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Unfiltered insights and hard-hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law, life, and everything in between.
Join Travis Patterson, Fort Worth's straight-shooting personal injury attorney, as he tackles the tough questions nobody's asking—but should be. In "Driving Change," Travis brings his signature blend of legal savvy and real-world experience to challenge the status quo in law, life, and everything in between. From practical safety tips for your family to navigating the complexities of modern parenting and entrepreneurship, each episode delivers unfiltered insights and actionable advice. Drawing on his unique perspective as a seasoned lawyer, entrepreneur, and changemaker, Travis offers a legal lens on everyday scenarios, breaking down complex topics into easy-to-understand, actionable steps. Whether you're a busy parent looking to protect your kids, an entrepreneur seeking fresh perspectives, or someone who wants to be better prepared for life's curveballs, "Driving Change" equips you with the knowledge to make smarter decisions and safeguard what matters most.
Jim Zadeh
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[00:00:00] Travis: Hey there, I'm Travis Patterson and welcome to Driving Change. Here you're gonna find unfiltered insights and hard hitting questions that challenge the status quo in law and in life. As a personal injury lawyer in Fort Worth, Texas, I see firsthand how challenges like distracted driving another just general family safety issues really impact our community every single day.
[00:00:20] Travis: But I refuse to accept these problems as inevitable. In this podcast, we're gonna dig deep into real world problems, bringing you practical solutions from my experiences and practicing law. Raising a family and running my own business. I'm not here to preach to anybody. I'm here to simply ask questions and start conversations that make you think differently and provide you actual advice that you can use right away in your own life.
[00:00:41] Travis: So welcome to Driving Change. Let's get to it. All right. Welcome to another episode of the Driving Change podcast. I am Travis Patterson. Joined today by my buddy, Jim Zeta. Jim, thanks for coming on.
[00:00:51] Jim: Thanks for having me,
[00:00:51] Travis: Travis. So Jim is an awesome guy. He is a fellow lawyer, retired lawyer. Semi-retired, semi-retired lawyer.
[00:00:58] Travis: I don't think he'll ever fully retire. [00:01:00] Uh, but just kind of a jack of all trades, kind of a renaissance man here in town. Um, a lot of cool subspecialties that we can get into, but invited him on today to talk about artificial intelligence as it relates to the legal world, um, AI and how, how lawyers are using it, how folks in the business world, um, should think about how their lawyers are using it and things like that.
[00:01:22] Travis: Uh, Jim gave a presentation on this a couple weeks ago to the Tarrant County trial lawyers. And it was just fascinating. Um, so I knew you'd be a good guest. So thanks for, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having me. Um, all right. So I think most people now know artificial intelligence is here. We've got chat, GPT, we've got other stuff.
[00:01:39] Travis: I tend to use it for what I call party tricks. Uh, I go on there and I, uh, create coloring books for my children, or I, uh, just come up with a shopping list or use it just to kinda make my life easier for little fun stuff. Um, but what you presented on is how we as lawyers should be using ai, uh, in our legal practice.
[00:01:58] Travis: And, and we of course do [00:02:00] some of that probably could be doing a little bit more, but let's start there, Jim, and, and you still have a law firm here in town. I know you don't run the day to day anymore, but how are y'all using AI in your practice and, and what's working?
[00:02:15] Jim: Artificial intelligence, uh, in the law is, uh, just to start out with, I think lawyers right now are way behind the curve.
[00:02:22] Travis: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Jim: Um, I gave a presentation. Uh, day before yesterday to the clinic heads at the, at Texas a and m School of Law, and I asked how many of them, you know, had new perplexity, which is I call the gateway drug of artificial intelligence. Mm-hmm. And none of them raise their hand. Mm. Um, as you know, at the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers Association, there are a lot of deer and headlights there.
[00:02:42] Travis: Yeah, for sure. So,
[00:02:42] Jim: lawyers right now just, just are behind the curve in using it. So. I have to gauge my talks. I've given talks. I actually gave one down in, uh, Brazil recently, but I give talks all the time. I just have to gauge my talks when I talk to lawyers on a much lower level right. As to what they're doing.
[00:02:57] Jim: Um, what we use it for in our [00:03:00] office is we have case management software, which is File Vine. Mm-hmm. There is some artificial intelligence built in for that. Um, and then you have your large language models, which is your chat, GPT and your Claude. Mm-hmm. We found for lawyers that Claude is a better product.
[00:03:14] Jim: And so we use Claude. So I have 10 employees total, including interns. I require all of them to use Claude.
[00:03:21] Travis: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:21] Jim: And the way I tell them to use it is if you have anything where you're gonna be sitting at your desk for more than an hour, like interrogatory responses, um, summary judgment response, your first draft needs to be on Claude.
[00:03:35] Jim: Wow. And as you know from doing it, your first draft sometimes can take 2, 3, 4 hours. Mm-hmm. But on Claude, if you input the right information, it's less than a minute. Um, so everybody in my office is required. We've trained on it, they learned it. So we use Claude, um, and perplexity for just basic searches.
[00:03:55] Jim: So perplexity is Google for artificial intelligence. Okay? So you go into [00:04:00] perplexity, you do your search in artificial intelligence, they don't call 'em searches. They call 'em prompts. Mm-hmm. And so there's an art and a science to how you do the prompt. Mm-hmm. Um, you need to put more information rather than less information.
[00:04:13] Jim: So we train on prompts. Um, we train on Claude, we train on file Vine and using it for that. Um, and then there's some, you know, bells and whistles, neat products that we're looking into right now that aren't quite there yet. One of them is called supposedly lx. I think I talked about that before, where you do a deposition and you hook into the court reporters.
[00:04:35] Jim: Uh, machine and you get real time transcript, and then it has your whole file on your laptop and it is suggesting questions to you like a second chair. Wow. So those are some of the things that we use it for right now.
[00:04:48] Travis: I mean, at what point is it just gonna start asking the questions?
[00:04:51] Jim: Well, I mean, that's, we're close, right?
[00:04:53] Jim: Right. I was doing a lot of research yesterday on AI agents, and these agents now can only do things for 30 minutes, [00:05:00] but they're gonna be a point where they can do it for eight hours. You can have an AI agent next to you and it could literally take the deposition for you. You can write the script for it.
