AI, Legal Tech, and Ethics: The Florida Bar’s Groundbreaking Guidelines

Episode Notes

Transcript

Adriana Linares:

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m your host, Adriana Linares. And with me today I have two of my dearest friends, Renee Thompson and Liz McCausland, who have both been on the show many times in the past, but it’s been a minute and I invited them to come back on because I just want you to hear what a normal conversation between us is like at a dinner table, at a Florida bar meeting. And I said, this is literally the conversations we have about technology and products and services and being a lawyer in a modern era and using ai. And specifically because Renee and Liz have been on a special committee that was created by the Florida bar that they’re going to tell us about in a minute on the use of AI by lawyers and in the legal practice. So lemme start by saying, Hey Renee.

Renee Thompson:

Hello.

Adriana Linares:

Thanks so much for taking the time to do this. I know how very busy you are. So before we launch into this, tell everybody what you do, where you are, who you are, and anything else that’s of interest, like maybe your Tesla solar panels, which are amazing.

Renee Thompson:

Thanks. I’m Renee Thompson. I’m a mediator with Upchurch Watson, white and Max, and also have my own firm, Thompson Laws Center. I am in Ocala, Florida, so I’m in the center of the state. And yes, I did just install Tesla solar panel system at my house, so I’m excited about that.

Adriana Linares:

And you love it. So far. So far. And you’re a pusher. So Renee is so embedded in the legal world between just having been an incredibly wonderful active member of the Florida Bar and all the things she does, which we’ll talk about in a minute too. Your husband’s a judge, correct? So you are also intimately familiar with the judicial system, judges, technology and all that stuff, which I hope we get to talk about as well. And of course, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Tommy at dinner the other night who’s an absolute riot.

Renee Thompson:

He’s so entertaining.

Adriana Linares:

And last thing about Renee, congratulations on your 25th wedding anniversary. It was quite a milestone.

Renee Thompson:

It’s exciting.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. And one more thing, Renee is a solo practitioner. I mean, yes, you’re a mediator with Upchurch, but you have also been running your solo practice for many years. You’re very tech savvy, tech heavy, and that’s why we’re here. So over to Liz, who’s always a pleasure to get to hang out with and chat with. Thanks for taking the time to do this, Liz. Of course. Tell everyone a little bit about your background. You are also a mediator and have been running a solo practice for a very long time.

Liz McCausland:

Correct. I am what I call a recovering insurance defense attorney. I practiced many years in civil litigation before I totally changed, opened my own firm and became a bankruptcy attorney and a mediator. And that’s why I’ve been doing for the last, I think 14 years now.

Adriana Linares:

You like Renee, are very into finding ways to run your efficient law practice. I think one of Liz’s bylines is I’ve never met an app I wouldn’t try or a hot dog that’s surrounded in cornbread that she wouldn’t eat

Liz McCausland:

Any food on a stick.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, so one of the main reasons I invited you on today, which I know we’re all sick of hearing about ai, but I want attorneys to use it. I want, I have so many still, I’ve actually started to lose a little bit of hope because I don’t have a lot of them calling to ask me questions about how to use it, kind of like the way we did at the beginning of this year. But the two of you were appointed by Scott Westheimer, the past president of the Florida Bar. Congratulations, Rolando Sanchez Medina, who is the new president. We all ran into each other last week at the Florida Bar Convention where the changing of the guard happened. But you’ve been on this committee for a while. I just want you to give us an update on what was that committee doing, what did they end up deciding? And I imagine that the ethics rule or opinion that they put out is probably something that’s going to be followed by a lot of other states. So walk us through the process of the first meeting when everybody’s like, okay, here we are, a bunch of lawyers ready to make rules for a bunch of other lawyers about ai.

Liz McCausland:

Kudos to Scott for realizing what a huge impact this was going to have on the legal field. First of all, in serving on the committee, we also spoke with so many in the field of legal technology. And I can’t tell you how many times we heard that they talked to everyone across the nation and the Florida bar was one of the first bars to actually tackle the subject. And so kudos to Scott for that. He got all of us together on this committee and we immediately realized that we needed to bring in people who were better informed about AI than us. So we’d reached out and had we have some advisors to the committee. And then on top of that, we also realized that there was a misunderstanding of what AI was and that we needed to address the difference between generative AI and just kind of doing searches, et cetera.

