Craig Ball has a new* blog post (which he titles the “Leery Lawyer’s Guide to AI”), but it’s nothing to be leery about if you want to learn AI!

The blog post (available here) also introduces a new guide titled “Practical Uses for AI and LLMs in Trial Practice”. As Craig notes: “After two years of AI pushing everything else aside, I was frustrated by the dearth of practical guidance available to trial lawyers–particularly seasoned elders–who want to use AI but fear looking foolish…or worse. So, I took a shot at a practical primer for litigators and am reasonably pleased with the result. Download it here. For some it will be too advanced and for others too basic; but I’m hopeful it hits the sweet spot for many non-technical trial lawyers who don’t want to be left behind.”

After briefly touching on some market leaders in AI, Craig notes that he focused the guide on “OpenAI’s ChatGPT, specifically its ChatGPT-4 product.” Why? Because it’s the one he uses most often and he only pays $20 per month to access. Craig also notes that there’s a “huge difference in the capabilities and user experience between the free ChatGPT versions and the subscription offerings” and recommends you pony up for the pay version (so do I).

Craig covers a variety of topics, from getting started to privacy considerations to customizing settings for litigation efficiency to the user interface and limits for tokens, uploads, and context (to which he says: “Is this confusing? Totally!”). 🤣

Craig also covers practical apps for litigation and trial practice, ten examples with prompts and ten tips for improved prompts, as well as understanding limitations and ethical guardrails and final thoughts for trial lawyers.

The blog post essentially duplicates the main body of the guide (pages 3 through 13), so you can read whichever form suits you best. However, the downloadable 30-page guide has three appendices, which are previous blog posts that Craig has written (Adapting Requests for Production for AI LLM Assessment, AI Drawing Programs: ChatGPT Versus PlaygroundAI and AI Prompt to Improve Keyword Search). While they may be “old hat” to anyone who reads everything that Craig writes on his blog (like me), these are important additions to make it a true “leery lawyer’s guide” and important to download.

It may be the “Leery Lawyer’s Guide to AI”, but Craig’s guide has great tips for newbie lawyers, leery lawyers, overconfident lawyers (i.e., those who trust the AI too much) and more! Check out the post here and download the guide here! Also, look for a follow-up post from me tomorrow based on one of his examples!

So, what do you think? Do you need a guide for practical uses of AI for litigation and trial? Then check out Craig’s guide! And please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

*Technically, it’s eleven days old now, but I just noticed it on Friday.

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