[00:05:08] Jim: You don't have to code because now artificial intelligence does the coding. You can code the, you can do the whole thing to write it for you, and the agent can take your deposition.
[00:05:16] Travis: Wow. Okay. So the AI can give us a first draft and obviously we don't suggest that be your final draft. We, we, we know lawyers who have been putting the grease on that.
[00:05:27] Travis: Mm-hmm. Uh, but first drafts might be a good use to use ai, check your case citations, right? Uh, helping respond to discovery, helping respond to motions, draft motions, draft petitions, and help prepare you for discovery, uh, depositions. Um, AI Can't try your case for you.
[00:05:47] Jim: Not yet.
[00:05:48] Travis: Not yet, right. Alright, so let's fast forward this thing, right?
[00:05:51] Travis: Yeah. The next question is. Where do, where's the future going here? Is AI going to replace lawyers? [00:06:00] Is AI going to replace the court system? Are we going to have AI courts someday? I mean, what do you, you, you read more about this than anybody I know. Uh, so what are you thinking?
[00:06:09] Jim: I don't think it's gonna replace the court system, but right now, for example, on very small claims that go to arbitration on less than $5,000, there's a system set up right now where AI will make the initial decision and then you can appeal that decision to a real life judge.
[00:06:26] Travis: Oh, wow.
[00:06:26] Jim: So, um, and a lot of 'em aren't being appealed because AI is being fair on its results. Right. And so it, you could extrapolate it to to, to judges and all that, but AI as of this point cannot analyze a witness and determine whether a witness is telling the truth or not.
[00:06:43] Travis: Yeah. Credibility is a huge part of what we do.
[00:06:45] Jim: Yeah. And, and so we're not there yet, and I don't think we'll be at the point where AI is gonna replace lawyers in the courtroom. What I think AI is doing is going to compliment lawyers. And I got asked in Rio, I got asked, um, what about. [00:07:00] You know, AI with respect to lawyers, and I said, well, there's gonna have the same number of lawyers.
[00:07:05] Jim: Just those that don't know AI aren't gonna have any work.
[00:07:08] Travis: Right?
[00:07:09] Jim: You have to know ai, you have to understand it, and you have to utilize it properly for your client. I think in five years, if you get sued for malpractice and you did not use ai, that's gonna be a fact against you in the malpractice. Yeah.
[00:07:21] Travis: See, that's so interesting because right now. And like, where are the, like what are the judges, I know the judges are all across the board on everything, but like, what's the general consensus on the judiciary right now? Like, are they nervous about ai? Do they not want their litigants using it or are they open to it?
[00:07:36] Jim: So in February, the uh, Sedona Conference, judicial Conference, which is the, um, premier Judicial conference on. That all the judges listened to. And they, they put out a paper in February on artificial intelligence and what they said was they want the judges to use artificial intelligence. And they gave a list of 14 things that judges should use artificial intelligence for.
[00:07:58] Jim: And it's everything, [00:08:00] you know, the only thing that wasn't on that list was actually drafting the, the opinions, but even then researching it, they could use it. Yeah,
[00:08:08] Travis: I mean, I've heard of judge, I don't do criminal law, but I've heard of judges using it to help, uh, propose sentencing. I mean, the actual amount of time somebody spends in jail is proposed by artificial intelligence,
[00:08:19] Jim: right?
[00:08:20] Jim: And, but the judges now have a white paper from the leading group saying they should use artificial intelligence. And in fact, in all federal courts, Westlaw, or now it's Thom Reuters has co-counsel 2.0. And that is free for all the federal judges. So they have free artificial intelligence at the highest level that they're using every single day to do their work.
[00:08:42] Jim: Yeah. So yeah, artificial intelligence, they expect you to use it.
[00:08:47] Travis: Yeah. So, uh, what's your advice to lawyers? Like you mentioned lawyers are slow to adapt. I mean, I think we saw this, I mean, not too long ago with the shift to the cloud. For a lot of our case management software and [00:09:00] stuff like that. A lot of lawyers were pretty slow on that.
[00:09:02] Travis: I know you and I and others were kind out in front on this. Um, but what is your advice to lawyers? Because the problem, what I see is it's happening so fast. There's a new toy out there. I have a new email in my inbox at least once a week pitching me trying to sell me some new AI thing to help analyze medical records or to help do this or that, and you just can't keep up with all of it.
[00:09:26] Travis: Unless you're Jim Zeta. Uh, so what's your advice to lawyers who, by nature are slow to change, but even the ones who wanna lean into it, it's like, where, where do you start?
[00:09:36] Jim: Yeah. So, uh, I read a try and read every article that comes out. I'm on several newsletters and I get Texas lawyer and everything that's out there about a AI try and read or watch the podcast about.
[00:09:46] Jim: I would tell people don't pay attention to that. Right. Let me handle that for you. Yeah. What I would tell the lawyers to do is, number one, start with perplexity. As I call it, the gateway drug of Right. Artificial intelligence. Just go ahead and, um, [00:10:00] do a, a prompt on perplexity for anything. Yeah. Like you said, a coloring book or just anything that's out there and try it.
[00:10:08] Jim: Right. Because virtually, you know, most of the lawyers haven't even done that. They haven't even tried one prompt on artificial intelligence. Right. And once you do it, I've seen this, I've seen the lights come on for everybody when the first time they do it, they said, oh my God, it can do that. Yeah. And I, I, yes it can.
[00:10:26] Jim: All right, you've done perplexity. Now let's graduate to chat CT and Claude, the large language models, and now let's do a task there. And now let's do a task relating to the law. Mm-hmm. Let's say you've got a thorny problem and you're just mulling it around in your head and you're not quite sure direction to go in.
[00:10:44] Jim: Try chat. GPT. Yeah, throw it in there and see what the result is.
[00:10:47] Travis: The, I know there's, I know you have thousands of anecdotes here, but like, um, one staring at me here in my lap, and it's my outline for this podcast, and I'm not, you know, I don't sit here and read these questions as you can kind of tell by, by [00:11:00] what we're doing here, but I like to come prepared with kinda a general outline and what I did for this one and what I do for a lot of podcasts.
