I received a deposition transcript from a court reporter that we had not used before.  Without prompting (no AI pun intended), the reporting service included a $75.00 summary of the transcript.

While the AI made some incorrect assumptions, they would have been easy to correct in the Word version of the Summary.  While the Summary alone saved a considerable amount of time, that was not the most valuable part.

The AI also offered some interpretations of the testimony that I had not considered.  Some were helpful to our case, while others were not.  Reading the AI’s interpretations of the testimony was like listening to another attorney offering different views of the evidence.  That was more valuable than the time saved by receiving the Summary (which still needed to be checked for accuracy).

Like everyone else, the more they work on a case, the more they believe their views are correct.  It’s a form of confirmation bias.  To avoid that, like Supreme Court justices, we discuss the cases among ourselves.  It becomes very expensive for more than one attorney to learn enough about a case to challenge another’s views, or to offer alternative supporting views.

With AI, and a proper knowledge base, we can get repeated alternative views of a case (or a contract, strategy, or other points of conflict), from an AI.  While a given case may be significant enough for more than one attorney to review it, the additional attorneys will be able to come up to speed much faster at a much more reasonable total investment.  (Your attorney fees should be an investment that provides a return, but that might become a different article later.)

We will be learning as much as we can about AI as quickly as we can.  We will continue to add to our AI tool kit as each function becomes ready for prime time.  (For other attorneys reading this article, you are welcome to use these ideas.  Please acknowledge our inspiration if you haven’t already thought of them yourself—no other royalty requested.)

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