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If you haven’t already started using generative artificial intelligence to optimize your practice, then you are seriously missing out. AI has quickly proved to increase attorney productivity and efficiency when it comes to research, document analysis and drafting. But as busy attorneys, how do we have the time to learn how to use it to its fullest potential? The leading legal AI programs are still costly, and it’s nauseating sifting through all the free AI programs available online. This article focuses on how to leverage two free and powerful chatbots — ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Bard (Google) — in your legal practice to improve your productivity and efficiency. Of course, attorneys must use these tools ethically and responsibly. Nothing is confidential, and some responses are inaccurate and unreliable. But after implementing a few prompts into your workflow, you’ll be able to spend more time in your practice doing what AI cannot.
To unlock the potential of ChatGPT and Bard, it’s helpful to understand chatbots generally. Simply put, they are computer programs designed to simulate human conversation. Chatbots help people with performing tasks such as summarizing documents or drafting emails, answering questions or providing information. Think of it like a conversation, not a command. Its responses are the result of statistical associations and patterns within the data on which it was trained, rather than the product of personal awareness or understanding (hence the importance of ethical use by attorneys). So, the clearer and more precise your prompts, the more accurate and insightful its responses will be. While both programs operate similarly, ChatGPT is generally better at generating written content, but Bard is better with research and insights.
To get started, you’ll need to make an account. Once logged in, type your prompt into the “Send a message” box. There, you can have a further conversation with the chatbot, refining your prompts for your desired results. Or you can start a new chat in the upper left corner and return to your prompt later. In each conversation, to the right of the results, it will ask you to rate the quality of the response so it can continually improve and adapt to your style and expectations.
For attorneys, ChatGPT and Bard are beneficial for summarizing information and generating content. To do this in ChatGPT, copy and paste a reasonable amount of information into the chat and ask it to summarize it for you. You can do this for Bard, but you can also link your Google Drive to seamlessly reference documents for analysis. Either way, the key to obtaining a useful response is providing specificity, context and parameters to your prompt. For example, if you are working on a medical malpractice case and want ChatGPT to summarize a medical text, follow this formula: “You are a (insert medical field here) expert. Summarize the following text in (insert amount of words).” You can continue to ask questions to highlight different portions of the text, make it more or less detailed, perform an IRAC analysis and so on. The possibilities are endless!
Attorneys can use these chatbots for more actionable content, as well. Type something like: “You are a Harvard trained antitrust litigator defending a case involving alleged violations of the Sherman Act. Draft 25 interrogatories to Plaintiff Fortune 100 Company to understand its factual basis concerning the anticompetitive conduct allegations.” You could also be more general like this: “You are drafting interrogatories in a personal injury lawsuit that involved an interstate highway collision of multiple vehicles. Draft a comprehensive list of detailed interrogatories to obtain knowledge of the chain of events of the entire collision, all the parties involved, and issues of liability due to foreseen and unforeseen circumstances.” The framework still applies to contract drafting — simply ask the chatbot to draft an agreement subject to any of the qualifications you need, and then follow up to include missing clauses.
ChatGPT and Bard are also useful assistants in drafting emails, marketing content and various correspondence. For content generation, specify its purpose (e.g., demand letter, email, blog) and adjust the Temperature parameter (0 to 1) to control creativity; higher values for randomness, lower for factual responses. For example: “In the style of Antonin Scalia, draft a 500-word demand letter about (insert dispute). Temperature: 0.” This will generate a highly specific, focused and precise response. You could also ask the chatbot to take risks and use its “imagination.” For example: “Write a 100-word Facebook ad for a small personal injury firm. Temperature: 0.6.” You don’t need to assign a Temperature value to obtain your desired tone. You could say something like: “Draft a brief, professional response to the following negative online review that offers further dialogue to improve upon their experience: (paste negative review).”
This article barely scratches the surface when it comes to optimizing your practice. If you can imagine a need, these chatbots are capable of creating Excel documents to calculate damages, drafting computer code to build a new website, providing business plans based on relevant data and more. Additionally, there are tons of plugins and extensions for your free chatbots that are designed for specific needs. The ethical and responsible use of chatbots will greatly improve your efficiency and productivity. And if you don’t know how to do something? Just ask.
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Conner Dickerson is a member of the Business Services & Litigation and Real Estate Services & Litigation practice groups at Cohen & Malad. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
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