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OK at Work, hosted by Offit Kurman attorneys Russell Berger and Sarah Sawyer, is a weekly podcast that discusses current events and legal issues impacting business owners. From updates on the ever-changing employment law landscape to the risks and benefits of integrating AI into your workplace, subscribe to stay up-to-date on issues and events that may impact you and your business.
Sarah Sawyer: Welcome to this
week's OK at Work with myself, Sarah
Sawyer, my colleague Russell Berger,
both attorneys at Offit Kurman.
And today we are talking about AI.
Specifically, and I know we've
talked about AI a lot on here because
it's obviously a hot topic and is
running through everything these
days but today we wanted to talk a
little bit about using it as a tool.
A lot of folks are starting to use it
more and more, I think even since we
first mentioned it OK at Work, there's
probably more people who are watching
this video who are actually using it.
It's installed on people's computers.
If you have Microsoft products, you make
a Co-pilot installed, when you open it up.
So folks are using it a lot more.
I know I'm having experiences where I have
clients sometimes who are sending me a
draft agreement from Chat GPT to get me
started which often is minimally helpful.
But what are some things that, we should
be thinking about, business owners should
be thinking about as it relates to asking
Co-pilot, Chat GPT, AI for legal help.
Russell Berger: Yeah, I
think as a starting point,
it's good to have the tools.
It's good to use the tools.
It's good as an employer to experiment
with efficiencies and progress
that can be made by leveraging AI,
but also it's a really powerful
tool that can go off the road too.
And, the metaphor I like to use
is, it's like when we went from
horse and buggies to automobiles.
Cars are a lot faster, a lot
stronger, a lot more powerful.
Capable of a lot more damage too.
You have to get a driver's license,
you gotta go to driver's ed.
You gotta know what you're doing.
You gotta learn the rules of the
road before you get behind the wheel.
And I think that's number one, a starting
point for AI and how we use generative AI.
I also think that it's important to
know, that, maybe it's best used by
the technical person in that area.
So you might wanna have people on your
team that are subject matter experts that
know how to engineer the right prompts
and how to leverage the technology.
And, when it comes to, your question,
Sarah, about, the practice of law,
as a starting point, if you put
something on AI, it's not privileged.
If you send it to us or a
lawyer, it is privileged.
So when you start putting things on AI,
whatever questions you're asking, whatever
you're uploading, like it's all out there.
You've waived, privileged and someone
is going to ask for that discovery
and you're gonna have to produce it.
And it might be unpleasant
and hurtful to your case.
So as a starting point, not a great idea.
Secondly, I think it's important
to have those conversations
with your professional.
And again, it's the same thing.
If I go on WebMD and diagnose myself with
something and then going to the doctor
and say, Hey Doc I helped you out here.
I know what this is.
The doctor's gonna say,
well, that's great.
I'm gonna start over.
I'm to go through, all my years of
training and experience and I'm gonna
start at the beginning and work through my
process and I think lawyers are probably
no different and any professional is
gonna be on along the same lines there.
Sarah Sawyer: Yeah, and it unfairly
narrows things in a not helpful
way sometimes in the beginning.
So if you come into, and I think it's a
good point just to think about generally
as well, is that when you go to see
a lawyer about an issue, you might
think the issue is X, but we might
know it to be Y and it's because we
have that background knowledge and part
of our job is to do that assessment.
So if you come up to us
saying, I put it in AI.
I know that this is what I need.
This is my issue.
It's X, you might be
leaving out vital details.
And hopefully, like you said
good attorneys will ask those
additional questions, dive deep
and see if it's really something
else that's going on there.
I think the doctor analogy
is a really good one.
But, no need to do all of that,
before you go and talk to council.
Again, there's a lot of great uses for AI.
I know we use it.
You and I talked about that Russell,
like we use it for differing things.
So I think that's a great point.
You wanna use it, but sometimes it's
a little overkill that we use it
and you also don't wanna lose your
own thoughtfulness around something.
When you're trying to have it problem
solved for you or, give it your thoughts.
You don't wanna take that
as here's the solution.
You wanna still use your brain.
It sounds like it should
go without saying, but...
Russell Berger: Yeah, especially because
we know that AI is inaccurate at times
and it has hallucinations and, there
is just a story here in Maryland about
how, an attorney cited a bunch of
hallucinated cases in an appellate brief.
And the appellate court had to address
that with him during the hearing.
And, that's somebody who's a
member of the bar and trained to
know what they're looking at in
the law and, got duped by the AI.
It's really important because of
the lack of accuracy that you have
someone who, one, knows what they're
doing, looking at it and knows
exactly what they're looking for.
As you said, the X versus Y of it all.
But also, will be trained on how to do
that and, knows what follow up questions
to ask and how to engineer the prompts,
which I think is really gonna be a
important skill in every subject matter
of vocation is how do you prompt engineer.
And I think that will be a
valuable trait to look for in
people you hire for anything.
Sarah Sawyer: Yeah, definitely.
Well thanks Russell.
We'll see you next time.
Russell Berger: Thanks Sarah.