At this point, generative AI isn't exactly new.

As a lawyer, you're probably aware of the types of legal AI tools that exist, and you may or may not agree with the notion that AI is taking over the legal industry.

But the reality is, most major firms are now heavily integrating legal AI in their practice, using it as a research tool, an assistant for document drafting, and more.

What are you supposed to do as a solo lawyer?

Should you embrace our new AI overlords and integrate legal AI products into your practice?

Or should you continue waiting on the sidelines, hoping for advancements that make legal AI even more beneficial compared to the costs?

Why Legal AI Is So Valuable for Solo Lawyers

Legal AI in your law firm can be extraordinarily valuable, even if you're a solo lawyer.

We are no longer in the first generation of generative AI, and today's legal AI tools are quite capable of handling a wide range of different tasks.

Ultimately, there are several benefits of integrating AI in your practice:

·         Time and resources. Most legal AI products are designed to save you time and resources as a lawyer. When you have an AI assistant doing most of your research and drafting work, you can dedicate your attention to the most important elements of your practice. You may also be able to forgo hiring paralegals and other staff members, saving money in the process. As a solo lawyer, this advantage is especially important, because you don't have the teams or hiring capacity as the major firms in your area.

·         Competitiveness. Along similar lines, legal AI is very valuable for solo lawyers hoping to compete with their bigger, more established counterparts. You may not be able to hire the same number of people or take on the same types of clients, but with the help of a legal AI assistant, you can contend with some of the major players anyway.

·         Convenience and stress relief. Being a lawyer is hard. Being a solo lawyer, simultaneously juggling the responsibilities of legal advocacy and entrepreneurship, is even harder. Integrating AI into your work can make things much more convenient and help you minimize stress. Obviously, there are some new considerations and hurdles to address when integrating a technology like this, but for most solo practitioners, it ends up being a net positive.

·         Relatively low costs. Comparatively speaking, AI is inexpensive. It's certainly cheaper than hiring an entire team of people, and compared to the benefits you receive from it, the price of the tool itself is practically negligible.

The Best Features of Legal AI for Solo Lawyers

So what exactly can legal AI help you with in a solo practice?

This is going to depend somewhat on the exact tool you choose. Most legal AI tools have much in common, but they may differ in terms of specific features or capacity.

For the most part, you can rely on help with at least the following:

·         Research. One of the most exciting features of legal AI is its expedited, relatively reliable research. Whether you're looking up cases, statutes, or even secondary sources, powerful legal AI tools can connect you to the information you need in record time. And because most legal AI tools are now built on conversational inquiries, you can use natural language to get exactly the types of results you want.

·         Document drafting. Legal AI is also used for document drafting. By studying countless examples of other legal documents, a legal AI tool can help you write contracts, non-disclosure agreements, employment agreements, and almost any other type of legal document you can imagine. Instead of relying on templates or writing everything by hand, you can let the AI do the work and do the final polishing on your own.

·         Document review. Building a case often requires you to read and sort through innumerable documents and pieces of evidence. Legal AI can make this much easier on solo practitioners, accelerating the document review process and helping you understand everything from a higher level.

·         Summaries. Let's face it. Sometimes, it's a drudgery to read through tedious, overly wordy cases and confusing legal documents. That's why solo practitioners often love legal AI for its ability to quickly and easily summarize things. Instead of reading and analyzing hundreds of pages of dense material, you can have an AI give you a much more concise, clearer, more consolidated version.

·         Preparation. AI can help you with almost anything as you prepare for a case. It can help you automate certain functions, stay organized, and even manage details related to your clients.

The Key Limitations of Legal AI

Of course, we'd be lying if we said legal AI was a perfect tool. The reality is, there are some significant weaknesses and limitations associated with legal AI, and they can be exacerbated in a solo practice – where you won't have partners to bounce things off of.

·         Functional limitations. Unfortunately, there are some things that legal AI can't do. It's not like hiring another lawyer, as you can't have AI appear in court, nor is it advised that you use legal AI to facilitate depositions or talk to your clients directly. If you want to get the greatest value out of legal AI, you need to thoroughly understand what it can and cannot do.

·         Source dependency. AI isn’t really “intelligent.” It’s more like a highly advanced pattern recognition engine. Accordingly, it can sometimes give incomplete or misleading results, simply because it doesn't have access to the most important source material. For example, if the Supreme Court decides a new case, your legal AI may not have access to it for some time.

·         Prompt dependency. Your legal AI experience will depend heavily on the quality and specificity of your prompts. This is why prompt engineering is such an important skill for lawyers to develop if they plan on working with AI. Prompt engineering is something you can learn and master, but in the meantime, you may not get the exact results you want.

·         Potential inaccuracies. Also, it's worth noting that nearly every generative AI tool is susceptible to occasional hallucinations. Essentially, this means your legal AI could make something up in an effort to satisfactorily answer your query. This is why it's so important to double check the output of your legal AI before using it for any important matter.

Increasing the Value of Legal AI in Your Solo Practice

Getting the most value out of legal AI in your solo practice demands the following:

·         Choose the right tool. There are many legal AI tools available to lawyers like you, but not all of them come with the same collection of features. Some are more advanced, some are easier to use, and some are geared towards specific types of practice. It's important to review the options available to you and choose the best fit for your solo practice.

·         Learn the platform and practice your skills. The more familiar you are with your specific tool, the better you'll be able to use it. This shouldn't come as a surprise to you, but you might be surprised to learn how much practice it takes to get a feel for effective AI use. Practice your skills before attempting to use legal AI in pursuit of serving your clients.

·         Master the art of prompt engineering. There are right and wrong ways to formulate prompts for legal AI. And even if you're practicing prompt engineering successfully, there will always be room for refinement and improvement. If you're just getting started, try to master the fundamentals of prompt engineering. From there, use experiments and a commitment to ongoing learning to become an even better prompt engineer.

·         Don’t reinvent the wheel. Legal AI tools come in all shapes and sizes, but certain best practices apply across the board. There's no need to reinvent the wheel here, so rely on what other people have taught and mastered to become better in your own solo practice.

·         Practice transparency. Legal AI does present some ethical issues with respect to lawyers. Although there is some broad guidance available on this subject, this is an area of continuous discovery, exploration, and development. As we continue sorting out ethical issues in this field, your best practice is to be as transparent as possible about when and how you use legal AI.

·         Protect privacy and confidentiality. You always need to protect privacy and confidentiality for your clients. Not every legal AI tool offers the same degree of security or protection here, so do your due diligence and exercise extra caution when dealing with sensitive information.

·         Always verify the details. Remember that legal AI isn't perfect. It's capable of missing things, making mistakes, and inventing material entirely from scratch. Always double check the output of legal AI before using it in any capacity; think of it as an assistant or mentee, rather than a partner.

·         Stay with the times. Legal AI has changed substantially from its time of first introduction, and it's likely to change even more from here. This technology is going to get better, more sophisticated, and potentially more complicated as well. If you want to continue benefiting from legal AI in your solo practice, you need to invest in ongoing education and stay with the times to the best of your ability.

Hypothetically, your work as a solo lawyer can become faster, more thorough, and more convenient once you learn how to integrate legal AI effectively.

The first step is seeing what legal AI is capable of.

And you can do that here.

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