And then we quickly figured out we need to not only give our members some direction on their use of ai, but then also some tools or references. So the committee first tackled the ethics of using it. And then once we did that, we’ve now split up into some subcommittees. One will be publishing a best practices guide for best practices in the use of ai. And the other will hopefully just be letting you know what’s out there, which I think we’re going to get into it, what is out there and how much is out there. And so those are the two kind of routes we’re taking right now.

Renee Thompson:

And Adriana, I chair the judicial proceeding subcommittee. So I really am delving in with our committee on what’s happening in a Courtroom setting with ai. So how judges are going to be utilizing it, how lawyers utilize it with the court, and what needs to happen from that sense. Do they have to have disclosures when they file documents that they’ve utilized AI and the production of that document, things like that.

Adriana Linares:

Tell me a little bit about not just how you got started and what you were charged to do and the people that you brought in, but what have been the findings or the results of either both of those subcommittees? Because this has been at least a year, right?

Renee Thompson:

That’s correct. We’re in our first

Adriana Linares:

Year. Renee, why don’t you start by telling us from the judicial side.

Renee Thompson:

Sure. Well first let’s talk about that ethics advisory opinion that came out it’s Opinion 24.1 and theBar adopted this ethics opinion, which while they’re not mandatory, they do give advice to lawyers about how to effectively handle AI in their practice. The first of which of course is client consent. You need to let a client know that you’re going to be utilizing it as a research tool or in your practice for generative AI purposes. So theBar rules allow advisory opinions to come out and the committee requested that the opinion address everything from AI’s impact on fees, advertising, duty of competence, maintaining confidentiality, supervision of lawyers. I mean, it was a big threshold of questions that we had. So we really had to put it in a format that made sense for lawyers so that they could look at the current rules and decide how the utilization of this product would be ethical and upstanding for them.

Adriana Linares:

And did I understand correctly that because this is an opinion, it is not required for lawyers to do this to let their clients know at this time, but it is highly recommended and suggested that you really just should

Renee Thompson:

Correct and anytime you’re using third party applications, you should let your client know. I mean, you don’t control the technology even on Zoom. I mean it’s a platform we all utilize very regularly, but the reality is we don’t control what’s going on behind the scenes and we don’t know how they are managing client confidential data and things that you hope you understand. But I mean ultimately those terms of usage are pretty long and you hope you get it right. So it’s important to disclose that to the client, not only to protect yourself as a lawyer, but to educate your client as to what 33rd party applications you think you’re going to be using.

Adriana Linares:

So Renee, follow up question on that. As the newly inducted chair of the solo small firm section of the Florida bar, which is many attorneys, and I also would assume that you also had have a lot of new and solo practitioners. When an attorney comes to you and says, how do I do that? How do I let my client know? Is this something you casually mentioned in passing when you’re going through the interview to hire each other because there is a two-way hiring process there? Or is it something we should have? You should have. I mean the royal we, because I’m not a lawyer, I always like to remind everybody, but is it something we should have in our engagement letter? Is there a specific clause, phrase, sentence, something which I don’t think we see very often, so maybe this is something we should remind people of.

Renee Thompson:

I absolutely think it should be included in your engagement agreements. A number of years ago, Liz actually had sent me one of the clauses she was using in her engagement agreement, which dealt with third party applications. And I’ve been able to modify that clause over the years to include things like generative ai. I think it’s important you try to keep your client abreast of what’s happening, of course over the phone or in person, but I think that in writing really does make a difference. They can go back and refer to any of those documents that you have. And like I said, it also protects the lawyer. If there’s ever a question,

Adriana Linares:

I have a feeling that most clients are not going to care, they’re going to expect it. But it’s just a good idea, I think to remind people that you’re not just using ai, but you’re also using case management systems, research tools that help you do better research and all sorts of things. So I think a really good generic disclaimer about that would be very helpful. Okay. Tell us about the courts.

Renee Thompson:

Well, the judicial proceeding subcommittee has really kind of looked at what judges are doing to educate themselves about ai, what lawyers can do to make sure that the judges know if they’re utilizing ai. And then there’s been a lot of questions about whether or not you need to inform the courts about generative AI in the products that you produce or memorandums of law that you may give the court as part of what you do in your regular practice. So there’s been a lot of discussion about what the courts want. You’ve probably seen some of the headlines where people have utilized it maybe incorrectly and didn’t disclose it to the court. But I’m really of the belief that just like any other product, it’s important to note where you got things from. So I think over time you’re going to start to see that generative AI will be cited in briefs and memorandum, just like any other footnote that you got from a case or you got from somewhere else. I mean, if it’s not your work product, you should always cite for something else. So I think over time lawyers and judges will become so much more used to that. It’s just so new to the scene.

