John Tredennick and Bill Webber would never publish a book entitled “AI For Dummies,” so best to consider their new article “AI For Beginners.” Whatever you call it, GenAI for Smart People: An Introduction to Large Language Models for Smart Legal Professionals is an excellent “entry-level” intoduction to key AI concepts:

The most entertaining parts are the AI-generaged “Brain In A Jar” graphic above and the Executive Summary generated by ChatGPT 4.0:

Executive Summary*

“GenAI for Smart People,” authored by John Tredennick and Dr. William Webber, serves as an essential guide for legal professionals navigating the integration of Generative AI (GenAI) into ediscovery workflows. The article breaks down complex concepts into digestible insights, offering a forward-looking perspective on the technology’s transformative impact.

Introduction to GenAI: The guide introduces GenAI, emphasizing its pivotal role in enhancing legal practices. It sheds light on how GenAI, particularly through Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT, has become central to discussions in the legal field, promising to streamline processes and improve efficiency.

Role of LLMs: The authors elaborate on LLMs’ functionality, focusing on their ability to process and generate text based on extensive training. This section underscores the computational prowess and the intricate technology driving these models, highlighting their significance in text-based applications.

Training and Operational Mechanics: The paper details the rigorous training LLMs undergo, including reinforcement learning and the implications of a fixed knowledge base post-training cutoff. It brings attention to the models’ limitations and the ongoing debate around their ability to truly “understand” content versus merely replicating it.

Application in eDiscovery:

  • The authors demonstrate LLMs’ capability to revolutionize document review, analysis, and transcript review by rapidly identifying relevant information, significantly cutting down the time and resources required for these tasks.
  • Through practical examples, the article showcases how GenAI can offer immediate positive effects on discovery practices, despite the architectural limits of current models.

Data Security: Addressing concerns around data privacy and the protection of attorney-client privileges, the guide reassures readers about the robust security measures and contractual safeguards in place with commercial LLM providers.

Impact and Future Outlook: The conclusion reiterates GenAI’s revolutionary potential in legal workflows and its capacity to make existing processes more efficient. The authors express enthusiasm for the future, envisioning a legal practice landscape redefined by the adoption of advanced AI tools.

*The above summary was prepared by GPT 4.0 Turbo (128K) based on the contents of our article.

Hypertext links in blogs and other online publications articles build credibility with readers. I’ve written primarily for online publications for years. It’s second nature to me to turn relevant words or phrases into hypertext links, so the inability to do this on LinkedIn (and Facebook) has been a long-time annoyance.

Richard Tromans is a respected British legal innovator who operated the Artificial Lawyer website.

His recent LinkedIn post provides a great example of how to make your LinkedIn posts more credible as well as more helpful to readers. He adds the URLs to sources in a section at the end.
Richard’s method is not as elegant as turning the relevant words into a hypertext link, but there’s a lot to be said for making your posts more credible by “showing the receipts.” Here’s how Richard handles it:

Transformative Negotiation Book Cover

As an instructor at a prestigious negotiation program I like correctly observed, many, maybe most books on negotiations are little more than collections of war stories or Machiavellian tricks.

Sarah Federman’s new book Transformative Negotiations is light on dirty tricks but provides a sometimes head-spinning large collection of characters, anecdotes, tips, and examples.

It sets itself two ambitious goals:

  • Taking the subject of negotiation out of the boardroom and into the lives of ordinary people.
  • Using negotiation approaches in a way that will help society through win-win-win approaches.

It goes a long way toward achieving these ambitious goals. Those looking for new and thoughtful approaches to negotiation, as well as its goal of advancing social justice, will find it invaluable.

There are many things to like about Transformative Negotiation, not the least of which is that the author avoids common problems with contemporary academic writing:

1. She writes passionately and persuasively about the importance of supporting disadvantaged groups while avoiding coming across as “woke” in the way so many find gratingly condescending on today’s university campuses.

2. She speaks clearly, eschewing turgid prose and impenetrable scholar-speak. For example, rather than engaging in Foucaultian analysis of the dynamics of power, she suggests two simple tests to identify the most powerful in an organization:

  • a. Who can express anger without negative consequences?
  • b. Who, if they did the same thing, would be dismissed or reprimanded?

Gotta love any professor who can write so clearly and persuasively.

My review of the new book Transformative Negotiation will appear in this month’s issue of LLRX.com. In the meantime, here is a summary of the book’s eight chapters, with my reactions:

1 Imagine. Understanding what you need and want is the first step toward successful negotiation. Why do you really want swans at your wedding? (page 20). How can a “Come As You Will Be Party” help clarify goals? (page 21). This chapter would particularly benefit the many people I negotiated with who had never thought through or identified their actual needs and wants.


2 Ask. Simply asking for what you want can often get you much of what you want. This chapter may be particularly helpful to people from under-resourced communities or discriminatory environments who have internalized the idea that they are undeserving. This chapter resonated with me since growing up in the West Virginia coalfields in a family that often needed food stamps to survive had made me feel worthless, someone who did not deserve help.


