Assignments

Mahi Barot: Hi, my name is Mahi Barot, and I am here with Vansh Patel, and he's going to give us an insight into AI's current influence in the field of law. 

Vansh Patel: Hi, my name is Vansh Patel. I'm a third-year law student at Penn State University. I went to Stonyburg University for Undergrad and I majored in finance. 

Mahi Barot: Okay, thank you. So my topic is AI's influence in the field of law. I believe that before we get into that, we have to know the extent of AI's influence right now, currently in the field of law. And I believe that I will be able to gain information from someone who's currently seeing it firsthand, making him a good resource to ask questions, and to develop a final answer for this month's need to know, which is: What is the extent of AI's influence in the field of law currently? So I'm going to start with a few questions. So, how many beliefs, how many jobs do you believe are being influenced right now in the field of law by AI? 

Vansh Patel: So, I personally, with my job, I work for a Social Security disability firm, and a lot of times there's not that much AI related to that. But personally, I feel like there's a lot, like a significant portion of legal jobs that are already being touched by AI, especially like on the entry side when it comes to a lot of documents like synthesizing them when it comes to research, because AI is very like fast-paced and a lot of lawyers think they have to use that because it's it saves them a a lot of time. So, it's more efficient. That doesn't mean that those jobs will disappear immediately, but it does mean that every day-to-day for the job will look different. 

Mahi Barot: Okay, thank you. So, according to a 2025 report from the American Bar Association, about 79% of law firms have already incorporated AI tools into their workflows. And like you said, into stuff like documentation, research, and analysis. Could you go into how you believe some parts are still safe from AI because they do have that human component of morals and beliefs? 

Vansh Patel: Yeah. Yeah, of course. So, AI, like, we actually learned this in our strategic legal class. A lot of times, AI takes the prompts you give it to make it better. So if you don't give it the right prompt, it's not going to know what to do. And a lot of times, like in the researchers that they conducted, even when they did provide like the most accurate prompts, there's always like a margin of error for AI. And a lot of times, like, when you're attempting to clients, it's important to take what they say to kind of like strategize your position in a legal setting. So a lot of times, AI can't even feel emotion, right? So it's important for us as lawyers to look at the client's emotions, and kind of turn them into our own, and build a strategy on that. So, like jobs, such as when it deals with clients, those that will always be prominent, when documents, like a lot of times, AI makes mistakes, so it's still important to give it a red line to see if it made a mistake. So lawyer jobs are never going to go away, in my opinion, and they're always going to be relevant, even if AI comes into the picture. 

Mahi Barot: Yeah, I absolutely agree. And that's why I've like always like sort of had an interest in this field because I know that like ethics, morals, and beliefs always play a major role. And that is something that AI lacks because, after all, it is artificial intelligence. It's not like real human intelligence. And yeah, I agree with what you said about that margin of error, because there will always be that in AI. So what parts of your job, like your weekend job or just your job in general, have you been impacted by AI? Have you seen much of that?

Vansh Patel: Um, not personally, like, in my job, just because I deal with a lot of medical records. And it deals with handwritten notes, which AI is not really good at. And it would be a legal and ethical issue if I use AI to put the medical records into it just because you can't have fine information out on the public web. But as a law student, it is actually very relevant in our study just because because like, for example, my strategic legal class I mentioned earlier, like they already started teaching us about like AI and how it makes research faster. And also, like some of the key things, key research tools we use as Westlaw and Lexis Nexis, which have already started implementing AI into their database. So it's very interesting for me to see because in my first year, they didn't have that, but now they have that for my third year. So seeing that transition is very new and interesting to me. And I think it's still, it's still going to like, it's still going to be like new things to learn about AI, and they're going to continue teaching that, and it'll be relevant. 

Mahi Barot: Yeah, okay. Thank you. I totally agree. And yeah, it is impressive to see how like from the first year to the third year, there's already more use of AI and how it's increasing. And I wanted to touch base on like what you think about like privacy because AI can have, I guess, a certain amount of bias and how much do you think that bias will impact like the jobs that it is doing, like the documentations that it might be doing the research and like the margin of privacy, like, how do you think privacy will be maintained or not maintained with the use of AI in the field of law? 

Vansh Patel: Privacy is a very big component of law. You might have heard about confidentiality. And AI is like an online tool, right? So it's very likely, I don't know if it's ethical to put some in, like your argument on the internet, because dad uses what the client has said to you, right? So I think privacy is a big issue, but there are always ways to counteract that, like putting in, say, for example, analogies or not putting in exact case facts that you think. But in order to maintain privacy, I feel like it's going to be pretty hard with AI, personally. So, yeah. 

Mahi Barot:Yeah, I absolutely agree. And like, yeah, I think privacy biases play like a huge role into how much AI is actually going to affect the field of law. So, like I've asked before, the reach of AI in your job currently, you think that, like, it'll obviously increase over time, but as of now, it's minimal, you would say, because of the field and the part of law that you're in. 

