ABA Journal Podcasts - Legal Talk Network

Have you been injured in a car accident? Or hurt on the job? Or had a bad reaction to some drug? If you’re a plaintiffs lawyer, chances are that you’ve uttered some variation of those words—either in a commercial or on a highway billboard. Then when calls come in, you have to evaluate them to see whether they’re worth taking on contingency. If they go forward, then there’s discovery, depositions, motion practice, investigations and a lot of other work to get a case ready for trial—even though most of the time, cases end up settling out of court. That’s been the traditional path for most plaintiffs lawyers.

Have you heard about artificial intelligence-native law firms? The potential time savings are astronomical and could maybe even upend the traditional billable hour. But the drawbacks are also real.

In the past few years, more and more states have been considering or implementing different pathways to the bar that involve hands-on work in real-world legal practices that is evaluated by bar examiners. How each state’s program works varies, but many involve law students or graduates working with supervision in legal deserts, helping to ease access-to-justice issues, as well.

Defined as the practice of using artificial intelligence tools to create software through verbal prompts and then having the AI write the underlying code based on those prompts, vibe coding has plenty of applications and implications for lawyers. Lawyers can create all sorts of programs and applications to help make them more productive. But of course, with any powerful technological tool, there are some risks and things you should be careful of.

Arbitration has emerged as a faster, more streamlined option for parties looking to resolve disputes. The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has supercharged arbitration even more.