The new
rules of law
AI is prompting the legal profession to re-examine
its expertise, ethics, and value.
The new
rules of law
AI is prompting the legal profession to re-examine
its expertise, ethics, and value.
The legal profession, like many industries, is at a pivotal moment as artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes the role of the modern lawyer. People are turning to ChatGPT for legal advice and several high-profile cases have put lawyers in the spotlight for using legal precedents later proven to have been ‘hallucinated’ by the technology. Large language models (LLMs) are getting smarter, with researchers finding OpenAI’s reasoning model, o3, can now ace law school final exams, a significant improvement on earlier models. LLMs have already proven capable of passing the United States (US) bar exam.
Against this backdrop, Bond University alumna and PhD candidate Chantal McNaught is examining how lawyers navigate conflicts between the industry as a profession and a business. She also heads her own company teaching legal professionals to safely use AI, and says the best way to predict the future is to create it.
“We've all heard alternate predictions of utopia, where the robots do our groceries and load the dishwasher, and then dystopia, where the world is burnt to a crisp and we are slaves to the robot overlords,” she says. “How do we get to the middle path?”
The modern lawyer in an AI world
With generative AI producing convincing legal services product, how do lawyers bring value to the table? Ultimately, Chantal says it comes down to ethics and judgement, innately human traits that are essential in upholding the rule of law, and vital to a functioning society.
“In their advisory role, lawyers help people make decisions that align with our rule of law, and in the advocacy sense, lawyers know how to interpret the law,” she says.
Chantal describes the current environment as VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — as professionals worldwide consider how to effectively adapt AI into their roles to enhance efficiencies and improve outcomes, without damaging quality and trust.
Formal guidelines are already being put in place for lawyers, with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia’s Practice Direction outlining the principles and responsibilities of using AI, including advising for professional education to understand its capabilities and limitations.
“Within professional practice, there are already legal requirements,” Chantal says.
“It is important to understand that while AI is good at talking about capabilities and limitations, it is a mirror, it is not neutral.
“We need to keep that in mind. It is built by people who are not necessarily legally trained and have their own interests that might not align with your needs.”
The modern lawyer in an AI world
With generative AI producing convincing legal services product, how do lawyers bring value to the table? Ultimately, Chantal says it comes down to ethics and judgement, innately human traits that are essential in upholding the rule of law, and vital to a functioning society.
“In their advisory role, lawyers help people make decisions that align with our rule of law, and in the advocacy sense, lawyers know how to interpret the law,” she says.
Chantal describes the current environment as VUCA — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — as professionals worldwide consider how to effectively adapt AI into their roles to enhance efficiencies and improve outcomes, without damaging quality and trust.
Formal guidelines are already being put in place for lawyers, with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia’s Practice Direction outlining the principles and responsibilities of using AI, including advising for professional education to understand its capabilities and limitations.
“Within professional practice, there are already legal requirements,” Chantal says.
“It is important to understand that while AI is good at talking about capabilities and limitations, it is a mirror, it is not neutral.
“We need to keep that in mind. It is built by people who are not necessarily legally trained and have their own interests that might not align with your needs.”
Risks and rewards
The risks that come with harnessing AI in legal work have already made headlines. Solicitors have been disciplined or had their practising certificates revoked for submitting case citations that were fabricated by AI, leading to career and financial implications.
“The consequences and realities are there, but then you have the more hidden risks as well,” Chantal says.
“Things like cognitive offloading. If we are delegating too much of the judgment job to AI, our brains are like a muscle and if we fail to use it, we lose our strength. That is a risk that has not yet been quantified and there is a scramble to quantify it; we know it exists.”
However, the rewards the technology brings encourage little debate, particularly from time-poor lawyers tasked with synthesising large amounts of information. Researchers have already developed an AI Fluency Framework, designed to help professionals better harness these opportunities. The framework defines AI fluency as using the technology effectively, efficiently, ethically, and safely against three modalities — automation, agency, and augmentation.
“There are so many things we can do to enhance our own brains, but it is an amplifier. That’s the true opportunity, asking ‘how can I amplify my own thinking?’” Chantal says. “We are creating more risks if we're only going down the ‘do it faster’ route.”
"Our brains are like a muscle and if we fail to use it, we lose our strength"
"Our brains are like a muscle and if we fail to use it, we lose our strength"
Where law, technology, and business meet
The intersection of law, technology, and business is one Chantal has long been passionate about. She was inspired to study law at Bond in 2010 because of its deep influence on all aspects of society. Her first job in migration law, where she was tasked with printing and filing every piece of correspondence, led her to research how technology could improve efficiencies. She later moved into legal marketing, before shifting into legal software.
That diverse professional background encouraged her back to Bond in 2022 to research her PhD, under the supervision of Bond University Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law, Professor Nick James.
She also co-founded 43° Below, with best-selling author Wenee Yap, to help lawyers develop AI literacy and fluency, empowering them to use the technology to amplify intelligence without delegating responsibility. She teaches how to safely employ AI for legal drafting and research, protect confidentiality, and draw hard lines around delegation.
An industry advocate, she hosts the Law and Beyond Show, interviewing legal professionals about leveraging technology, navigating compliance, and other topical industry insights.
“Doing a law degree is no longer just about being a lawyer. A law degree is, yes, understanding legal judgement, but if you decide to get admitted you are an officer of the court forever. Your responsibility in upholding the rule of law follows you and what you do,” Chantal says.
“That is a fantastic thing because the more lawyers we have committed to upholding our values and obligations, the stronger our communities are.”
Navigating the future
While the future seems uncertain, Chantal believes we have more influence than we may believe.
“What I am building to see is a profession that is accountable to its sense of responsibilities and duties, one that is about trust, and trust is about relationships,” she says.
“We're seeing more people turning to ChatGPT and then going to a lawyer and asking ‘can you fix this?’ That is indicative that the relationship of trust is still there and still important.
“It is not about what is generated, the contract, or the artifacts of work. It is about relationships and lawyers feeling confident to say what their value is to their clients and to society.”
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