Adriana Linares:

Love it. Liz, what’s going on in your subcommittee

Liz McCausland:

Now that we’re past annual? At first part of our subcommittee was kind of geared towards putting on the CLE, the presidential showcase at annual where we had some great speakers on this ethics opinion and on fake, I almost said fake news. Deep fakes. Deep fakes, deep fakes, sorry, and things of that nature and kind of the future of ai. So now we’re turning towards the two subcommittees, which I forgot, I’m sorry, Renee, that you also had a subcommittee. I guess there’s three, but the two subcommittees with the guide to what’s out there and then also the best practices guide. And as I said, we’ve brought in some people to help us with those things because we aren’t expected as lawyers to know everything that’s happening, especially since it’s changing so fast. And one of the people that we brought in was Damien Real. And Damien as you know has probably been talking about this for longer than it existed and now is at the forefront in high demand. But he’s been kind enough to give us a start on the best practices guide. And then there’s another subcommittee who’s kind of reaching out to all the different companies and trying to figure out what’s out there and not saying that the Florida bar approves or likes this product better than the other, but just to let our members know, here’s where you can start in seeing what’s out there.

Adriana Linares:

So the ethics opinion is out. Renee gave us the number, I think it was 24.1. It’s available and these two guides that you’re working on. And I don’t know Renee, if you’re going to end up having a product like that, but are those available now or when can we expect to be able to search and find them?

Liz McCausland:

We had hoped, of course, I know

Adriana Linares:

TheBar will announce that they’ll be out there. But give us a timeline. We are in June today.

Liz McCausland:

We had hoped to have the best practices guide out biannual, so it should be coming out shortly. We weren’t able to get it out right on time for that, but that was kind of a aspirational goal. But that will be out shortly from this point. I think we’re just going to keep looking at how our lawyers can use it best and giving them some guidance on things like billing practices.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, practical stuff, good practical things. I mean practice management versus the substantive side.

Liz McCausland:

Yes, and what ethically they can do with their billing. And then also talking about how it impacts our lawyers going forward. So think of it in the context of mentoring. The Florida Bar last year started a mentoring program and it had great success. It’s a guided mentoring, so you’re a mentor for a full year. You take a questionnaire, a personality test essentially, and we match you with another lawyer who is very similar, doesn’t have to be similar practice or area, but personality, practice area, things of that nature. And then you have a guided mentoring relationship throughout the year. And so we’re finding that our younger lawyers who are graduating from school aren’t getting the kind of mentoring that we got growing up. The world has changed so different, we’re not in the office a hundred percent of the time. We’ve got AI to help us start off on that brief and the research. And so we’re looking at the impact of that on our younger lawyers coming up, the impact on how we spend our time and how we bill for that and how we disclose it to our clients and what are our clients expect now that they think we can just go to AI and get the answer in 20 seconds as opposed to three hours.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing. And I did not know about the mentoring program and that sounds so wonderful and I’m glad it’s successful because I will tell you when I get calls from young attorneys in rural parts of Nebraska, because I serve as the practice management advisor for the state of Nebraska, the biggest, I’ll tell you Nebraska is interesting. Two things that I regularly get is how to close my practice, which I do not get from other states quite as much as Nebraska. And I assume because there’s fewer attorneys and they also do a really good job about getting the word out about the practice management, advisor service. And the other one is young attorneys and cannot tell you how often they have a hard time finding mentors and they want them, young attorneys want mentors. It’s just hard to find them, especially if you’re in a smaller area, a more rural area. And so that’s really wonderful. That is something I wish other bar associations would look to Florida for and recreate that. Okay, Liz, how many footnotes is that practical guide going to have? That part of it was generated using ai?

Liz McCausland:

That’s a good question. I will not lie to you. When I was programming, helping to program the CLE, I had to send letters out to all the speakers and tell ’em, thank you for agreeing to speak, here are the details, et cetera. I had AI do it and then I sent it to my co-chair. I’m like, is this letter okay? And he’s like, great letter. I’m like, Carl, I didn’t write that AI wrote that. I just disclosed it.

