The short answer is yes, but with serious limitations. The practice of law now faces a dramatic technological change, whether we lawyers like it or not. That change is generally called“Artificial Intelligence” or “AI”. That change specifically is called “Large Language Models” or “LLMs”. AI is a broad field of creating intelligent systems. LLMs are a specific, powerful type of AI focused on understanding and generating human language. One source described it as AI is the whole cake, while LLMs are just a slice. The AI and LLM programs seem to come with a trade-off. There are fast, free, and easy-to-use versions. Yet they’re highly unreliable. These programs tend to do what is called “hallucinate”. This is where the program generates a response that is fluent and confident. It’s also legally and factually incorrect. Basically, it tells you what you WANT to hear rather than what you NEED to hear. The other versions are slow, expensive, and difficult to learn how to use. Yet they are highly reliable.
Fortunately, the Texas State Bar has a “Taskforce for Responsible AI in the Law” or “TRAIL”. It was the first of its kind, launched in June 2025. I’m much more willing to rely on an LLM program approved by TRAIL. I believe AI and LLMs will not replace lawyers in my lifetime. I also believe lawyers who use AI and LLMs will replace lawyers who do not use them. The general rule when I started was to spend two hours preparing for every one hour in trial. Now, AI and LLMs seem to change that. Yet there’s no substitute for a human lawyer making arguments to a human jury. Lawyers with experience and advanced training in drunk driving cases know how to spot potential issues and weaknesses in cases. So the bottom line is AI and LLMs make my job much easier and let me handle more cases—but I don’t see them replacing me.