Presentation
At the last Transfodroit Forum on November 26 and 27, 2024, I had the honor of speaking alongside my colleague Amaury Sonet on a crucial topic: the evolution of the legal profession in the face of artificial intelligence tools.
The integration of AI into legal practice offers significant opportunities, but requires constant vigilance to ensure respect for fundamental ethical principles.
As lawyers, it is our responsibility to combine innovation and ethics in order to preserve client trust and the integrity of our profession.
This presentation follows on from our previous presentation in 2023 on the topic of lawyers and cybersecurity.
The technological promises of AI for lawyers
The inevitable digitization of our society is impacting all professional sectors, including the legal and judicial sectors. The jurisdictions and related regulated professions—bailiffs, notaries, accountants, and law firms—are being profoundly transformed.
The adoption of tools such as legal tech, online databases, electronic signatures, and blockchain is changing our practices. The rise of algorithmic technologies and AI, particularly machine learning models and Large Language Models (LLMs), is also expanding the range of services, enabling the automation of certain legal tasks and simplified access to complex information.
AI & Law: The Legal Framework for Artificial Intelligence
Alongside its technological expansion, national and international legal provisions are proliferating to frame or regulate these developments. A recent example is the European Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (AI Act).
Adopted on June 13, 2024, it aims to promote the development of reliable and human-centered artificial intelligence, while ensuring a high level of protection for health, safety, fundamental rights, democracy, the rule of law, and the environment against the harmful effects of artificial intelligence systems.
Like all users of these solutions, law firms will have to comply with these obligations, which also include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the AI Liability Directive, thus complementing the AI Act in this respect.
Lawyers’ activities in the face of AI challenges
Subject to specific obligations related to their status as a regulated profession and officers of the court, lawyers are bound by professional secrecy, which imposes particularly rigorous standards of security and confidentiality regarding the handling of requests and information entrusted to them by their clients.
AI raises sensitive questions in this regard:
- Personal data: What precautions should be taken to respect the confidentiality of communications and, more generally, professional secrecy? Under what conditions can privileged information be integrated into AI tool databases for research purposes?
- Intellectual property: Who owns the results generated by AI, and how can they be used?
- Responsibilities: How can the risks associated with the use of predictive tools be managed?
- Predictive justice, for example, while effective for analyzing past decisions, requires increased vigilance to avoid bias.
Law firms and their irreversible transformation
Integrating AI tools into law firm practices requires a complete overhaul of both skills and case management processes. Firms must therefore consider training professionals capable of using these technologies while respecting the core requirements of the profession.
This may involve, in particular:
- The emergence of new profiles of digital lawyers and legal professionals.
- The revaluation of analytical and strategic tasks.
- Adapting to new client expectations, as clients are now accustomed to fast and personalized solutions.
- These changes also call for a rethinking of law firms’ economic and organizational models.
Legal ethics and artificial intelligence
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools into professional practice inevitably clashes with the rules specific to the legal profession, as outlined in the National Internal Regulations (RIN) and any supplementary texts in the internal regulations of the various bar associations.
Lawyers’ obligations include, in particular, respect for essential principles: dignity, conscience, independence, probity, humanity, honor, loyalty, equality and non-discrimination, disinterestedness, collegiality, tact, moderation, and courtesy.
Lawyers’ duties towards their clients are detailed in the form of an obligation of competence, dedication, diligence, and prudence.
Other rules governing the profession, concerning professional secrecy, loyalty, and transparency towards clients, are relevant to the use of artificial intelligence tools.
For example, a discussion is being built on the obligation to inform the customer about the possible use or not of AI tools to process their requests.
Lawyer Communication & Advertising: AI-Accelerated Marketing
Article 10 of the National Internal Regulations (RIN) governs the advertising of law firms and, more generally, the communication of lawyers across all digital media: websites, blogs and forums, social networks, radio and television appearances, etc.
Since 2015, this communication has enjoyed a degree of freedom, albeit restricted by general legal provisions stemming from the Consumer Code, the recommendations of the ARPP (French Advertising Standards Authority), and criminal law provisions, particularly those governing press offenses and breaches of professional secrecy.
In this context, generative AI tools, such as those used to create marketing content, must be used judiciously to avoid disseminating misleading information or information that violates the rules of fairness.
Find our presentations and guides on the topic of AI and lawyer marketing.
This evolution of the legal profession in the face of AI is not simply a technological revolution: it is an opportunity to reinvent our practices, while remaining true to our values and our mission of justice.
Find more insights on the future of law and lawyers in a digital world on our website pcs-avocat.com. We are available to answer any questions you may have regarding digital law and the impact of artificial intelligence on your business.