[00:11:06] Travis: Like, here's who I'm interviewing, here's the podcast website. These are my past episodes. So what, what would be some good suggested questions for this guest based on, you know, my style, what I've done in the past based on what this person's an expert at, based on the amount of time we have, based on the vibe of the podcast deal.
[00:11:24] Travis: And here, you know, and here's an outline and then I can go in and tweak it. But, and it can come up with that in five seconds.
[00:11:30] Jim: I mean, it's for anything you need it for. I, I got blood tests recently. I had 10 years worth of blood tests. I threw it into chat, GPT, and I said tell me the trends here and tell me.
[00:11:40] Jim: You know, what, what I'm seeing and what I need to be doing, and then, uh, change my, here's my diet, change my diet to, you know, go with my blood test. Yeah. Here's my workout routine. And then I take all of that and I go to my doctor. Right. And my doctor says, okay, here's the one tweak that you're missing, but you got 80, 90% of it right here.
[00:11:56] Travis: Right.
[00:11:57] Jim: That's what, that's what it can be used for. It can be used for anything in [00:12:00] your life.
[00:12:00] Travis: Yeah, it could. I had a bulging disc about a month ago. I told you this story, it read my MRI image. Mm-hmm. It can just read an actual image of an MRI. It tells told me where the bulge was, how big the bulge was, and what I could do to alleviate the pain.
[00:12:14] Travis: And it wasn't too far off of what the, uh, what PT was saying, what the pain management was saying. It was pretty dialed in, recommended exercises to help, you know, deal with that. So obviously not replacing the advice of a medical professional, right. But it can kind of help you get started in the right direction and there's a thousand different stories we can go with.
[00:12:33] Travis: Um, so going back to legal, right. What I love about AI and what you do too I know, is it can allow us to be even more efficient and more accurate, uh, in our practice, have some quality control and like you said, get. A lot of menial tasks done a lot quicker. That's to me where the gold is right now. We're personal injury lawyers.
[00:12:54] Travis: We, the way any personal injury lawyer in the country works, as far as I know, you get a [00:13:00] percentage of whatever that case is worth. And, and there's different fees for different, uh, times of the case where it gets settled. A lot of lawyers out there bill by the hour. Okay, so let's talk about the elephant in the room, Jim.
[00:13:12] Travis: 'cause I, I bill by the hour for. The first, I dunno, two years of my legal career, it wasn't for me. Um, but I know a lot of people who do it. It's, it's, it's the big law, traditional law firm model, and a lot of lawyers do it. There's nothing wrong with it. But when you talk about AI and now you have a tool that can make a lot of legal tasks, task research, doc review, drafting, a lot of those legal tasks, you can be a lot more efficient at it.
[00:13:42] Travis: If something takes a used to take a lawyer two hours to do, but now it takes five minutes to do. What is that conversation like between those lawyers and their clients on modern billing rates?
[00:13:55] Jim: I think, I personally think that they need to charge five minutes. [00:14:00] Right. But they don't. And,
[00:14:02] Travis: and when you say they,
[00:14:03] Jim: they, oh, so I was a defense attorney for 15 years.
[00:14:06] Jim: I billed for 15 years. Yeah. I understand what billing is about. I understand that it's a model of inefficiency. Yeah. The longer you can take on a project, the more your law firm is happy with you. Right, right. Um, and so I've had conversations with, uh, lawyers. I talked to a partner recently about what happens when you do medical summaries of medical records, and you can do 'em on chat, pt, and it takes you literally 30 seconds.
[00:14:31] Jim: What are you gonna Bill? And I got this whole, you know, two minute answer that in essence said, we're still gonna bill an hour. You know, and that's just what they're gonna do. 'cause that's how they make their money. I talked to a lawyer this weekend who charges $1,800 an hour. He does mergers and acquisitions.
[00:14:47] Jim: He's a law school friend of mine. And, uh, I ask him about, you know, m and a is transactional. It is it, it is designed, it is perfect. For artificial intelligence, you could save [00:15:00] 90% of the fees on it. Wow. And I ask him, how are you doing with artificial intelligence? I mean, big partner at a big firm. I don't even know it.
[00:15:07] Jim: I don't understand it. My associates will come to me and they'll tell me, oh, Harvey told me that I was right, but that we needed to add something. And he said, who's Harvey? I. And if you're in the legal world, Harvey is the state-of-the-art for big law firm for artificial intelligence. So it wasn't an associate, it's a, it's a product named Harvey.
[00:15:24] Travis: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:25] Jim: And so he has to learn from his associates what artificial is telling intelligence is telling him. So. I teach at Texas a and m, I teach at the law school. Mm-hmm. And I teach all my students on artificial intelligence. I actually have a class on it and I, and for the, I teach advanced torts and I require them to use artificial intelligence.
[00:15:44] Travis: Right.
[00:15:45] Jim: And I tell them to use it on their final and, and I tell 'em to just tell me when you use it on your final, because I want, I think the young attorneys, especially those coming outta law school, have to know it so they can help the $1,800 an hour partner.
[00:15:59] Travis: Right. Oh, [00:16:00] absolutely. Become more valuable for your law firm.
[00:16:02] Travis: Uh, maybe not more. I guess valuable is not the right word. The valuable associate is the one who builds the most, right? Um, but the clients are going to shift. I mean, it's just a matter of time before the clients start demanding, uh, proof of AI use, right? Mm-hmm. In their, in their files and their client matters.
[00:16:19] Travis: Um, and, and if those partners have no idea how to use it, I imagine they could lose business
[00:16:24] Jim: and wait till AI starts reviewing their bills.
[00:16:27] Travis: Oh, wow.
[00:16:28] Jim: That's where you're gonna see it. AI is gonna say, I could have done this in five minutes. Why are you billing my client two hours?
[00:16:35] Travis: Oh wow. I think a lot of lawyers just slammed their phones on the ground.
[00:16:40] Travis: Sorry, sorry, sorry for telling the truth. Sorry. Yeah. Um, so, okay, let's talk about lead legal education. Uh, so Jim, you're the one who got me into adjunct teaching at the Texas a m School of Law, Tennessee and I are doing, going on our sixth year doing personal injury, uh, 1 0 1.