3 Give. Good negotiators get win-win deals. The best negotiators strive for and sometimes achieve win-win-win deals. This chapter has strong appeal to people like Erik Heels, who founded the Treehouse network, “a support group for givers.”


4 Money. Financial Management 101. “Some basic financial knowledge helps people stay anchored in negotiations and know their walk-away points.”

I never would have expected to see chapters like this and Chapter 5 in a negotiation book, but they make perfect sense. If you are teaching Marines how to storm a beach, you would first help them upgrade their physical and mental status. If you are teaching people how to negotiate, show them how to upgrade their financial status and become more proficient using technology.


5 Digital (#Facepalm). “Digital communication can save time but also can destroy deals and relationships far more easily than face-to-face meetings.” Yep. 


6 Power. Good analysis of how to understand various forms of power and how to leverage your own. Eminently practical suggestions, including how to handle power disparities, like negotiating with governmental entities like the IRS.


7 Gender, Sex, and Race. “Draws on the latest research to explore how negotiation advice may differ for people with different backgrounds.” Essential advice not just for members of disadvantaged groups, but for anyone who wants to negotiate with them.


8 Guns, Addiction, and an Orchestra. “What works in the boardroom will not necessarily work in the streets where drugs and guns take hold.” The section about Baltimore Symphony Orchestra labor disputes does not develop that idea, but convincingly makes one important point: Sometimes changing negotiators can make all the difference. The BSO musicians union hired a lawyer to represent them in contract negotiations with management. The results were good initially, but when discussions again bogged down, they brought in a different negotiator, who was able to close the deal. 

I thought Dennis Kennedy’s book was a bargain two years ago at $34.99 two years ago. Is he nuts to give it away now?

Nah. It’s actually brilliant. After two years sales of the book must have dwindled to nothing.

Getting extra mileage out of this book is a great marketing tool. Did Dennis think of this idea or did some marketing guru like Conrad Saam suggest it? Does it matter?

Too many lawyers are letting money slip through their fingers. Alabama personal injury lawyer Hunter Garrett was pleased to take a client that three other lawyers had lured but not landed. He observed:

“Later, the client mentioned that I was the 4th lawyer that he called.”

Spending lots of money on the best bait around won’t do you any good if you ignore a fish nibbling at it.

Conrad Saam‘s book Own the Map addresses this and many other aspects of effective marketing.

Ben Schorr is a treasure for Microsofties. His job is making life easier for those using Microsoft products, and he is very good at his job. His recent LinkedIn post publicized an MS news item, a List of 10 AI Terms Everyone Should Know.

Cocktail party experts are a dime a dozen, but lots of people (especially the seniors among us) don’t have time or inclination to master all the intricacies of AI and don’t want to sound stupid either. Getting the vocabulary right is worth something.

One of the best ways for ambitious lawyers to increase their visibility and credibility is to write and publish a book. Many decent writer/lawyers find writing a book in their specialty area to be relatively easy. Getting it published, not so much.

“Vanity Publishing” has been around for years. It’s sometimes referred to as “subsidy publishing.” Basically, the author pays for his book to be published.

Self-publishing is an option. New technologies, including the increased acceptability of electronic publishing and on-demand printing, have made self-publishing a more attractive option.

Always-on-the-leading edge Dennis Kennedy realized this years ago. He switched from conventional publishing houses to Amazon KDP years ago. His most recent books have been published through Amazon, which distributes books electronically through Kindle or in print-on-demand paper versions.

For his new book The Legal Tech Ecosystem Colin Levy decided to go with a publisher new to me, Rames House Publishing. Rames says that its function is to “help attorneys and other professionals independently publish as a way to market themselves and their practices. We work directly with our clients throughout the process—from the raw manuscript to the polished print or electronic finished product.”

The editing and physical quality of The Legal Tech Ecosystem make me think Rames House Publishing is a worthy alternative. I am considering it for my next book.

My review of Colin Levy’s new book The Legal Tech Ecosystem: Innovation, Advancement & the Future of Law Practice is now available at LLRX.com.

In brief, I like the book a lot, though I wish Levy had done more to directly address knowledge management issues. Levy focuses on six problem (which I prefer to call “opportunity”) areas:

  1. e-discovery
  2. contract management
  3. legal research
  4. project management
  5. process improvement
  6. data management

Data management, as Levy uses the phrase, seems to be about managing client information. Its primary purpose is “to track the performance of legal teams and service providers, which can help legal departments identify areas for improvement.

No doubt this function is important, but it is very different from knowledge management for lawyers, which I like to describe as helping lawyers “know what you know.” My experience is that if you have good knowledge management, in the form of having command of your law firm’s internal information, everything else becomes easier.

I hope my next book, Knowledge Management for Lawyers: Building A Culture of Success, will increase awareness of the importance of this topic. I’m aiming for a Spring 2024 publication date.