Artificial Intelligence-ChatGPT
HONEST, AFFORDABLE & EFFECTIVE
With increasing availability of a variety of online information resources and especially with the development of ChatGPT and other artificially intelligent (AI) software programs, access to legal information is quicker, easier, more comprehensive and universally available than ever.
Yes, we use AI to help us reduce your legal bill and to make us more efficient. It often provides considerable help in STARTING legal research and in providing a first very rough draft of documents such as contracts.
HOWEVER, relying solely on AI for answers is dangerous. There are a variety of reasons for this. One, for example, is that ChatGPT is not totally up to date in terms of its ability to access recent information additions to the internet. ChatGPT can only utilize information available through 2021. The laws in Virginia change every year.
Moreover, and more importantly, a huge part of what lawyers are trained to do is to spot issues. Issues are questions that must be answered or addressed if the client’s legal problem is to be adequately addressed. Client’s typically do not know how to do this and largely for this reason they don’t know what questions to ask or what to look for when trying to solve a legal problem.
Related to the above is the fact, the most of the time, a client’s legal problem involves resolving or handling several legal issues simultaneously. Often substantive legal questions also involve important questions involving legal procedure and/or financial questions that relate not only to the cost of handling the matter, but also questions of or pertaining to collectability, bankruptcy, tax and other areas.
The developers of AI acknowledge and warn that sometimes their software renders incorrect answers.
They also normally always recommend consulting a lawyer if they are questioned about a legal matter.
FEES
As noted, we use AI to reduce our clients’ legal fees, particularly in cases in which we charge by the hour. We are able to reduce the fees we charge because AI reduces the amount of work that we have to do by saving us valuable time. How AI will affect our flat fee and contingent fee rates remains to be seen, but at least in the short run, AI will have little or no effect on the legal fees charged for those services. This is largely because the types of cases we charge flat and contingent fees for are less dependent on the services that AI offers.
THE EFFECT ON INITIAL CONSULTATIONS and FREE CONSULTATIONS
The public’s access to AI and other online resources will, however, affect the extent to which we provide free initial legal consultations for clients. We always appreciate folks contacting us so that we can give them a better idea about what the legal landscape of their case is and how we can help them. However, this is an evolving situation, and we reserve the right to decide to provide or not provide a free initial consultation on a case by case basis at any time. We will, however, always advise anyone contacting us about legal service in advance if we are going to charge for the initial consultation. No one ever gets an unexpected legal bill from us. It is likely that initial legal consultations will be subject to certain rules and limitations going forward. Stay tuned.