[00:16:57] Jim: People love your class, by the way.
[00:16:59] Travis: Well, [00:17:00] likewise. Uh, it's been fun. But one of the, we have a similar model of we are gonna make this, the most practical class that you have in law school, maybe is probably right behind Jim's, you know, in your law practice management class. Um, so I, I fully agree that, you know, we should teach AI to the law students.
[00:17:17] Travis: One of the reasons I love our local law school is they're open to that practical education, especially by the adjuncts. Um, but where I went to law school at the University of Texas, it wasn't a lot of practical stuff. I didn't take a lot of adjunct classes, but it was a lot more like theory. I. So are law schools shifting their education to, to teaching this as far as you're seeing?
[00:17:39] Jim: I think they're just like lawyers. They're slow to change, right? I mean, we're still doing, you know, a semester and then a final at the end of the semester in three hours. You know, that is not realistic.
[00:17:50] Travis: No.
[00:17:50] Jim: If you get a legal problem when you're at work, you just work all night and you can use artificial intelligence, you can it out, have the answer, and you can get it done.
[00:17:56] Jim: So the way we test now in law school is I'm, I'm. [00:18:00] Not a big fan of, and so I think, but, but that's the way, you know, these professors have done it for 30 years and so they're not gonna change.
[00:18:08] Travis: Right.
[00:18:08] Jim: And so it's just up to people like you and I to go in and just drag them. Yeah. Drag 'em through it. So that's why I met with the clinic people, to get to clinic on board and have them use artificial intelligence.
[00:18:20] Jim: When a student goes out and represents a client, a tax client in the tax clinic, they use artificial intelligence. If you go into criminal court, you use artificial intelligence. Mm-hmm. Have 'em use it in real life applications. Um, I don't think I'm gonna get first year teachers, you know, one L teachers to change what they do, but I think we can change it second and third year and really teach 'em.
[00:18:40] Travis: Yeah. 'cause at first year of law school, pretty much anywhere you go, it's, it's the same seven or eight classes and it's, it's kinda how to think about these things. It's not really how to do anything, just kinda how to think about these legal problems, whether it's a tort or whatever contract. Um. So what about the ethics of all of this?
[00:18:57] Travis: Right? So that's kind of the thing that kind of always concerns. [00:19:00] Lawyers when a new tool comes out is the ethical concerns about client Confidentiality, obviously is a big issue. Uh, so what are you seeing?
[00:19:09] Jim: So if you have a closed system like Harvey or something that's internal, like File Vine, that that keeps all your stuff internal.
[00:19:16] Jim: You don't really have to worry about the attorney-client stuff when you go out into chat, GPT and Claude, you need to take out all the client identifiers. Now if it's a publicly filed document, like a petition or discovery, you can throw that in chat, right? And you can throw that in Claude. Um, but you do need to keep attorney-client, you know, that way.
[00:19:33] Jim: I will tell you in all the research that I've done, I have never seen that a lawyer who's done a search that's included attorney-client information that that's come back to haunt them,
[00:19:42] Travis: right?
[00:19:42] Jim: Um, I just don't see that now what I am seeing ethically. That lawyers are doing, and in fact, there was an example this morning is they're doing their first draft on chat GPT.
[00:19:52] Jim: They're copying, cutting and pasting it, putting in a brief and filing it without doing their work. I. Though one of the problems with, [00:20:00] uh, artificial intelligence is it makes things up. It's getting better at it. They're called hallucinations, right? It's getting better at it, but it makes up citations, it makes up, um, statements of law.
[00:20:11] Jim: And there was an article that just came out before I came over here today about a lawyer, a big law firm, who went ahead and submitted a brief that had, was not checked, and it had nine sites in it that were incorrect. And it had two statements of law that were incorrect. And the judge asked them to come back and, and show cause and they repeated the same thing again and they got sanctioned $31,000.
[00:20:34] Travis: Yeah.
[00:20:35] Jim: Um, normally if I've, it happens now. It's happening weekly. It used to happen monthly, but this is happening. What happens is lawyers get sanctioned anywhere from zero to now. 30 one's the highest that I've heard. 31,000. And occasionally they get barred from practicing in that court for a certain amount of time.
[00:20:52] Jim: But that's it. And the judges go ahead and do rule on the case on its merits. So the most, the worst thing for lawyers is their names in the paper. Right? [00:21:00] Right. And in the one this morning, and I, I don't like big law, 'cause they do this, they had to find a scapegoat. So they traced it all the way back to a memo that another partner had done in a different office that was used to do the brief.
[00:21:13] Jim: That's the only name that was in the article was the guy who did the original search, not the lawyers whose signature was on the brief. Oh, wow. They're the ones who should have site checked it, but it was just, they, they made this poor partner scapegoat. Um Right, but you do have to check it. Obviously.
[00:21:27] Jim: There's also bias. Yeah. And so the example I always use is if you go ahead and ask chat, GBT or Claude to give you a picture of an American CEO, 100% of the time it's a white male.
[00:21:41] Travis: Hmm.
[00:21:42] Jim: Um, if you ask it to do a picture of the boardroom and the board of directors of a Fortune 500 company, 100% of the time it is white, male and white female.
[00:21:52] Jim: Hmm. It has just got, it's scraped the entire internet, and so it's got a hundred years of bias built right into it.
[00:21:59] Travis: Gotcha. It's [00:22:00] not
[00:22:00] Jim: saying that it's intentionally that way, but it's a hundred percent that way. Uh, a hundred percent that it comes up biased because of the. The history of bias we have in those areas.
[00:22:09] Jim: So you've got bias, you've got hallucinations. Um, there's always the problem that we have of, we don't really know how these things work.
[00:22:17] Travis: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:17] Jim: Kinda like the human brain. We don't really understand how AI works. Um, we just know we put it in and something comes out. Right? And that's always a little bit scary, right?
[00:22:25] Jim: That we don't know how it works. And confidentiality we talked about. Those are the main issues that, that the main limitations of artificial intelligence. But, and I wanna emphasize this, it is not enough for lawyers to not go and do it, right? It is an excuse that lawyers have used. They see these articles of the citations that were done, or the lawyers that are getting sanctioned.
