A Law student’s guide to AI in practice

Law students and trainee solicitors need to understand how AI interacts with legal practice.  This includes how it works, which tools are best for which tasks and the ethical implications. This episode explores all these issues and more! Law students and trainees will need to be able to use different AI tools ethically, efficiently and competently.   Learning how to do this should start in Law School.  In this episode Catriona Filmer from Field Fisher LLP and Jimin Park (QMUL on placement at Simmons and Simmons) go through the nuts and bolts of AI in legal practice and how it is being used ‘on the ground’. They break down this big and sometimes overwhelming topic into digestible discussion.  Lawyers are having to understand this new skill set to get the best out of AI and navigate this new world.  That doesn’t mean coding but does mean understanding the framework and crucially the ethical implications.  Also understanding how AI might impact different aspects of our legal profession from high street to city law firms.    They discuss how AI works from tokens, predictive models and context windows.  From this it is easier to understand the advantages and disadvantages of different AI tools to legal practice.   We always encourage listeners to undertake practical actions after listening to the episode. Here are a few suggestions.  -       Look at the free online courses / resources prepared by the Open University alongside law firms such as Field Fisher. https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/index.php?categoryid=2150&_gl=1*1kwmwvu*_gcl_au*MTA4MDE3Njk5Ny4xNzU1NDk3MjQ5   -       Test different AI models to see the inherent biases – analyse the information which is produced.