This Is How Am Law 100 Law Firms Are Using Generative AI
Some Biglaw firms want to stay far away from generative AI, but others are using it to their advantage.
Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
I know a lot of firms came out and said we don’t use ChatGPT. It’s like banning a smartphone. Instead of ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist, we have guidelines for how to use carefully.
What lawyers are finding is it can automate commodity low-rate work because there wasn’t a budget to do that kind of work. We’re spending the same amount of time on the matter but we can automate some work. We can dig deeper into issues. And then the lawyer is able to spend more time on the higher-value work for the client. We’re seeing it more as a quality play for us. Lawyers can provide more value for the same amount of time.
— David Cunningham, chief innovation officer at Reed Smith, in comments given to the American Lawyer concerning the firm’s use of generative artificial intelligence. Am Law reached out to members of the Am Law 100 to examine how those firms were using generative AI. Of the 41 firms that offered responses, the most common uses of generative AI are for summarizing documents/generating transcripts (15), legal research (11), drafting marketing materials/attorney bios (8), drafting legal material (7), and e-discovery (5).
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