[00:22:46] Jim: They go, oh. That's, I don't wanna do it. You see? See what happens if you use artificial intelligence. Yeah. Uhhuh. And, and for me that is, is um, just putting your head in the sand because you've done it that same way for as long as you've done it, and you're just gonna [00:23:00] keep going that way. Interesting.
[00:23:02] Travis: Okay.
[00:23:02] Travis: So what is Harvey exactly? Is that where, um, this, this is the way I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, you have a law firm, like, you know, and you know, if you've been doing it for a period of time, you have a database of. Motions and briefs that you've written on similar topics and there might be different fact patterns, different wi client names and stuff, similar legal issues.
[00:23:21] Travis: So do, do all those documents go into a machine and then it's just predicting what like the best lawyer at this particular law firm would, would use? Or is it also incorporating like the outside
[00:23:31] Jim: world? It, it is incorporating some of the, it's incorporating the outside world, but they. Uh, I haven't confirmed this, but virtually every company does.
[00:23:39] Jim: They have a certificate that no human eyes will look at any searches, so you can get that certificate from chat cheap PT or Claude that, Hey, I'm an in, I'm a company. I'm keeping everything in house. I'm gonna do some searches using Chat cheap PT or Claude as my base. But no human eye is gonna look at the search because if you do a search and let's say it's child pornography, or I want to build an atomic [00:24:00] bomb, then that's flagged.
[00:24:01] Jim: And a human eye looks at the search and may stop you from being able to do that prompt or that search. Okay? But this says no human eye is gonna look at it because we know you're doing it for business purpose. So you get that certificate, you tie in all the stuff you have in the office, but then you also tie in.
[00:24:15] Jim: Of Westlaw or Lexus into it. So now you have all the case law in there too. And so what Harvey can do, give you an example, is if a federal judge is given 3000 opinions, it can predict what the lead, what the answer's gonna be, and it can actually write the brief, like it's writing the opinion for that federal judge.
[00:24:32] Jim: Mm-hmm. So Harvey is, is, you know, artificial intelligence on steroids for law firm.
[00:24:39] Travis: Uh, so Wow. So Claude and Chachi Petit are very cheap. They're, that stuff's like 20 bucks a month. Mm-hmm. How expensive is this next level? I have not
[00:24:47] Jim: priced Harvey because it is big firm. That's big firm stuff. Yeah. Okay.
[00:24:50] Travis: That's what they're doing.
[00:24:51] Jim: It was really a mystery. I, you know, about six months ago they started. Coming up with some marketing and the first marketing was nothing but like a Beethoven [00:25:00] music and a video, and that was it. They're being all mysterious about what they do, uhhuh, so it's, it's, it's hard to get in.
[00:25:06] Jim: So I cut someone asked about it on the Listerv yesterday. It's the first time I've seen plaintiff's lawyers start asking about Harvey, but I have not priced it. I just know that it's out there.
[00:25:15] Travis: Okay. Um, what about state bars? Are they regulating AI at all right now? Or, I mean, you talk about lawyers being slow to change.
[00:25:23] Travis: I mean, no offense to the state bars, but.
[00:25:25] Jim: The, the only thing we have is some ethics opinions that say that lawyers have a duty to stay up on technology.
[00:25:30] Travis: Okay. Right. Thanks a lot. So
[00:25:32] Jim: we have a responsibility to be, stay up on technology and I think that responsibility includes artificial intelligence. But I don't think you're gonna get a grievance because you haven't stayed up on ai.
[00:25:40] Travis: No.
[00:25:41] Jim: So that's the only thing we have. But there are laws, right? That European Union. If you have any case involving Europe, you need to look at the EU Space AI Act. That is the act that applies to all of Europe and then some of the, the, the federal government we have here is horrible. If you've seen any of the Senate hearings, a bunch of [00:26:00] 80-year-old people trying to understand AI was just the most painful thing that you've ever seen.
[00:26:04] Jim: Right. And so we have no federal laws at all about artificial intelligence. Okay. Um, they're working on some deep fake stuff and they're working on some transparency stuff, but some states have laws, um. So, like for example, in Tennessee, they wanna protect their singers and so they're not allowing, um, you to use a singer's voice to create an artificial intelligence song.
[00:26:25] Travis: True.
[00:26:25] Jim: Um, Colorado has an act which is going into, uh, effect February 1st of next year. And that act talks about transparency. So if you are doing a job search and you're including Colorado residents, you have to disclose to those Colorado, Colorado residents that you're using ai. To, to as an algorithm to go ahead and, and weed out people.
[00:26:46] Jim: Mm-hmm. That you may or may not choose for your search. So that's the kind of stuff that's out there. Mostly it's focusing though on the deep fakes and child pornography and that sort of thing.
[00:26:56] Travis: Yeah. And that's the part obvious, obviously as a parent that scares the [00:27:00] hell outta me, is, yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff with AI and what we can do with business and or legal stuff, but what scares me is what they can do with images of children and all sorts of bad things.
[00:27:11] Travis: Um, and to me it's like, how are they going to get on top of that? You know, how are they gonna shut that stuff down?
[00:27:17] Jim: Yeah. And right now it's the Wild West. And, and so in addition to chat, GPT and Claude, there are other large language MO models out there. And Elon Musk through Twitter, which now X has something product called Grok, GROK, and he's kind of taken the guardrails off that.
[00:27:33] Jim: And so. That's kinda where people are doing some of the bad things is over in using gr. Um, there's another product called Deep Seek, which is, uh, from China. And believe it or not, they did it cheaper and they did it, you know, quicker, uh, with less expensive. But, um, that one is also out there. That's being used.
[00:27:53] Jim: I don't know. Not really. Ethically sometimes, right? So you have, and the one that's no one [00:28:00] really talks about right now, um, Facebook Meta, they have a product called lama. The thing about that, it's open source. And so by that, anybody can go in and get the code that they use to build their large language model and they can use it to buy their own.
