AI ( Artificial Intelligence)

AI is making its way into all industries and it even might be helping to speed up repetitive desk work in the office. However , there is absolutely no substitute for the training and experience that an attorney acquires over time. 

https://www.calcagnilaw.com/

John L. Calcagni, III, is a prominent Rhode Island criminal defense attorney with extensive experience as a former military prosecutor (JAG Corps) and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, specializing in federal, state, and military cases, including violent crimes, drug offenses, sex crimes, and white-collar cases, leveraging his prosecution background for defense in state and federal courts. He holds a Juris Doctor from Roger Williams University Law School, is admitted to practice in multiple states and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and is recognized as a SuperLawyer. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:38

I'm John Cal Cagney, New England's premier criminal defense lawyer, and you're listening to my exclusive podcast. Not guilty, where all things criminal defense are explained and discussed. Thanks for listening and stay tuned.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Not guilty.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

I'm John Kelcagney, New England-based criminal defense attorney, and this is my podcast. In this episode, I'd like to spend a few moments talking about AI or artificial intelligence and the impact that I've seen it have on the legal community. What do you say?

SPEAKER_03 1:22

I knew that this topic was gonna come across eventually.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Yeah, you did actually you warned me about this a year ago. Look, the bottom line is as technology continues to evolve, uh new ways of improving our daily lives uh come about, and uh, you know, we adopt them. Uh and AI is one of these new technological advancements, right? When I think back to my life, you know, the internet came, then uh emailing came, cell phones came, and and now you know, we we have these mobile lifestyles, right? Everything's in the palms of our hands with our cell phones and our tablets, and and now AI is exploding, right? Artificial intelligence, it's making its way into nearly all industries, uh, and it's it's in fact replacing many jobs within uh the United States economy and perhaps elsewhere. And uh I have seen AI tools now being used uh by lawyers, uh, perhaps also in the medical community. Uh AI tools uh have been incorporated into legal research, uh legal drafting, uh posing questions to AI about different legal strategies in perhaps many more ways. The reason why I thought it was important uh to do this podcast is not to educate the public about how they can use AI to apply to their legal challenges and their legal defense, but rather to warn folks about it. Listen, AI is great, it's evolving, it's probably gonna evolve a lot more than its current existence, perhaps beyond what we're even able to understand at this moment. But I really want folks to know that there is absolutely no substitute for uh the training and the experience that an attorney acquires over time, which he or she utilizes to advocate for and defend their clients. I can't tell you how many times uh I come across clients emailing or texting me or calling me with questions about things that they have already asked AI, and they're taking those AI responses and coming at me with them and comparing them to the information I'm giving. Listen, the artificial intelligence designers aren't working in the courtrooms every day. The artificial intelligence programs don't have law licenses, they're not physical human beings, they don't step into the courthouse and they don't make presentations to judges, negotiate with prosecutors, challenge evidence, conduct investigations, and the many, many more tasks and duties that I execute regularly as a criminal defense lawyer. Certainly I could use AI to help me organize my notes better, you know, break down a voluminous amount of documentary evidence into a legible and reliable summary, or to enhance my legal research and drafting skills. But that's the end of it. As an attorney, I'm not only required uh to undergo uh annual legal training, they call it continuing legal education, but before I became a lawyer, I had to undergo many years of schooling, many years of practical experience, and I had to pass a standardized test that the law deemed a test of minimal competence, which was required for me to get the license that actually authorizes me to go out into the community, be it Rhode Island, Mass, Connecticut, New York, or the many other places I'm licensed in order to practice law. That license is required for me to appear in court on behalf of clients, to orally speak on behalf of clients in court, to defend them at trials, to visit them in the jails. It's required for me to sign any legal documents, known as pleadings, which get filed with the court and become often the basis of a legal defense. So I want folks to know that AI is great. Enjoy it, have fun with it, see how it can make your life easier, but it is not a replacement for your defense lawyer. So if you've been charged with or accused of a crime, consult with an actual lawyer who has the experience in the jurisdiction where you're facing your legal challenges. Don't sit in your bedroom and try to play lawyer, relying exclusively on whether they be free-based or subscription-based AI tools, because AI tools don't always get it right. Now, a word of caution to the lawyers, you too should heed this advice because there have already been a series of legal decisions handed down by legal ethics committees sanctioning attorneys who relied upon AI products to draft their pleadings, which were later submitted to the court and contained within were legal citations that either didn't exist or that were otherwise inaccurate and were construed as misrepresentations to the court, which a lawyer is ethically bound from doing. So, again, these AI tools can make the lawyer's job a bit easier and more convenient, can speed up the drafting or research project process, or speed up the evidence review, and organization process, but it's not a substitute for what we were trained to do in school and for what our jurisdictions require us to do as licensed attorneys. So the real takeaway here is embrace AI, be aware of its existence, incorporate it into your life where you think you can use it ethically and responsibly, but understand it is not and hopefully will never become the substitute for an actual trained and experienced lawyer like me. That's a very good take on it.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

So you agree? I do agree. Yeah, I I think uh a lot of the information that is is out there. I think people um I'm not an expert in it, but from the things that I do know, um when you ask it a question, it's really just doing a big uh uh search on Google like you would, gathering up all the information that it has and then giving you an answer um based on what it found.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, I think that the AI tools are using the broader internet uh searching for content or information that they correlate to the questions being posed in the AI uh queries.

SPEAKER_03 8:39

And then the more that you um feed it, it starts to learn you and then your history, and as you ask it more and more questions, it actually goes and recites back to some of your previous stuff. So it says, well, based on you know, this, this, this, this that we have talked about, and then it kind of stares you in a direction for your latest question based on that, even though it might have nothing to do with the last 10 questions that you asked it.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Well, I think the takeaway for me is that the AI tools can be useful for either organizing or obtaining information, but as the recipient of what the AI provides me, it's my duty and responsibility to verify and to follow up through independent sources to ensure the accuracy and reliability of that information before I put my signature on the line in defense of somebody, you know, whose lives are at risk in the court system.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah, and the word accuracy, I think that with AI and when it comes to uh with the legal world, it will be a matter of just that. Is it actual? Is it accurate? Is this something that um was made up or is this actual uh real evidence that is authentic?

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Oh, you're thinking of AI being used in a different context, like uh meaning to alter something, sure, like alter something, not to learn information on something. Yeah, interesting. So, for example, if I was involved in a case and a piece of evidence involved video, or perhaps a voice recording, or maybe even um uh a document, the question becoming are these authentic videos, recordings, or documents as they're purported to be in the court, or were they fraudulently created using an AI tool? Yes, which is then leads to a whole another case. Well, that's interesting. That that highlights perhaps some pitfalls that lie ahead with AI, uh AI becoming more and more widely used. And perhaps for those folks who are real techies or tech savvy, perhaps there will be programs that will be developed, if not already in existence, that can be used to uh verify the authenticity and the accuracy of things like videos, audio recordings, and documents, oh yeah, such that they're not um you know AI counterfeit or AI fraudulent creations.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

Oh, yeah. So it'll be interesting to see how the AI technology um like continues to play a role in the world of uh the court system.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Interesting. So yet again, another warning for our listeners as to um how AI can be problematic. Yeah, like I think so. Well, I hope that this short episode gets the message out because it's something that uh I thought was needed. So thank you. Yeah, and that will do it for this one. Sounds good, not guilty.