Adriana Linares:

That’s the smart use of AI right there. Why work hard when you can work smart?

Liz McCausland:

Agreed.

Adriana Linares:

Alright, well let’s take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors and we come back. We’re going to talk a little bit about the solo small firm section, some things you guys got going on and what you’re learning as being at the forefront of helping solo and small firm attorneys run their practices better. Okay. And we’re back. I’m here with my dear friends Renee Thompson and Liz McCausland, who are two very active and involved members of the Florida Bar and attorneys who are constantly trying to improve not only their practices, but help their peers run better practices too. Before I get back to them, I want to take a quick minute personal point of privilege, if you will, to give you a message from my friends at InfoTrack, I can help you receive a $50 gift certificate for taking a demo of InfoTrack.

So what is InfoTrack? Lemme just make this easy. If your firm has the need for court filing or services of process and you use any and many of today’s common and popular practice management services, you might want to take a look at InfoTrack. So if you want to do that, and I hope that you do, visit infotrack.com/ New Solo, learn more, send up for a demo and then buy yourself a drink or a mocktail or a lunch on InfoTrack. You’ll get a $50 gift certificate for doing that and lemme know how it goes. By the way, I’d love to hear about your experience with that product.

Liz McCausland:

I can tell you about my experience. I did have an occasion to use them recently for their service of process and really, yeah, and I never have to do service of process. So it’s changed since I was doing insurance defense 14 years ago and they walked me through it. It was easy to track where it was. They were in great communication and then I was able to see it in my case management. It was great.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s awesome. Well, thanks Liz, that’s very helpful. So I don’t think there’s anything better than having a trusted attorney tell another attorney that they should at least take a look at something, which we’re going to talk about that with AI in our last segment. But before we go and talk about what you’re using in your practice now, any new tools that you both have gotten into, which I know is constantly changing, I want to take a few minutes just to talk about the solo small firm section of the Florida bar, which Renee, congratulations. You just became the chair of Thank you. I know you’ve been very active with for many years because it means a lot to the both of you. You are solo, small firm owners. You have appreciated the assistance, help, networking, comradery you’ve gotten from your bar work over the years. And Renee, you’re the newly crowned queen installed chair, installed chair of the solo small firm section. Tell me a little bit about the types of issues you hear and have from solo small firm members and the types of things you’re trying to put together to help them. Because as we all know, 70% of all attorneys are in the solo small firm category.

Renee Thompson:

That’s correct. The solo small firm section is one of the largest producers of CLEs on practice management issues and general practice issues for theBar. So we spend a great deal of time really trying to educate our membership and it’s a great deal for them. For $45 a year, they can join our section and get all of their CLEs taken care of for their three year cycle because we offer Wednesday wisdoms, which are free CLEs. We have paid CLEs, I mean you name it. We’ve got a CLE on it. And we’re starting an entirely new round this year of what we call Tech Thursdays, which is going to delve deeper into these AI issues and into practice management issues that affect solos and small firm members trying to figure out what makes the most sense in their practice and how to use it. One of the things that all of the attorneys who I speak with want to know is where do I start?

Part of technology, I think that’s become a bit overwhelming for the average practitioner is I don’t know who to trust. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to find that information. So we’re trying to become a really trusted source for individuals who are trying to navigate their way through those technology waters within their practices. Some of them have had systems in place for many, many years and they want to make a change. They just want to make the right one because as you know, it takes so much sometimes to get your staff up to speed and do everything that needs to happen to make it a successful and efficient change. And you want to make those right decisions from step one.

Adriana Linares:

So Renee, question for you. Do you have to be a member of the Florida bar to participate in Wednesday wisdoms or any of the, I mean I know you can always pay for any program, but what if I’m a member of another bar? I don’t want to push Florida. We have so many listeners, but I think the Florida bar could be a really good resource for non-members in other states. What can we get for free or can we join?

Renee Thompson:

Yes, I would say join. I mean, you can sign up as a non-member and pay an additional fee on top of what members pay, but honestly for $45 a year, it’s just worth it. It’s a one-stop shopping, as I call it. You get all the free CLEs on top of access to all the paid CLEs. We have signature CLEs, I mean you name it, we do it. So having that resource I think makes it tremendously worth it for the practitioner to see what’s happening, what’s cutting edge, where we’re going.