[00:28:12] Jim: And so there's a big debate right now as to whether or not, um, open ai, which runs chat, GPT, whether they're able to make a bunch of money on it or whether or not consumers are gonna just take it and make their own. And so. There's an arms race going on right now as to who's gonna be in the lead. But then there's also this little side race, like maybe just the consumers are the one that are gonna get the AI and, and mm-hmm.
[00:28:33] Jim: The big companies are gonna lose out. So it's really interesting to see which way this is going right now.
[00:28:38] Travis: So staying here, like outside of the legal world, like how advanced do you predict AI is going to get? I mean. You mentioned some scary stuff about downloading someone's conscience or something like that.
[00:28:49] Travis: Yeah. You even lost me at that point. I was like, what is this guy talking about? Um, so give it another shot. Try to explain this to me like I'm a. 5-year-old.
[00:28:56] Jim: Okay. There are people out there called futurists, right? [00:29:00] They're not, they're not people who are crazy. They're not fortune tellers. They make their living by telling companies what the future is going to do, okay?
[00:29:08] Jim: Right. And they present each year at South by Southwest. One of 'em name's Amy Webb, the other one guy's name is Ray. Um, I don't know Ray's, that's a long last name. But the combined opinion of both of those, and Ray got everything right so far. Is that we're gonna reach what's called artificial super intelligence, which means that a computer can do every human task better than a human, than 50% of the human population.
[00:29:35] Jim: We're gonna get there by 2045. Every human task it can do better. 2045. Okay. Wow. Better than half population. Wow. Anything you can do, it can do better. Right. Okay. Um, but one of the things that they're talking about is, okay. We've already reached what's called, we some say artificial general intelligence, which is a, a pretty heightened state, but what we're [00:30:00] doing right now in the futurist and why, what Ray's talking about and he wants to live to see this, is that if you, there's a product called Neuralink and Elon Musk is behind that, and this is for paralyzed people.
[00:30:11] Jim: When they can go ahead and they can look at a screen and they can tell the screen what they want it to do and it'll do it. They can't move. They can just tell it what to do mentally. There are also products out there where people can think of an image and the image will come up on a screen. Wow. Okay. So our thoughts are right now going directly to a computer.
[00:30:32] Jim: Okay. Um, if you look at our brain, our brain is nothing but tissue and, you know, electric connections and all that. It's not hard to believe that what we have in our brain could be downloaded into a computer. Just like sticking a USB drive in your temple and taking all your information out and sticking it in another computerise,
[00:30:52] Travis: how would you like that?
[00:30:55] Jim: So you, so the idea is that what these futurists are talking [00:31:00] about is that you'll be able to download your consciousness, so what you think and who you are and your essence into a computer. Okay. And so, you know, I talk about the USB drive, but eventually it's gonna be just, you can think about it and it'll go into that computer.
[00:31:19] Jim: Ray believes that we're gonna have some level of liftoff, as he calls it, where we can start to download the consciousness as early as 20 31, 20 32. So we're just talking six or seven years from now. Wow. Um, the idea being that if you download your consciousness into the computer. And it has it similar to any other file that you have.
[00:31:44] Jim: Then we could download it into a robot. We could save it in 20 different places.
[00:31:50] Travis: See, this is where I start to shiver because it like, it starts clashing with religion. Absolutely. You know, and, and a lot like. Like, I don't know, [00:32:00] like, where's this going? I mean, well let,
[00:32:01] Jim: let's talk about it from a religious point of view though.
[00:32:02] Jim: Yeah. Imagine if you, if you could download your consciousness, right? You really could. And what Amy talks about Amy Webb is that right now we're limited to chips, computer chips where we can download things.
[00:32:15] Travis: Mm-hmm.
[00:32:16] Jim: But she believes that we're gonna be able to download information to organic materials such as trees and grass and rocks and all that stuff.
[00:32:22] Jim: Okay. And so that'll give us unlimited, but imagine if you could, that you could. Put it in a, in a satellite outta space or even space rocks that are floating around up, up there. Okay? So you download your consciousness up there,
[00:32:37] Travis: okay? Right
[00:32:38] Jim: Now, imagine it's not just you, though. You can download your family's consciousness.
[00:32:43] Jim: You could download your friend's consciousness, and, and then you're all together, right? You can all come together and what's that called?
[00:32:52] Travis: I mean, it's some weird, twisted form of an afterlife, I suppose. Heaven,
[00:32:57] Jim: everybody lives forever and you get to be with [00:33:00] your loved ones forever.
[00:33:01] Travis: Okay?
[00:33:02] Jim: From a spiritual point of view that is, that has a spiritual context to it that you know, you think, okay, now you have to really think about it, right?
[00:33:12] Jim: And I don't know how the church is gonna feel about it if we reach that technology and whether they're gonna allow that to happen. Uh, a funny story, when I was learning about all this, I talked to my wife and. I said, sweetheart, you know, we're married for 35 years and you know, there's this possibility we can download each other's consciousness and, and you know, I can actually see into your consciousness and you can see into, into mine.
[00:33:34] Jim: And she said, you're not gonna see my consciousness.
[00:33:36] Travis: Yeah,
[00:33:37] Jim: yeah. I am never gonna show. And I said, well, imagine it's a house and there's certain rooms you can close off. I can't. She goes, no, you're not even coming to the front door. Right. So it's, it's, it's something that's, it's going to. It, it's, it's got those possibilities.
[00:33:52] Jim: What I like to think about is when you're at a concert or sporting event, when you as a collective group get into that sporting event, there's nothing better than that feeling, [00:34:00] right? Yeah. That music gets in the energy of all the people, the energy of the, of the sporting event and the unique things that happen.
[00:34:07] Jim: I'm just thinking of this, uh, of this consciousness thing, is that on a much higher level, wow. And you get that kind of synergy going between the people that you love and just live for in your life. Um, and, and that Travis could be even in our lifetime, right?
[00:34:25] Travis: Yeah. Yeah. 20, you said 2030 something? 2030 is when
[00:34:28] Jim: we start to have lift off.
[00:34:29] Jim: 2045 is when we reach artificial super intelligence, which by then we'll have it have it down. Yeah.
