block, who has argued before the Supreme Court thirteen times, fed briefs from one of his cases into a large language model and asked the AI to respond to the justices’ questions. He then compared the AI’s answers to his own and wrote about the experiment on his Substack—raising provocative questions about delivering arguments, legal reasoning, and the ability to come up with novel arguments.
We spoke to Unikowsky, as well as James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell, about the test, and to get their thoughts on the implications for lawyers and the legal industry. In this video we explore how lawyers are already using AI in their work, what the technology can and cannot do in the courtroom, and how it could shape the future of legal advocacy.
Video features:
James Grimmelmann, Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech
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