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Using AI in Legal Writing is Like Taking an Open Book Exam—You Still Need to Understand the Concepts

Magic book
October 27, 2023

Lawyers who are blogging or writing are quick to dismiss the use of AI because of the importance of retaining their insight and voice. Rightfully so, they don’t want AI writing for them or in place of them.

I ran across an insightful tweet from Sonia Baschez, a digital marketing consultant, who led email on the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, which offers a nice reply.

Using ChatGPT/AI is like taking an open book exam—you still need to understand the concepts, know how to find the answers, and be able to come up with original arguments for the essay.

Baschez explains in a brief audio clip accompanying the tweet that she comes from a nuanced perspective because her husband is building a platform helping writers use AI and ChatGPT.

One of the things we talk about a lot is how are you getting that inner voice from people [who are using AI in their writing] and not just having it all get to the median of nothing really new, interesting or creative.

Where we’re united in our belief is in the human ability to be creative and come up with ideas, new concepts and thoughts is always going to be there. AI should be there to facilitate that, but not actually do the writing.

So a lot of what we talk about is how AI can help writers write more of their ideas and actually put that out into the world.

For lawyers, look at AI as an assistant or a resource when writing. Something that will help you write more about your ideas and get more of your insight out into the world.

You still need to know the legal concepts.