In February 2022, as the use and prevalence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) began to burgeon, there was widespread concern globally that AI would replace human personnel in many professions. I remember turning on the TV every morning and seeing media sensationalism around AI on every news network and newspaper.
Two years into the AI revolution, while AI has not completely taken over the jobs of taxi drivers, bank tellers, and accountants, there is growing concern among legal scholars, lawyers, and paralegals about AI’s capabilities and potential to render their years of training and law school tuition fees “useless”.
In April 2023, there was a watershed moment when ChatGPT-4 passed the Uniform Bar Exam, an achievement now being labeled as misleading following a research by Eric Martinez, a doctoral student at MIT’s Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department.
Currently, a wide range of AI resources produce legal work in a matter of minutes (sometimes even seconds). There are excellent AI resources such as COIN for contracts, SettleIT for negotiations, ChatGPT-4, Perplexity AI, IBM Watson, Albert, and many more. Despite this, legal scholars and some tech giants maintain that AI will not replace human lawyers any time soon for the following reasons:
- Lack of Specificity
Having a wealth of knowledge of the law is not enough to prove scholarship or expertise. Specificity is needed to render expert advice that fully satisfies client needs. Presently, if you enter a prompt into any Generative AI system, despite the vast amount of scholarly work and information they have been fed, the AI inevitably fails at producing jurisdiction-specific work in uncommon areas of law.
While AI is making huge strides as it is embedded in research-based platforms like Judy Legal and LexisNexis, it can rarely quote specific or accurate provisions, articles, or sections of statutes for the application of the law. For example, ChatGPT provided an erratic provision from Ghana’s Evidence Act, 1975 (NRCD 323).
Sample prompt by author to Chatgpt
If someone wants to know if their rights have been abused while under arrest or interacting with the police, AI cannot determine the specific laws in the country that would apply in such a situation.
2. Inaccurate Case Law
Every law student knows this: AI, specifically mainstream AI like ChatGPT and Gemini, has a habit of manufacturing cases. They often create their own facts that fit the user’s prompt and then title it with a jurisdiction-specific name to impress the user. For instance, AI may manufacture facts for a request for a divorce case in Ghana and title it “Owusu v Owusu.”See an example below
Sample prompt by author to Chatgpt
In June 2023, a lawyer was sanctioned by a US Federal Judge for citing a non-existent case provided by AI.
3. Complex Reasoning and Judgment
Having a wealth of knowledge of the law is not enough to prove scholarship or expertise. In real-life situations, the best lawyer is one who can explore the nuances of a case to benefit their client while staying within ethical standards. AI cannot do this nor interpret nuances. Human lawyers, on the other hand, can interpret laws to fit difficult human situations and navigate through the gray areas of peculiar matters. Nuanced judgment is necessary for criminal, matrimonial, and other civil matters.
4. Lack of Emotional Intelligence
Most AI systems are not built with relationships in mind. The task of lawyering involves interacting with human beings with real-life problems and requires that lawyers understand clients’ emotions and exercise empathy. These are natural traits that AI struggles to replicate. Human clients are naturally drawn to and trust human lawyers who understand their matters emotionally and can enforce their legal rights in litigation on that basis.
Conclusion
Indeed, AI has made significant improvements and offers valuable tools for the legal profession. Still, there are critical areas where human lawyers excel and will continue to be indispensable. The combination of specificity, accurate case law, complex reasoning, and emotional intelligence makes human lawyers irreplaceable for the foreseeable future.
Papa Nyan Neizer is a writer, an outstanding public speaker and a dedicated law student currently attending the Ghana School of Law. He previously distinguished himself as President of the Student Council at Lancaster University Ghana. Additionally, Neizer leads a group of young individuals dedicated to building schools for impoverished communities in Ghana.
