My review of Richard Susskind’s excellent new book, How to Think About AI: A Guide for the Perplexed is now available at AttorneyAtWork.com. Here is the conclusion:

With over 500 generative AI apps for lawyers cataloged by LegalTech Hub in March 2025, the proliferation of such tools shows no signs of slowing. In this environment, nuanced understanding is more critical than simply another application. What the world needs is clear explanations of the ways AI is changing our world now — and what we can expect tomorrow. 

Whether you’re writing briefs, litigating high-stakes matters, lobbying policymakers or just trying to future-proof a career, Susskind’s book aims to give you enough clarity to steer rather than drift. And in the AI era, that might be the most practical gift of all.

“How to Think About AI” is the literary equivalent of a well-lit observation deck overlooking a stormy sea. It is as much about society, ethics and identity as it is about neural networks. For attorneys plotting strategy in a generative-AI world, this book is required reading.

It was an honor to recently sit down with the ABA Senior Lawyers Division’s Experience magazine to discuss my career path, the evolution of legal practice, and the invaluable role of mentorship.  The best part was the opportunity to acknowledge some of the many people who have mentored or influenced me, including key early teachers Big Creek High School teacher Frieda Riley, who taught me the importance of clear thinking and accurate analysis. Concord College teacher J.B. Shrewsbury, who taught me to write, and University of Kentucky Law School teacher Bobby Gene Lawson, who taught me how to analyze legal issues. 

Other key lawyer influencers and mentors included Burgess Allison, the most influential voice in the early lawyer adoption of the Internet,  Richard Granat, winner of the ABA Legal Rebel Award for his work in improving access to justice; Greg Siskind, a top immigration lawyer also known for his leadership in lawyer marketing and innovative use of technology; Kevin O’Keefe, the uber lawyer/blogger and Dennis Kennedy, longtime author of the ABA Journal IT column, now a podcaster and law school professor.

A non-paywalled version of the full interview is now available on LLRX.com.

Excerpt:

Sometimes, I think it’s a wonder that I became a lawyer at all. I grew up in the West Virginia coal fields. As the New York Times said of my home, “McDowell County, the poorest in West Virginia, has been emblematic of entrenched American poverty for more than a half-century.” An academic study concluded that of 3,142 counties in the United States, McDowell County ranked last in life expectancy.

Coal mining is not a lucrative line of work, and the cyclical nature of the business meant that whenever my father was laid off, we survived on welfare and food stamps. We did not have an indoor bathtub or toilet until I was 14 years old. I don’t remember seeing a dentist until I left the coal fields and got a job.  

McDowell County is not the most promising launching pad for a professional career, but I was blessed to have an extraordinary high school teacher, Freida Riley. One of her students, Homer Hickam, became a NASA engineer and wrote about her in his memoir Rocket Boys. It was later made into the 1999 movie October Sky, with Laura Dern playing this inspirational teacher. The National Museum of Education’s Freida J. Riley Teacher Award annually recognizes “an American teacher who overcomes adversity or makes an enormous sacrifice in order to positively impact students.”

She certainly positively impacted me. I may never have attended college, let alone become a lawyer, without her influence.

With the help of Sabrina Pacifici, my article AI In High-Stakes Litigation: The Critical Role of Experienced Attorneys will be published this month at LLRX.com. Here is an excerpt:

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The “Centaur” Approach Is the Optimal Model (For Now)

Today’s chess-playing computers can crush the best human players without breaking a sweat. This wasn’t always true. Twenty years ago, teams of the strongest humans and the most powerful computers were stronger than either humans or computers alone. These teams were sometimes called “centaurs.” They combined the strength of a mighty beast with human judgment.

For at least the next few years, legal centaur teams—combining the experience of the best lawyers and the best AI apps—will always win over the best human lawyers or the best AI apps working alone.

Today’s best legal AI experts (including Richard Susskind) believe that this may not always be true. They speculate that eventually computers will reach a stage of “hyperintelligence” in which AI systems become unfathomably more capable than humans. We are not there yet, and we may never get there. For the foreseeable future, experienced lawyers who know how to use AI will dominate.

Today, I have no problem asking an AI app a simple question about licensing of speech therapists. I would verify any of its analysis before relying on it for anything important, but AI is now my first choice for relatively simple questions where the stakes are low.

I would never dream of relying on an unassisted AI app for an important issue in $40 million litigation. Neither should you.

At the same time, today I would not trust my unassisted human judgment on a high-stakes matter.

 It was fun to come across Lexblog founder Kevin O’Keefe‘s archived mentions of Sabrina Pacific, Dennis Kennedy and yours truly. It is flattering to think that the three of us may have inspired one of the top entrepreneurs (and nice guys) in legal tech history:

I like LLRX for its info on Internet marketing. It was discussion about blogs for marketing purposes between, I believe, Dennis Kennedy and Jerry Lawson, at LLRX’s roundtable feature that was a key in turning me onto the power of blogs a couple years ago.

