Texas Bar Journal • October 2024

Embracing AI

Transforming the future of family law.

Written by Patrick A. Wright

Snce November 2022, I have embarked on a personal journey to understand how artificial intelligence will impact my family law practice. I have mentioned AI so frequently at home that my adult children have practically banned any discussion on the topic, often responding with, “Here we go again.” They’ve even nicknamed me PATGTP, a playful twist on OpenAI’s renowned ChatGPT. I’ve also asked their college friends about their use of this new technology. Some shared that, in the early days, professors gave them failing grades for using AI. Amazingly, some studies show that 89% of college students have used ChatGPT to work on homework assignments.¹

We have seen such technological revolutions before. Ethan Mollick, a professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, describes a mid- 1970s survey that found 72% of teachers and laypeople disapproved of seventh-grade students using calculators.² By the mid-1990s, calculators were widely used in teaching math. Similarly, power tools didn’t eliminate carpenters but made them more efficient, and spreadsheets only helped accountants work more efficiently. So, why are lawyers so afraid of AI technology?

I recently spoke to a group of family lawyers in West Virginia about AI. Just before my speech, I read an article in the West Virginia Record proclaiming that “lawyers are the most cautious regarding artificial intelligence technologies.”³ Noted legal writer Bob Ambrogi shared a similar observation. When he asked a group of trial lawyers if anyone had used a generative AI product in their legal work, no hands went up. Ambrogi further explained: “Gen AI is still a little-understood and potentially dangerous black box to many legal professionals, and for them to explore it requires time and know-how that they do not have.”⁴ The recent State Bar of Texas 2024 AI in the Practice of Law Survey confirms this fact. Only 5% of lawyers stated that they have no concerns about the use of AI in the practice of law. Sixty-nine percent mentioned that their main concern was the ethical use of the tool.⁵

Wading into the AI pool can seem overwhelming with constant changes, misinformation, and concerns about ethical uses. Fun fact: The same rules of ethics continue to apply. Many lawyers I’ve spoken with don’t even know where to find AI. And no, AI will not take your job—yet. Just think about the speed of AI growth. Writer Scott Galloway explains that AI compute requirements are doubling every 100 days. “In five years, the incremental energy demand of AI will be equivalent to 40 million homes—more than California, Texas, Florida, and New York combined. Data centers make up 3% of total U.S. power demand, but that’s projected to triple by 2030.”⁶

In June 2023, fear set in when news broke that attorney Steven Schwartz, who stated in a hearing that he relied on AI to craft a motion full of fabricated caselaw, said he “did not comprehend” that the chatbot could mislead him.⁷ What? I harken back to August 2019 when the American Bar Association adopted Resolution 112, under the comment to ABA Model Rule 1.1, which states that competent representation requires an awareness of the “benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.”⁸ Do lawyers not read the cases they cite to the court? As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit recently reminded parties and counsel, they remain “responsible for ensuring that their filings with the court, including briefs, shall be carefully checked for truthfulness and accuracy as the rules already require.”⁹

One of the best ways to think of AI is not as your replacement but as a tool. If you are worried about using AI for legal work in your family law practice, try learning the technology using it to help you find a recipe, plan your next trip, or assist with social media posts. Family lawyers should start to wade into the AI pond because AI, as co-intelligence, is reshaping the traditional roles of legal professionals. AI will serve as a co-worker, co-creator, and coach within family law. Let me give you a few examples to illustrate how AI might be used.

AI as a Collaborator
Ethan Mollick writes in his book Co-Intelligence that multiple studies of 1,016 different professions show that almost all our jobs will overlap with the capabilities of AI.¹⁰ AI is emerging as a silent collaborator, seamlessly integrated into the daily routines of legal professionals. By automating mundane tasks such as document review, editing and grammar checking, and co-drafting, we will have more time to focus on our family law clients. Here is a simple example of a test that I conducted. I created a simple document where I purposefully made errors:

Then I asked ChatGPT to correct the spelling and grammar errors:

A simple exercise, but you can see that my errors were corrected. AI’s adeptness in document drafting ensures precision and expediency, enabling family legal practitioners to navigate complexities with agility and accuracy. In essence, AI serves as an indispensable ally, enhancing productivity and improving our skills as professionals. In the dynamic field of Texas family law, AI is rapidly becoming an indispensable co-worker for attorneys. Let’s use another example—the drafting of emails:

ChatGPT does an excellent job of revising and drafting emails.

Practice Tip: OpenAI’s product frequently adds the phrase “I hope this email finds you well.”¹¹ I would remove this phrase and review the draft just as you would review a draft from an associate or legal assistant. Rather than replacing human expertise, AI acts as a powerful assistant, streamlining routine tasks and allowing lawyers to concentrate on more nuanced and strategic aspects of their practice.

AI as a Catalyst for Innovation
Beyond its role as a mere family law assistant, AI assumes the mantle of a co-creator, actively contributing to the evolution of legal strategies and documentation. Leveraging sophisticated algorithms and machine learning capabilities, AI sifts through vast troves of legal data, identifying patterns and generating actionable insights. Speaking at the State Bar of Texas Annual Meeting, one attendee mentioned using Microsoft Copilot to draft documents using their existing computer database. I have used visual AI platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney to create graphics for speeches and presentations. For example, this chart for adoption rate for General Purpose Technologies:

This too shall pass: ChatGPT reached 100 million users faster than any product in history!

Here’s the updated graph showing the adoption rates of the internet, web browsers, cell phones, and ChatGPT from the 1960s through 2024. This extended timeline provides a more comprehensive view of the adoption patterns for these technologies. If you need further adjustments or additional details, let me know! [>_]

Why not use AI in marketing your family law practice?
You can use AI to co-create documents. In an exercise where participants were consultants and had to produce a report with three given sources, some were assigned to use AI and some were not. The results showed higher quality work by slashing their time on tasks by 37%.¹² How about using your AI to review conference-call transcripts with your clients to summarize the case issues? You can send the transcripts to your legal assistant and even your client for review.

A paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine asked ChatGPT-3.5 to answer medical questions from the internet and had medical professionals evaluate both the AI’s answers and an answer provided by a doctor. The AI was almost 10 times as likely to be rated as very empathetic than the results provided by the human, and 3.6 times as likely to be rated as providing good-quality information compared to human doctors.¹³

AI as a Coach or Mentor
Mollick writes that “[f ]or most professional workers, leaving school for the workforce marks the beginning of their practical education, not the end.”¹⁴ Most lawyers can agree that on-the-job training can range from continuing legal programs to angry bosses yelling at you. We are getting to a point where vast knowledge is available to everyone.¹⁵ Developing into a great lawyer requires a coach or mentor to provide direction, feedback, and instruction. In the future, AI will offer a chance to have a mentor watching over your work and providing a rapid feedback loop. In experiments at Wharton, Mollick found that today’s AI still makes an impressive coach in limited ways, offering timely encouragement and instruction.¹⁶

AI can level the playing field. In one study, “law students near the bottom of their class using AI equalized their performance with those at the top of their class (who saw a slight decline when using AI). The authors of the study concluded that AI might have an equalizing effect on the legal profession, mitigating inequalities between elite and non-elite lawyers.”¹⁷

Think about it like this: in the job of a lawyer—counseling clients, drafting documents, going to court, handling administrative tasks, marketing, and managing staff—the typical lawyer is not good at all these tasks. With the aid of AI, the family lawyer can use the AI tool to gain expertise in every aspect of their job and help to even the playing field of the future practice.

PATRICK A. WRIGHT is a senior partner in and co-founder of the Wright Firm, based in Dallas. He is certified in family law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.