[00:34:34] Travis: I mean, and then, okay, so like, you know, yesterday my daughter's going into kindergarten and she comes home, um, she's got a shirt and on the back of it it says class of 2038, I think is what it was, which, when she's gonna graduate.
[00:34:47] Travis: And, um, but you know, I just had this like, thought in my head like, what's the world gonna look like in 2038? Like, what are, what are the jobs gonna look like for those kids in 2038 getting outta high school or college? I imagine they're not gonna [00:35:00] look like the jobs that are out there right now. So like, what's your advice to young people on that front?
[00:35:04] Jim: I, I'm young people, is just to get your basics down, right? You have to have your fundamentals. Just like first year law school, you have to have your fundamentals. You can't skip on that. You can't go ahead and, and just let artificial intelligence do all your work. You've gotta get your own brain trained.
[00:35:18] Jim: Yeah. So do all the basic work and nothing replace grit, right? Grit is what I think is what makes people the most successful is, and even now with artificial intelligence, it'll make even more successful because. AI's gonna tell you, be smart for you. Right. So it's gotta be discipline and grit, and that's what kids need to learn.
[00:35:38] Jim: Yeah. And then they learn that, and they come out, they can go in any direction they want, use artificial intelligence to help 'em, and they can create what they wanna create.
[00:35:46] Travis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The grit, you know, I, I talk about this a lot with, you know, my wife. It's like you just don't see a lot of young people with as much grit anymore.
[00:35:53] Travis: And so if we can establish that with our kids, um, they'll likely have tremendous opportunities to [00:36:00] stand out. Um, so AI's not gonna replace all that, obviously.
[00:36:04] Jim: Right? That's the, that's to me, the human element that it can't replace is, is the, the strong people and the, and the ones that aren't that strong, you know, are will just, will struggle a little bit, I think.
[00:36:15] Travis: Yeah. Um, so going back to the legal world, um, for a minute, you know, it's funny you said the world. Wild, wild west, maybe that should be the new name of this podcast. 'cause that, that phrase has been used a lot lately, uh, which I like. Um, but going from religion back to lawyers, um, just the attorney client relationship is something that I kind of think about too.
[00:36:38] Travis: Like, you use, you're a frequent user of ai. Are you having conversations with your clients in those initial consultations that we are gonna use ai? Um, what are those, what are those conversations like and what's advice for lawyers there?
[00:36:51] Jim: Well, I, I think you have to establish rapport with your client, and so I don't think AI is something you bring up right away, but I think near the end of your conversation in your initial.[00:37:00]
[00:37:00] Jim: Conversation with your client. You say, Hey, we are gonna use artificial intelligence on your file. Just wanna let you know, but when you call us, you're gonna talk to a human. Right. Right. Because AI agents right now are answering, answering a lot, a lot of calls. In fact, when I talk to somebody now, I ask them, are they a bot or are they human?
[00:37:18] Travis: Oh, really? Even if it's like a, sounds like a human voice. You're eth
[00:37:22] Jim: Wow. They've got it so good right now. And do they have to be
[00:37:23] Travis: honest with you, if you ask that question,
[00:37:25] Jim: they they have to. They should be okay. I mean, if they're ethical.
[00:37:29] Travis: Wow. Yeah. See I just, you know, you know, we use technology at a law firm, but I, I think just in society we're kind of portal, I call it portal to death.
[00:37:38] Travis: Everything's got a portal. You got a portal for your records, you got a portal for this, you got a portal for your kids' school, you got a portal for Carpool Line, you got a portal. Oh my gosh. Apps for all your kids', sports teams, like, there's a lot of apps and a lot of portals to keep up with. Uh, it's almost a full-time job just keeping track of those passwords.
[00:37:54] Travis: So like when we have attorney-client, uh, you know, initial consultations, I tell my people, I don't want any [00:38:00] screens in there. You go in there with a piece of paper, a legal pad, you know, your, your intake sheet, and you develop that relationship that you can't, 'cause you cannot outsource that to tech. We tried that once with iPads and it was a disaster.
[00:38:11] Travis: Um, and so just establishing that human connection is so important. Um, and then like you said, don't let robots answer your phones. I mean, that's just the worst.
[00:38:22] Jim: I, as I, I know, but there are companies that are doing it and I, and lawyers are gonna build their own AI agents that are gonna do that. They're gonna answer client's questions and frankly, they have access to your entire file.
[00:38:33] Jim: They have access to your everything inside. They can answer the questions that the clients have, right. Update them on what's going on in their. Case when their next hearing is all that kind of good stuff. They could do it. Yeah. But that's not what a client wants. That's not what your client and my client wants.
[00:38:46] Jim: They wanna talk to me. Yeah, absolutely. They wanna talk to Mary, they wanna talk to Amanda. They wanna talk to people they know and trust.
[00:38:51] Travis: Now that you mention it, this is one of the sales pitches that was in my inbox the other day and I just deleted it. 'cause I don't want anyone's AI robot talking to my clients and pretending [00:39:00] like they're us.
[00:39:01] Travis: No,
[00:39:01] Jim: but as you know Travis, some of the marketers are gonna start imitating us, you know?
[00:39:06] Travis: How much time do we have?
[00:39:07] Jim: I know we could talk about that forever. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up. No, I know. That's
[00:39:10] Travis: a whole other episode. Yeah. Is, is non-law lead generation and, and all that kind of stuff.
[00:39:14] Travis: And yeah, I got into a little bit of that with Tom, uh, cars a couple months ago on the Barit Tree stuff. But obviously there's a whole other kind of world out there that you and I could dabble with. But, um, no, this AI conversation has been fascinating. I think it gives lawyers a lot to think about. I think if you're not using ai, you gotta start, start with perplexity, start with Claude, at least.
[00:39:35] Travis: Let it fact check you, let it get your first draft and just kinda see where it goes from there. Um, any, any other advice for lawyers? No,
[00:39:41] Jim: that's, that's my message. My message has been on all my talks has been Try it. Please. As a lawyer, you're, you are doing your client a disservice by not trying it. It, it really can help.
