I guess they want to be a step ahead for the day where they finally have to answer for all the crimes they committed… haha, joking, that will never happen.
We can rate this software by how many get disbarred.
Too many lawyers already do half-assed work, and they have already been doing it faster with LLMs. Laymen usually won’t know the difference.
If specialist skills and tools can lead to less shoddy results in spite of endemic human incompetence or similar, it will be better for the average consumer of legal services.
And in the hands of competent and engaged lawyers, better tools are a huge boon.
A game changer (already) is that laymen can often now avoid lawyers altogether as complex laws, contractual terms and procedures can now often be explained in plain english/dutch/swahili by chatbots, helping them to make better and timely decisions.
Note: This is a world-wide phenomenon, with judges, paralegals, prosecutors, police, and end users also reaching for or being impacted by AI these days.
I am not as optimistic about the real value of this as you are, but my practice is, ironically, IP and general advanced software counseling specialized in ML and decentralized/distributed network tech, so ymmv. Nevertheless, I think the increasing prevalence bodes poorly for the industry and consumers for two very specific reasons. For the industry, a major part of making good lawyers is by having green lawyers be shit lawyers under close supervision and lots of repetition. The rise of legal AI has already totally short circuited that fundamental process quite a bit. The other concern i have is that consumer reliance on these technologies actually pressures legal systems to converge towards greater convolution and arbitrary heterogeneousnes. This is bad because it (a) makes human inspection less and less feasible, (b) introduces a great many failure points that we’ll never be able to discern until it’s too late because of (a), and © makes the surviving equivalent of practitioners (and even automated systems) more vulnerable to the myriad issues with hyperspecialization. It is noteworthy that these are very similar issues facing the software industry.
Not coincidentally we’re seeing the erosion of the rule of law as a global phenomenon.
Text
WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - OpenAI on Thursday released a legal industry-focused version of its latest AI technology, GPT-6 Astra, that it said is designed to help law firms and legal software providers conduct research, draft advice and build custom applications for lawyers.
The launch of Astra for Law marks the latest push by the top AI labs into the legal market, where technology companies are racing to capture business from law firms and legal departments.
Sign up here.
Google last month expanded its Gemini Enterprise offerings for legal professionals, and Anthropic since January has released tools for lawyers using its Claude AI assistant.
OpenAI said its new product combines its Astra model with an index of US case law, statutes, regulations and other legal materials, along with specialized instructions for legal analysis and writing.
The company said legal AI vendors including Harvey and Legora will be able to build products on Astra for Law, and the platform will include integrations with software providers such as Relativity, Clio, Intapp and Thomson Reuters.
OpenAI said “selected” law firms will gain access to its product initially through a special program that includes protections for confidential client work.
The company said it has worked with firms including Sullivan & Cromwell, Ropes & Gray, Cooley, Latham & Watkins and Wachtell Lipton on testing and developing legal AI applications.
I wouldn’t want to be a Harvey investor today
