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.

Detecting scams used to be relatively easy. Social engineers nearly always left clues that made spotting and avoiding them easy.

Things have changed. Scammers are enormously more sophisticated. The Washington Post’s personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary‘s top three rules will go a long way toward keeping you safer:

  • Trust no one. Trust nothing you get via email, text, or phone call. If your husband calls and says to transfer money, hang up and call him back. AI is allowing criminals to impersonate people’s voices.
  • Try to remember not acting protects you more than reacting quickly when someone says you have to pay a bill or fine, or you may be arrested. If you do nothing and your money is stolen, the bank has to give it back. But, if through manipulation, you make a move by giving a criminal a code or access to your account, it’s harder to get the money back, if not impossible.
  • The moment someone says, “Don’t tell anyone,” it’s a scam. 100% of the time.

Pro Tip: Regularly update your security practices. Use password managers, enable multi-factor authentication, and be cautious about sharing sensitive information, even with trusted sources. When in doubt, verify through a separate trusted channel.

More tips in the article 10 Tips for Prosperity and Pleasure in 2025.

As an Apple Watch fanboy, I often tell my skeptical friends, “Get one. It will improve your quality of life.” Apple Watches have their benefits but are trivial compared to the benefits I’ve gotten using AI for my home and personal needs. AI can help you with everything from finding a recipe for that weird vegetable your aunt gave you to composing a love letter to your Roomba. (Don’t judge).

AI can help you find the best flight deals, schedule appointments, and choose the perfect wine pairing for your dinner. It’s like having a personal assistant who knows your every need.

I use it to find safe storage times for chicken leftovers, find a famous chess game, find a list of a Chinese director’s best films, buy bedsheets, learn how to resell tickets on StubHub, and much more.

Could I locate most of this information through web search engines? Sure, but it would take longer, and my results would likely not be as good.

Pro Tip: Learn to recognize situations where AI will help you. ChatGPT has some suggestions.

More tips in the article 10 Tips for Prosperity and Pleasure in 2025.

Negotiation may be the single most crucial skill for lawyers. Upgrading your skills may pay significant dividends. Consider these approaches:

Formal training. Programs like the university consortium Program of Negotiation or Bar Association CLE programs will get you headed in the right direction.

Self-study. Start with classics like Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In or newer works like Transformative Negotiation: Strategies for Everyday Change and Equitable Futures.

Pro Tip: Practice your negotiation skills in low-stakes situations.

More tips in the article 10 Tips for Prosperity and Pleasure in 2025.

Hordes of social media posts—and even some media outlets like Newsweek—are reporting that the Grok AI app (described by Elon Musk as the “smartest AI on Earth”) concluded that there is a 75% chance that Donald Trump is a Russian asset.

I’m no fan of Trump, but I have to point out that Grok’s analysis illustrates a prime weakness of large language models: They are no better than the data sets used to train them. Most online discussion of the Trump-Is-A-Russian-Dupe theory probably originates with people who don’t like Trump and conclude he is in Putin’s pocket. This almost surely skews the result.

Is Trump a “useful idiot”? Maybe or maybe not, but it’s foolish to rely on a Large Language Model’s conclusion.

Clients shouldn’t need a Latin dictionary and a team of cryptographers to understand what they’re paying for. More than a few professionals who are capable of writing clearly fail to do so because they fear that clients would be less willing to pay hefty fees for work product not wrapped in ponderous and incomprehensible jargon. The reality is that good writing should be more salable, not less. More at Plain English for Lawyers: The Way to a C-Level Executive’s Heart.

Pro Tip: Use your favorite AI App, Hemingway Editor Plus, or a similar dedicated writer app.

More tips in the article 10 Tips for Prosperity and Pleasure in 2025.