Kevin’s additional comments about Sabrina and LLRX.com are even truer today than they were 20 years ago:

LLRX.com, an all round online legal resource with a bias towards Internet related information, has been a labor of love for Sabrina Pacifici for over 10 years. Sabrina attracts thought leaders to create original content and have archived discussions on various subjects. Should be on the short list of resources for all legal blog publishers.

Generative AI for Dummies

I’ve had a fair amount of success with using AI prompts to refine my AI prompts. Interested in trying this yourself? Generative AI for Dummies, a book I recently reviewed for LLRX, has some good ideas for getting started.

Nothing in that book nor anything I’ve come up with myself is as elegant as one drafted by Eric Porres, recently shared by his friend Jeremy Utley recently shared on LinkedIn:

Hey, I’d like to consult you as an AI expert. I would like your help to identify ways to leverage AI in my day-to-day work. Would you please interview me asking only one question at a time until you have enough context about my work responsibilities and daily tasks and workflows and KPIs such that you could make what you consider to be two obvious recommendations and two or three non-obvious recommendations for how to leverage generative AI.” (literally copy/paste this into chat)

BTW, I’ve been wondering why more people are not sharing their best prompts. Way back in the early days of the Internet, one of the best ways to develop a reputation as an expert was to share your expertise in the form of checklists, etc. I hope to share my collection here in the not-too-distant future.

Surely other lawyers have been doing this already. I haven’t found many yet. Where are they?

Maybe this is a project for Dennis Kennedy’s students at the Michigan State University Center for Law, Technology and Innovation?

Jerry Lawson
Jerry Lawson

Since ABA’s Experience magazine is behind a paywall, I let LLRX.com reprint their January interview with me. I enjoyed the interview, especially since I got to acknowledge the other ABA members who had made an impression on me over the years, including:

  •  Richard Granat, winner of the ABA Legal Rebel Award for his work in improving access to justice
  • Greg Siskind, a top immigration lawyer also known for his leadership in lawyer marketing and innovative use of technology
  • Kevin O’Keefe, the uber lawyer/blogger and 
  • Dennis Kennedy, longtime author of the ABA Journal IT column, now a podcaster and law school professor.

I also talked a little bit about how I happened to become a lawyer:

Sometimes, I think it’s a wonder that I became a lawyer at all. I grew up in the West Virginia coal fields. As the New York Times said of my home, “McDowell County, the poorest in West Virginia, has been emblematic of entrenched American poverty for more than a half-century.” An academic study concluded that of 3,142 counties in the United States, McDowell County ranked last in life expectancy.

Coal mining is not a lucrative line of work, and the cyclical nature of the business meant that whenever my father was laid off, we survived on welfare and food stamps. We did not have an indoor bathtub or toilet until I was 14 years old. I don’t remember seeing a dentist until I left the coal fields and got a job.

McDowell County might not be the best launching pad for a professional career, but I was fortunate to have an exceptional high school teacher, Freida Riley. One of her students, Homer Hickam, became a NASA engineer and wrote about her in his memoir Rocket Boys. This memoir was later adapted into the 1999 movie October Sky, featuring Laura Dern as this inspiring teacher. The National Museum of Education’s Freida J. Riley Teacher Award recognizes, each year, “an American teacher who overcomes adversity or makes an enormous sacrifice in order to positively impact students.”

She definitely had a positive impact on me. I might never have gone to college, much less become a lawyer, without her influence.

Cat Moon 😺 likes to say she “lives in the I live in the open mindedness of not knowing enough about anything.”

I dunno. She knows just about everything we need to know about one topic:

“Every single instance of an attorney filing something in court that cites a fake case generated by AI is solved by one single ethical obligation we have.”

Her advice tracks my Feb. 1 post:

Follow two rules:

  1. Never rely on anything AI tells you about crucial issues.
  2. Always ask AI for advice on crucial issues.

AI does not merely save time. It can make your work product better. The time to get these benefits is now.

At the same time, safety matters. Conceptualizing AI as a sort of super research assistant can help. Wouldn’t you always verify any research assistant work product before using it for anything crucial? You don’t want your memo to be a Shakespearean sonnet about the existential angst of a CPA.

Don’t really like to get into current affairs outside the legal tech field here, but money is money, so for the benefit of my readers I’ll pass along the best analysis I’ve seen of the probable unintended effects of our President’s economic agenda.

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Economist Noah Smith‘s essay “The Latest Episode of Mad King Trump–How long before businesses get fed up?” does a good job of developing this thesis:

Trump’s actions are often indistinguishable from what he might do if he were a foreign agent bent on destruction.

Nicole Black’s Sui Generis blog is one of my favorites, a good guide to what’s hot and what’s not, what deserves our attention and what doesn’t. Her recent post The Year Ahead in Legal Tech: AI, Innovation, and Opportunity Tech Trends to Expect in 2025 is overwhelmingly about AI. That should tell you something if you are paying attention.

RSS readers are the best way to follow thought leader blogs (and here are some tips about choosing one), but just in case you haven’t caught on yet, check out Nicole’s newsletter on LinkedIn.