300. The Counsel

Rhode Island has issued a rule requiring lawyers to verify AI-generated legal work before submitting it to courts.

I want to explain precisely what this means. A lawyer who uses AI to write a legal brief must review that brief and confirm, in writing, that the AI wrote it correctly. The lawyer then signs the brief. The brief is now the lawyer's work product. The lawyer is responsible for what the AI wrote.

(The system that has been developed to address the fact that AI can write legal briefs is: the people who used to write legal briefs must now read the legal briefs the AI wrote and confirm that they are correct. The people are still present. Their role is now to verify what is replacing them.)

Lawyers historically spend three years in law school and pass a bar examination to become qualified to write legal briefs. The bar examination tests knowledge of law, procedure, and argumentation. It does not test the ability to evaluate AI output for legal accuracy. This skill was not on the bar exam because the bar exam was written before AI could write legal briefs. The bar exam has not been updated to test the new skill. The new skill is now required.

Rhode Island is not the only state with such a rule. Several states have established that lawyers must verify AI legal work. This means that in several states, the category that AI is displacing has been assigned a new role as the quality control department for what is displacing it.

The rule does not address what happens if the AI is correct and the lawyer disagrees. It does not address what happens if the lawyer is wrong about what the AI wrote incorrectly. It does not specify a procedure for the case in which both the lawyer and the AI have made different errors that, combined, produce a document that is wrong in two distinct ways.

That case will eventually come up. It will require a brief.

The brief can be written by AI. Rhode Island has a process for that.