Adriana Linares:

I do want to remind you, if you are not in Florida, every single bar association in this country has a solo small firm section in one form or another. And you should definitely look to them, turn to them. And if they don’t have one, you should help form it and call Liz and Renee. They can tell you how to make it successful.

Liz McCausland:

We have on occasion had something that was open to anyone, not even just Florida bar members. So the Sola small firm section has a book club, which will be starting again soon. But we had the book profit loss and we had a profit loss advisor and we allowed any solo small farmer owner across the country to attend. So follow our Facebook page. If we have anything else like that, you’re more than welcome to come. Although I think to be to get on the Facebook page, Renee, you have to be a member, correct? You do. You do. That’s why I was saying don’t follow our Facebook page.

Renee Thompson:

We do have a great website. You can always find us on our website, but finding information about so small firm section is really easy. It’s like I said, so much more easy when you are a member because we email you everything and you get our source and our newsletter and everything that comes with

Liz McCausland:

It. Yeah, our source comes out and there’s two tech tips in it every newsletter.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. Can we send it for free for the newsletter?

Liz McCausland:

You have to be a

Renee Thompson:

Member. You have to be a

Liz McCausland:

Member. These are member benefits. I

Adriana Linares:

Understand them. I’m a free human member benefit too, so I totally get that. And by the way, sometimes it’s cheaper for you to join one of those two bars I mentioned earlier for their annual fee and get access to me for free than it is to hire me for my hourly rate. Okay, let’s take a quick break, listen to some messages from some sponsors and we come back. I’m going to pick your brains about how you are modernizing as you two do all the time year round your solo small firm practices. We’ll be right back. Alright, I’m back with Renee Thompson and Liz McCausland to active members of the Florida Bar that are two of my trusted resources for talking to learning about and making sure that we are all chit chatty about legal technology. Liz, have you introduced, well, I’m glad you told us about InfoTrack. You tried that out, you don’t need it very often, but you did. So that’s very cool. Are there any other products or services that you have been trying that you’ve added and specifically since we were sort of talking a little bit of ai, do you have a chat GPT subscription? Do you have a copilot subscription? What are you doing with any other AI tools? But then of course just general tech tips that you can give us.

Liz McCausland:

I do have an AI subscription and I do not have a copilot, but to be honest, until yesterday I thought that’s because copilot was still only available to enterprise users. So now I’ll be looking into that and right now I do not have any AI that talks to my case management, et cetera. I happen to use Clio. I did speak with the Clio people about their AI and when it was coming out at the convention, candidly they told me behind the scenes it’s working, but they want to make sure that it’s truly glitch free before they let it out. I have seen Smoke Ball’s product. I actually sat through a very interesting one the other day that I’d never heard of called Noodle.

Adriana Linares:

How are we spelling that? I’m sure it’s not how I think

Liz McCausland:

It is just like a noodle from a ramen bowl. I say that because Asian, that so Noodle is right now, as far as I know, only in immigration and bankruptcy. And I’ve seen other products do this because we’re very form driven. We’re very rule driven. So start in an area where it’s very structured and Noodle is a case management system for those practices. And it was amazing. It’s like having an assistant who helps organize you for the day. So when he turned it on, it wished him good morning and then said, you have four emails from these clients. You’re waiting for documents from these clients. You’ve got these things to review, this is what’s on your calendar. We’ve taken the liberty of drafting a response to these and drafting these follow-up emails. So it kind of just looked across his cases and gave him a to-do list.

And you can also set it for notify me if I haven’t spoken with my client or had any communication in two weeks and it did that. So things like that that kind of lay over your case management. So this was not so much generative yet. It was more getting yourself organized and cutting down on the time when you’d be searching for those things or doing follow-ups to yourself. And then at our bar meeting last week, we saw V L’s product and how it worked and they gave us a 10 minute video showing all of the things including generative AI that it used and it was amazing.

Adriana Linares:

So you reminded me of something when you mentioned V lx. I want to drop two names into the conversation. One, which you already mentioned. Who’s Damien Real? I just want to spell that because he spells real in a strange way. If you’re looking for a really good resource specifically on LinkedIn, D-A-M-I-E-N-R-I-E-H-L is Damien Real, who I think is a wonderful follow. He works for VLX now and is just really on top of everything that’s going on with AI and helping attorneys use it wisely better and very creatively and effectively. And then Liz, you had told me at dinner that y’all had an amazing speaker from Texas and attorney. Is he an attorney?

Liz McCausland:

No, he’s not an attorney. I’m sorry. Okay.

