ChatGPT4 is making me smarter and more productive! It’s like having a super smart friend sitting right next to me who has an encyclopedic knowledge of relevant data; the ability to answer complex questions; and the training to compose complete, stylized legal documents. Yet, this friend is often tone deaf, lacks perspective and is wrong from time to time.
In our personal injury practice, this technology is making us smarter by expanding our view of legal issues, challenging us to consider angles we had not before and giving us a tool to achieve even greater results for our clients.
ChatGPT4 helps us create more compelling arguments composed from the vast resources of the internet and tailored to the facts we input. And that is the beauty of ChatGPT: It can be loyal to the instructions we give it. The technology is on an entirely different level from Google search because ChatGPT4 can produce sourced final product rather than a just collection of topical articles and studies.
Yet, we are the lawyers, and as much as we may enjoy ChatGPT4’s ability to produce a solid draft in seven seconds compared to three hours, we have a professional responsibility to put our best foot forward with every client-related task. That means we must not rely on a ChatGPT4 composition, but rather, if we use it at all, consider it a draft that must be fact checked, source checked and heavily edited to include perspective and tone. We must also consider implicit and explicit bias in ChatGPT4’s drafts. Most of all, it must be legally correct. Sometimes this technology produces unusable garbage, but the better we get at crafting and refining precise queries, the better the product becomes.
In our personal injury practice, we are using ChatGPT4 to perform certain functions of a paralegal. For example, without our inputting confidential information, the technology drafts comprehensive and compelling demand letters to insurance companies that we customize to help us illustrate the extent and impact of our clients’ injuries and why the defendant is responsible under Arizona law. These drafts may shed new light on an issue while being incorrect in other areas. That’s why we consider these letters and other ChatGPT4 product to be a start toward a final product.
So, too, with deposition questions for the defendant in a personal injury case. Prompted well, ChatGPT4 can analyze a fact pattern, consider Arizona law and produce draft questions that we refine before confronting a defendant during their deposition. We also use ChatGPT4 to draft sections of our website content focused on the types of services we provide.
Our practice group is all in on ChatGPT4 and we think that other attorneys who dismiss this technology will be left behind in its wake. In fact, it won’t be long before we have “Bot” jury consultants that read the biometric data of jurors to provide attorneys and judges with guidance as they present and decide cases. We’ll be among the first to try that technology, too.
Marc Lamber is a Martindale Hubbell AV Preeminent-rated trial attorney. A director at Fennemore, Lamber has been featured in national and local media, including the Arizona Republic, USA Today, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the ABA Journal and many others.
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