I think they should be somehow restricted to using non-generative models (or at least for the user facing output). Something that would only identify potentially relevant case law from an existing set, to accelerate the search process.

Common law in general seems essentially impossible to formalize in such a way to use purely deterministic reasoning models of yesteryear, but I'm sure many specific laws could be converted, especially in fields like tax law (I'm sure they already are by many big players)

A lot of law is combing through large bodies of rule sets and reference cases to find inputs or parallels relevant for a case. Are you sure you'd rather have Lionel Hutz, Esq. with his limited comprehension do that at half a page per minute?

> but spending years or decades in prison because Lionel Hutz, Esq. did something stupid at a prompt sounds unappealing to me.

In which case would this be the primary blame, and not the legal system itself, or you for actually doing the crime?

I fail to see how its your lawyers fault that you went to jail for a crime you didn't commit over the system as a whole. And I really fail to see how it's the lawyer's sole fault that you went to jail for a crime that you should - in fact - have went to jail for...

There are a lot of problems with the legal system (including with lawyers). This just doesn't seem like the hill to die on.

An attorney I have retained from a large firm bills me $500 to send me one email update a month (minimum billable).

They are obviously AI-generated (but does not disclose such) and frequently misses or conflates key details the same way Gemma in particular does. They're also bizarrely positive when I correct them instead of pissy and arrogant like I'm used to.

Nobody should be paying these rates for legal "work" performed by a machine that poorly acts the part.