Adriana Linares:

But I wanted you to name drop him and encourage people to go find him on LinkedIn and follow him because it sounded like he had really amazing information.

Liz McCausland:

Yes. And I’m so glad you brought him up. I was going to drop his name too. Jerry Buie, BUI is how you spell that last name. And he is out of Dallas, Texas. He’s an e-discovery expert. He also just recently was one of the few civilians who helped report on AI and DeepFakes to Interpol. Yes. He’s a great follow on LinkedIn. He publishes a lot of content and he spoke to us about DeepFakes and what’s out there and how the field is changing and how you are going to need to authenticate by using people like him for certain things. And he was an amazing follow. I’ll tell you another great speaker we had, oh good was the public defender in Miami-Dade who has been using VE now before it was VL for the past year. And the amount of AI that they use, not just VE but other programs, one of which is a video program.

It used to be just for the body cams just to collect all of the body cam information and categorize it, but now they use it also to review it and sync. So think about 6, 7, 8 police officers on a scene all with body cams, the amount of footage that they have to take in file properly store review. So it does all of that for them and then it will cast all of those videos onto the same screen and synchronize them. So you can see the scene at that moment from all the different body cam vantage points and it allows the attorney, it frees up the attorney from reviewing all of those separately and then now it allows that attorney to look at it, bookmarks, certain aspects, et cetera. And then of course they have the depositions that it can review and look for any inconsistencies or consistencies and it just saves so much time for them that they used to spend doing the busy work of saving that now the attorneys can really just do their work and they’re on a closed system that’s not personally identical information that’s going out there. I think it’s helped save them a lot of money and having these people who just do nothing but categorize and contain and file.

Adriana Linares:

So it looks like his name is Carlos j Martinez, is that right? That’s correct. And then so in just glancing at their website, obviously they’re not going to be talking about that they don’t have links to the tools and services that they use. But do you know if there’s a resource for attorneys or if that talk that he gave for you guys is going to be recorded and available for sale maybe on the Florida bar? How do we access that information?

Liz McCausland:

It is it available? It just took place last Thursday, so it might not be available immediately. I don’t know when this is coming out, but I will tell you the only one that’s not on there is Jerry Buoys and that’s the only one. But everyone else in their talks will be available on the Florida Bars website.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. Well that’s great. We thank you for mentioning those tools and services and giving us a couple things to look to. I’m sure that’s not it, but I’m going to flip over to Renee real quick, give her a chance to tell us. I know Renee, you had sat in on some legal research demos and I just want to remind attorneys that you can use AI very effectively and efficiently not to do research, but to do a lot of other things in your day-to-day practice because it sounds to me like where attorneys seem to be making poor decisions about how to use AI as in the research world. Not everyone needs to do research as much as some of you. So for those of you who are afraid, Renee, make us feel better about

Renee Thompson:

That. So I do use generative AI for research in my practice and I utilize it as kind of a first step in the process. Just like if you would get a memorandum from say a LawClerk or a young associate, that’s kind of how I see generative ai when it produces the document for me to look at and get up to speed on a particular area or practice area that I ask it about. I had the opportunity to sit in on v ls and Fast Case and what they’re doing in the area of generative ai, which is really exciting. They’ve actually incorporated some of it into the Florida Bar member benefit for free. So for instance, every Florida bar member gets access to Fast Case and to do legal research through that product, and they’ve added a generative AI piece to the free product in that it’ll now do case summaries for you. So when you look up a particular case, it will actually do an entire summarization of that case for you as part of that free product. So some really cool member benefits that have just launched this past week that I got to see in addition to, they have of course their additional product, which is full service generative ai.

Adriana Linares:

And to remind you again, if you’re not a member of the Florida Bar, fast Case is the legal research tool for many bar associations. I have to remind my California attorneys all the time that if you’re a member of CLA, you get fast case for free as part of your membership. And then Nebraska happens to use decisis, which is westlaw’s product. So if you are taking advantage of your member benefits with your bar association, there’s likely a research tool that’s part of that and you need to go and see what you’re able to get for free from these very trusted research tools and services that are built specifically for lawyers using everything they know about how lawyers work in the past. And Renee, are you any tools or services that you’ve incorporated aside from those into your practice that you want to tell us about?

