alt Hacker News>Non legal background people trying to avoid going to a lawyer. They should definitely NOT use an LLMs.
I used LLMs to replace a lawyer this year to great effect. I successfully advised myself as to the right strategy and drafted an immigration petition in the correct language. Granted it wasn't 100% LLMs (I also supplemented it with "traditional" online research and wrote the letter myself using the LLM version as rough guidance), but still, I certainly would've gone to a real lawyer in 2024 for this stuff but didn't.
Professional advisory work can be divided into two types:
1. Once you know the rules of the game, the next move is immediately obvious.
2. Knowing the rules is not enough to know the next move -- that requires judgement and experience.
LLMs in the hands of someone smart and savvy can easily replace the first type of work.
If it is at all possible to replace a lawyer with an LLM, it should always be the preferred choice. Using a lawyer is not a zero-sum game, using an LLM is.
Lawyers nearly universally tend to: convince clients they need a lawyer; promote extreme views; charge legal fees (that ultimately result in financial damages to the client). There are no winners in this game, except for lawyers, who are having a lovely time. Even if you won the case, you've lost, because the pie got smaller due to lawyer fees.