[00:39:51] Jim: And the other thing I would say is it's a great first draft and a great last draft. Yeah. It can go ahead and look at everything at the end to make sure you miss something. And I'd [00:40:00] ask I, and if it's a motion or a hearing, ask who's gonna win. Wow. 'cause it's been predicted about 99 5% Right. For our cases so far.
[00:40:09] Jim: But do the hard work in between.
[00:40:11] Travis: See if you're gonna lose a hearing. You, you wanna know that before the hearing? I do.
[00:40:15] Jim: I wanna know that I'm gonna go in if I, and, and if I go in and I, and it says, oh, you're probably gonna lose, I. I gotta figure out, I ask it why
[00:40:22] Travis: Uhhuh
[00:40:23] Jim: and what can I do differently to make it work?
[00:40:25] Jim: And then I start thinking about the judge I'm going in front of and what is it that I could say to this specific judge because of our experience, Travis?
[00:40:33] Travis: Mm-hmm.
[00:40:33] Jim: We've been in front of every one of these 11 district judges in Tarrant County, in the three county court law judges in the three federal district court judges.
[00:40:40] Jim: And they're all different.
[00:40:42] Travis: Yeah. And you know for sure. But here's a practical, you know, use for that. Is resuming negotiations. If you're about to get poured out and this thing's telling you like 90, 95% chance you're done, you know, and that lawyer on the other side doesn't have this tool and they, they're just as nervous as you [00:41:00] are 'cause you, you have a pretty motion and stuff.
[00:41:03] Travis: But if it's gonna tell you 95% you're gonna get poured out, you're gonna get zero. It's a pretty good incentive to go talk to the other side and then that's gonna help clear up the court docket. So, you know, the courts are incentivized to let lawyers use ai. The judges for sure. Um, that's just one of many practical, you know, applications to knowing what your odds are.
[00:41:20] Jim: And you tell your client, tell your client, this is what we did. You know, and, and AI couldn't come up with any other argument. We looked everywhere. We couldn't come up with any other argument. And, you know, sometimes I have good news and sometimes I have bad news, and unfortunately I have bad news. Our, our case.
[00:41:33] Jim: It's probably gonna get poured out unless we wanna settle. They've offered X.
[00:41:37] Travis: Yeah.
[00:41:38] Jim: This is how much you're gonna re receive from their offer. We recommend you take it. You don't have to, we're your soldier. We'll fight the whole way through. But
[00:41:45] Travis: go get that in writing to CYA. Yeah, I I know, right? Yeah, I know.
[00:41:49] Jim: But you do talk to 'em and you tell 'em that and, and we've had that happen a couple times where we thought we were golden. And it's a great check for you because sometimes. You buy your own. [00:42:00]
[00:42:00] Travis: Yeah. If you're in that case with your own
[00:42:01] Jim: selling and you're thinking, oh, this is the greatest case. Jury's gonna love it, judge's gonna love it.
[00:42:04] Jim: And you're like, uh oh. Mm-hmm. Maybe I was, maybe I overestimated the case.
[00:42:08] Travis: Yeah. It, I mean, we used to just ask each other, you know, what do you think of my case? Lemme just can present that hypothetical for you. It's this court, this, these are my facts, this is my defendant. And, and you know, you might be one of those phone calls and you say, yeah, your case isn't as good as you think it is.
[00:42:21] Travis: Um, I've, I've had that conversation too many times. Um, but having the AI tool tell me that in five seconds. Uh, would help a lot.
[00:42:29] Jim: I, I think, on settlement values as well. Mm-hmm. A lot of us local people talk about, Hey, I've got this case. In fact, Wade, who was on recently, I called him on a case I had recently.
[00:42:38] Jim: Mm-hmm. And I gave him the facts and I said, Wade, how much do you think this case is worth? And he gave me a number and he. Fortunately, my number was significantly higher that, and he goes, man, I don't know why you're talking to me. You need to be taking that right now before you get off the phone. Yeah. So that's what we do as, as, as plaintiff's lawyers here in town.
[00:42:55] Jim: We help each other with that. Yeah. And uh, I think AI can be another tool for us to do that. [00:43:00]
[00:43:00] Travis: For sure. Well, I appreciate it, Jim. Uh, you've given lawyers and just folks who work with lawyers and just kind of folks in the general community. A lot to think about with ai. Um, I mean, I could see just. Uh, regular, uh, people who are in their jobs thinking about using this more often for their work.
[00:43:15] Travis: I mean, I can't think of a, especially any professional task, professional job that you can benefit from using this.
[00:43:20] Jim: Give you one example. I spoke in front of the Fort Worth HR group. There was some representative from the city of Weatherford. I went over to City of Weatherford. I've given two talks to them.
[00:43:29] Jim: First I talked to their executive group, and then I talked to their department heads. They're using Claude, and now they say to each other, what does Claude say? The whole city of Weatherford is using artificial intelligence right now and it has made them so much more efficient and so much happier in their jobs.
[00:43:45] Jim: And that's just one small example of how it can make a difference. So yeah, I think everybody should at least give it a try.
[00:43:51] Travis: Absolutely. Weatherford. I mean, that's a very conservative town and they're using it so we can all use it. Alright, well thanks a lot Jen. Appreciate you coming [00:44:00] on. And if people, if especially lawyers, wanna talk to you more in depth about how they might.
[00:44:04] Travis: Adopt this to their practice, how could they reach you?
[00:44:06] Jim: Just my email, jim@zedafirm.com. Z-A-D-E-H-F-I-R m.com. Just email me. I have a zero inbox. AI helps with that, and so I will respond to your email right away.
[00:44:17] Travis: Zero inbox AI can get me a zero inbox.
[00:44:19] Jim: Yes, and it's,
[00:44:20] Travis: it's, it's, oh, I've been working on that for 10 years.
[00:44:22] Travis: Okay. I'm gonna go work on that right now. All right. Thanks Jim.
[00:44:25] Jim: Thanks Travis. Appreciate it.
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[00:44:35] Travis: I'm reminded of why I became a personal injury lawyer in the first place. Every single day, I see people whose lives have been turned upside down because of some accident in one form or another. It's a confusing and overwhelming time, and they can feel impossible for folks to know where to turn. If you or someone you love have been in an accident like that and you need honest guidance, give us a call.
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