What the NYSBA AI Task Force Hopes to Achieve for Law Practice

This past spring, a New York attorney made international news by creating a legal brief in a personal injury case that turned out to be filled with references to fictional cases and citations that didn’t exist.

Steven Schwartz, a 30-year veteran attorney, later told a judge he had been “duped” and “did not comprehend” that the technology he had employed could fabricate information. The judge was unsympathetic, fining Schwartz and his partner $5,000, and chastising them for promoting cynicism about the legal profession and the American legal system.

Some might view this incident as proof that attorneys are right to reject AI outright—coupled with dark warnings from tech industry leaders and the Federal Trade Commission’s new investigation into ChatGPT.

That conclusion seems premature. But caution, research, and responsible regulation of a powerful tool that could well revolutionize the modern world is necessary—particularly when it comes to the unique needs of the legal community, such as attorney-client privilege, client privacy, ethics, and security.

We are clearly venturing into unchartered territory, underscoring the need for careful consideration before implementing AI into law firms’ practices. The Biden administration’s recently announced commitments from tech companies to manage AI is encouraging news, but more needs to be done.

This has led the New York State Bar Association to launch a task force examining the benefits and the risks for law firms, with the goal of issuing recommendations harnessing AI in an ethical and productive way, while proactively avoiding pitfalls like those illustrated above.

Vivian Wesson, executive vice president and general counsel at the Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church, with extensive experience in intellectual property law, will chair the task force. Members will take testimony from industry experts, and carefully review research and reports on AI before making recommendations that will be considered by the Association’s governing body, the House of Delegations.

“From self-driving cars to ChatGPT to 3-D printed guns, our world has been transformed by artificial intelligence,” Wesson said. “The task force will examine this ever-evolving technology and assess the impact, positive or negative, to the legal profession and community at large.”

If used correctly, AI has the potential to provide clients with quicker access to information while assisting lawyers in generating data on legal trends. Potential drawbacks include bias programmed into AI facial recognition software and chatbots. Artificial intelligence will also have a dramatic—and yet to be determined—impact on copyright, patent, and privacy laws.

Extractive and generative AI hold the possibility of making the most significant impact on the legal industry. The former uses existing information to answer a specific inquiry or generate new content, while the latter produces new information from scratch, which, as Schwartz’s ill-fated brief proved, can easily go awry.

AI can help increase firms’ efficiency by accelerating routine manual tasks that occupy much of an attorney’s time—including document review, proofreading, and contract drafting. That efficiency can be carried over to the courtroom, where during discovery, an attorney is often bogged down with hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents to review—a time-consuming, costly, and tedious process. AI can assist by extracting the relevant information far quicker, saving attorneys and associates’ time.

AI-related technology is already being used in some firms in the form of e-discovery as well as legal research and document management software. If used correctly, these and other advancements can improve access to justice and provide attorneys with more free time to engage in client-focused work.

But most attorneys aren’t yet putting AI-based technologies to use. Bloomberg Law’s most recent State of Practice Survey, released in May, found that 96% of attorney respondents had at least heard of generative AI, but while one-third have used it, most hadn’t done so in a professional capacity. In addition, the survey revealed, while some firms are opening the door to conversations about using AI, the process is slow and not uniform across the profession.

While there are clear benefits to AI for the legal community, the risks are many. AI systems analyze and store valuable personal information. Privacy measures must be in place to ensure compliance with data protection laws. More substantively, there is the potential for algorithmic bias in AI facial recognition software and chatbots, with the FTC made clear in 2021 could violate federal law if used incorrectly.

With so much to benefit from yet so many risks, NYSBA’s task force will consider best practices to prevent misuse and suggest safeguards that will protect law firms, their clients, and the integrity of the legal system.

Leveraging the power of AI could be a game-changer—a reality that cuts both ways. Navigating this world will be challenging, but if we proceed responsibly and with our eyes wide open, we could change the legal profession for the better.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Richard Lewis president of the New York State Bar Association, is special counsel at Hinman, Howard & Kattell in Binghamton.

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