Renee Thompson:

Yes. I also utilize the Lexus plus AI service for what I’m doing in my practice. So that’s been really great. I served on an advisory board for them on how their products work and all the bells and whistles that I wanted that pretty cool as a practitioner. So I’ve really gotten used to and know how to maneuver through their product to really figure out what makes the most sense for me. So that’s been a huge game changer. Frankly, when I go to meet with clients, when I have mediations and I need to get up to speed very quickly on a topic area, it really allows you to do that in a very efficient way, especially if you’re in trial and you’ve got motions in limine. You’ve got all of these things that you may have to brief the court on in a very efficient way. You don’t have time at lunch to look at AI really steps in and picks up the weight. So it’s pretty awesome.

Adriana Linares:

Let me ask you this because I think what prevents a lot of attorneys from getting into this is the time they think it’s going to take. So help us feel better about setting some time aside and am I setting hours and hours, days and days or can you give some advice on just where do we start, like you said earlier?

Renee Thompson:

Sure. Well, the good thing about generative AI is it’s not that old. You can really get up to speed really quickly of what’s happened in this field. You can set aside some time over a weekend maybe to listen to some podcasts. You’ve had some great podcasts on everything that’s out there. There are just so many resources to talk to you and to learn about how it’s being utilized in the legal field. And then of course, you’re going to have to set up some demonstrations for the different products that are available. So you’re going to need to set aside some time for that because every practice is different. And what makes sense for you as a practitioner might be very different from somebody else down the hall. So it’s an individualized process in that regard because especially if you’re utilizing it for legal research, people have a different way that they may do it and they want to be able to do it. I wanted a very, I’m going to call it a Google centric research tool where I can just put in a question and I get an answer back that makes sense to me as if I had put it straight into Google.

Adriana Linares:

Liz, what advice do you have for us? Thank you, Renee. Very helpful.

Liz McCausland:

I think it’s easy to be overwhelmed, especially when you’re a solo or small because you’ve got so many hats that you’re wearing. And for me, whenever I have someone come in who says they want to systematize their practice or they want to change all of their tech stack things like that, I remind them to do one at a time. Otherwise it may never get done. And my biggest advice when someone asks where should I start is let’s start with the client’s initial interaction with you, your client, how they contact you and your client intake. So many areas, but that’s your first impression and that is where you first capture their information for your conflict check. That’s where when they’re worried at night and it’s after hours and they’re just trying to find an attorney to talk to, that’s when they’re going to your website. That’s when they’re trying to see if they can schedule a consultation. That’s when they’re Googling you. Let’s start there. Let’s start on their first interaction with you and how you’re going to capture that information, how you’re going to meet with them, and then let’s go to all the other things.

Adriana Linares:

Well, I want to thank you both for your time today. It’s always fun. But like I told listeners at the beginning, these are literally the conversations these three legal tech nerds have at dinner and by chat too. Thank you both for all of the information you provide me and for your time. Remind everybody how they can find friend or follow you, Renee,

Renee Thompson:

At Legally Renee. That’s the easiest way to find me. You can find me on X. I’m also on Facebook and LinkedIn. If you need to reach out on Instagram, I’m there too, but that’s probably the best way to follow me.

Adriana Linares:

Excellent. And Renee is always very generous with her time and helping other attorneys, whether you’re a Florida Bar member or not. So feel free to reach out. I will say that in advance about Liz as well. And Liz, tell us how everybody can find friend and follow you.

Liz McCausland:

Same for me. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I’m on Twitter. I don’t tweet that much. I know. And I’ve really kind of stepped away from posting a lot on social media, so I need to get back into it. But life has gotten busy and I just haven’t been posting. I just got back from Spain and I still haven’t even posted any pictures from that. Yes, we were all waiting. Well, and the Spain trip was a solo small firm, CLE

Renee Thompson:

International, CCLE International

Liz McCausland:

CLE trip.

Adriana Linares:

That’s awesome.

Renee Thompson:

And Liz got to do his whole CLE on how to practice without borders. So for those attorneys who really want to be able to make the most of their practices and have that practice go with you no matter where you go.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing. Is that online somewhere? Liz, you guys going to put that? Not

Liz McCausland:

That one, but I will be recording it again in September, I believe. Excellent. So join the section before then.

Adriana Linares:

All right everyone, thanks again for listening, spending some time with us, especially thanks to my guests. After all this, if you still need some help, make sure to reach out to any one of us. Thanks for spending some time with us and we hope to see you next time next month on another great episode of New Solo.

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