Vansh Patel: Yes, for sure. It's definitely minimal right now. 

Mahi Barot: Okay. What fields of law do you think will be the safest? Like, what jobs do you think will be the most safe in the field of law? Because there is obviously more jobs that are going, like some jobs that will be affected more than other jobs. 

Vansh Patel: Well, to provide, like, there's a lot of fields in, like, law, instead of broad question, but to provide a more like general answer, I feel like anything that deals with clin relations and deals with interacting with clients, those jobs will typically be safe from AI's reach just because you have to use that information to build a case. And other times, for example, like contract law, that might be affected by AI more just because it's on paper. And you can just put it into AI and see what the AI says. But what are you talking to clients? You can't really do that. 

Mahi Barot: Yeah, absolutely. And yet, yeah, so some jobs would be affected more than others

Mahi Barot: So, about 77% of legal professionals use AI for document review and for researching purposes. So, have you ever personally done something like that where you might have, like, scanned a document or just used AI in general to maybe, I don't know, better your research or use it for data analysis purposes? 

Vansh Patel: So in my job, no, definitely not. But in law school, I have used AI. Not for, like, for example, not for assignments, like submitting them, but to get like, like background information on case bags in order to prepare for class. So, like some things like that would help, but it's important to read the cases also because I've realized that AI doesn't take all the like case facts that are important and summarize them. So it's still important to read. Like what you're learning about. But AI is a good supplement, maybe just like paraphrasing it, for example, or just gives you some quick bullet points if you need a refresher. So I wouldn't use it as a main component in my day-to-day, but I would definitely use it as a tool in my backpack if I need quick information.

Mahi Barot: Oh, of course, yeah. I believe, like, yeah. And that applies to many things too, like not just in the field of law, but in so many other things. Like, maybe research in general is like summarizing points in general. Like you said for assignments and such. And that does bring up the point of the misuse of AI. And I feel like that is especially important in the field of law because there are so many components where, like the misuse of AI could cause something major because there are so many important components, like privacy and biases, and, you know, accuracy, especially. So what do you feel like would be like, I'm not sure how to phrase this, but like the biggest misuse in the field of law, like, you know?

Vansh Patel: Yeah, I get your question. I actually read an article about this. It's called Butler's Snow Attorneys to qualify over fake AIK citations. I can send that over to you. But pretty much, like these three attorneys from this company called Butler Snow, they were disqualified from practicing in a case because they pretty much signed off on a motion that contained several inaccurate citations that were cited by AI. Pretty AI-generated, and they used fake cases in their legal argument. So, like, that's one of the big things. Like in law, you'll see when a lawyer, like lawyers, is very stressed out, and when they're stressed out, they try to typically go to the easiest method. And in this case, it was AI, and this is a perfect example of a misuse. And I feel like a lot of these types of examples exist right now. And they're just kind of going to keep going, they're just going to keep skyrocketing, I feel like, when AI gets more prevalent. 

Mahi Barot: Oh, wow. Yeah, that's interesting. I believe, like, and not just this case, but I believe that might be happening more often. Maybe it's not caught, maybe as often, but I do believe that that has been happening. Like, that makes sense. And yeah, I would greatly appreciate that article. And yeah, so that is the end of our interview. Thank you so, so much. You have really helped me gather information and data so I can answer my need to know for this month, which is the extent of AI's influence in the field of law currently. So thank you so much. 

Vansh Patel: Of course. Thank you. Yep. 

Mahi Barot: So, Vansh Patel really helped me gather information and such to understand the extent of AI's influence in the field of law currently. He brought up points such as privacy and legal biases, and how they can possibly be misused, and how AI can be misused. And we get to learn that while he sees minimal use of AI in his job currently, it does mean that he has seen it grow exponentially. Like, as he said, from his first year to third year in law school, he saw the use of AI increase. So we can see how it is gradually increasing and at a quick rate too, exponentially, in only two years, and you see the incorporation of AI even in classes. And that does bring up the point of misuse of AI. And like we saw, like he said, there were three lawyers who misused AI and were, like, you know, fired for that, kicked out for that. And the point of accuracy and, you know, having accurate information from AI is important. So we can see that the extent of AI's influence in the field of law might not be major right now, but it will be increasing exponentially due to many factors, such as, you know, legal research or like documentations and stuff, AI might be taking over them.. But that will happen at a somewhat slow rate, as once described. And so yeah, we can see how some parts of his job have been influenced, but not all. And I do truly believe that as time goes on, more jobs and stuff will be affected, but some jobs, as he explained, will stay safe because of the morals, ethics, and beliefs that only humans can have. So, because AI is only artificial intelligence, we, as humans, are the only people who have, you know, intelligence like that and have those ethics, morals, and beliefs. So, yeah, thank you so much for joining this month's interview and for helping me find out my SDA for this month. Thank you.