Haynes Boone lawyers Fiona Cain, Jack Spence, Michael Mazzone and Harry Phillips authored an article for Mealey’s International Arbitration Report exploring the use of artificial intelligence by arbitrators and what that means for advocates.
Read an excerpt below.
Legal publications have been replete with salutary warnings to the unsuspecting as to the potential pitfalls of lawyers using generative AI in their practice area on both sides of the Atlantic. Perhaps the most severe warning was provided by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, where two lawyers were disqualified from working on a case, and ordered to provide copies of the sanctioning order to all their clients, as well as opposing counsel and judges on other cases they were working on.1
But what about the use of AI by those on the other side of the bench? This is a question of particular relevance given the introduction by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) of “WebFile AI Assist”, a tool which enables arbitrators to summarise filings. If its adoption is successful, we are likely to see the increased use of similar tools in other dispute resolution settings.
In this article we consider the ethical issues posed to arbitrators making use of these tools, together with insight as to how these are managed in practice. We also consider the implications that the continuing adoption of similar solutions may have on the practice of dispute lawyers.
