You
are
local
counsel
in
a
case.
It’s
3
p.m.
You
just
got
the
brief
from
national
counsel
that’s
due
to
be
filed
in
two
hours.
It’s
60
pages
long
and
has
150
case
citations.
You
have
no
way
of
knowing
whether
they
are
all
to
real
cases
or
accurate.
What
do
you
do?
That’s
the
problem
that
GenAI
presents.
But
at
least
one
vendor
has
a
solution
and
it’s
not
all
GenAI.
The
Problem.
And
A
Solution.
There’s
an
old
saying
about
someone
who
has
more
hat
than
cattle.
It
refers
to
someone
who
is
talk
with
little
substance.
This
is
why
the
GenAI
volcano
is
poised
to
erupt:
too
much
talk,
not
enough
substance.
Melissa
Rogozinski
and
I
have
talked
a
lot
recently
in
our
Pompeii
series
of
articles
(see
links
at
the
conclusion
of
this
article)
about
the
often-unspoken
problems
and
challenges
AI
presents
to
legal
in
an
age
of
hype.
As
one
of
our
professors
used
to
say,
the
problem
is
the
problem.
And
the
problem
here
is
that
too
few
are
actually
trying
to
solve
problems,
and
too
many
are
hyping
AI
products
as
the
only
game
in
town.
That’s
why
Clearbrief
and
its
new
product,
Cite
Check
Report,
which
automatically
verifies
GenAI
outputs,
is
important.
The
headline
isn’t
just
what
Cite
Check
Report
does,
it’s
that
Clearbrief
adopted
a
process
and
attacked
a
problem
in
a
practical
way
that
actually
helps
lawyers,
paralegals,
and
legal
professionals.
Clearbrief’s
approach
is
not
more
GenAI
but
to
use
non-GenAI
tools
to
solve
one
of
GenAI’s
more
vexing
problems.
In
order
to
understand
why
we
are
excited
about
this
solution
and
why
it
may
work,
you
need
to
know
something
about
Clearbrief.
Clearbrief
Clearbrief
is
legal
tech
provider
that
has
a
track
record
of
listening
to
its
customers
and
providing
solutions
to
their
problems
and
pain
points,
much
as
Ki,
who
we
recently
discussed,
has
done.
Clearbrief
offers
AI
and
natural
language
tools
to
help
its
customers
draft
legal
pleadings
and
briefs
that
are
accurate
and
well
done.
Clearbrief
was
founded
in
2020
by
Jacqueline
Schafer,
a
former
litigator
and
leading
thinker
in
the
legal
ecosystem.
In
2022,
it
was
a
finalist
at
the
annual
ABA
TechShow
start
up
competition.
In
a
testament
to
what
it
does
and
how
it
treats
customers,
it’s
now
a
leading
provider
to
Am
Law
200
firms
as
well
as
smaller
firms
and
corporations.
Cite
Check
Report
It’s
no
secret
that
GenAI
tools
routinely
make
cases
up
or
cite
cases
for
the
wrong
propositions.
As
a
result
and
as
we
have
discussed,
one
of
the
leading
drawbacks
to
GenAI
tools
is
that
it
takes
lawyers
and
legal
professionals
more
time
to
verify
the
outputs
than
the
time
it
saves.
As
we
also
discussed,
this
disrupts
workflows
and
destroy
the
underlying
trust
that
is
the
foundation
of
how
lawyers
get
work
done.
Cite
Check
Report
checks
both
cites
and
factual
assertions
against
existing
major
data
bases
and
a
customer’s
internal
documents.
It
identifies
missing
sources
and
cases
and
corrects
formatting
errors.
It
scores
the
cited
material
based
on
accuracy
and
identifies
mismatches
between
quotes
and
what
is
actually
contained
in
the
case
or
source.
It
will
also
show
how
the
author
of
document
addressed
the
red
flags.
Importantly,
Cite
Check
Report
does
not
use
generative
AI,
but
what
Clearbrief
calls
classic
AI
to
do
this.
Because
it’s
not
relying
only
on
GenAI,
the
checks
are
accurate.
And
Clearbrief’s
tools
do
more:
they
eliminate
pain
points
by
catching
typos,
catching
slight
misses
in
quotes
and
factual
assertions,
and
automatically
doing
tedious
things
lawyers
and
paralegals
hate
doing.
Schafer
says,
“These
are
like
10
different
tools
that
litigators
normally
have
to
do
and
open
and
go
into
to
get
a
single
brief
filed.
And
this
is
the
unsexy
stuff
that
AI
doesn’t
care
about
as
much
because
it’s
hard.”
She’s
right
about
all
this.
Litigators
and
paralegals
spend
an
inordinate
amount
of
time
doing
stuff
they
don’t
want
to
do
but
which
has
to
be
done.
Stuff
that
they
didn’t
spend
time
in
school
and
learning
to
do.
This
is
what
AI
and
its
providers
should
be
about:
solving
problems
and
making
customers’
lives
easier,
not
harder.
An
Elegant
Solution
Schafer
and
her
crew
recognized
these
problems
and
developed
an
elegant
solution
like
Cite
Check
Report.
For
example,
Clearbrief
recognized,
as
did
we,
that
lawyers
cite
hallucinated
cases
for
a
variety
of
reasons:
tight
deadlines,
over
work,
overreliance
on
the
tools
provided.
To
ignore
this
practical
reality
is
akin
to
what
a
lot
of
AI
vendors
do:
ignore
practical
realities
and
limitations.
But
Schafer
and
her
team
got
there
by
listening
to
customers
and
then
critically
looking
at
what
GenAI
tools
can
and
can’t
do.
Schafer
told
us:
“I
go
back
to
our
customer
calls
practically
every
day.
It’s
what
grounds
me
and
tells
me
exactly
what
to
build.
I
know
what
problems
they’re
having.
We
are
in
the
trenches
with
them.
What
they
need
to
use
on
the
real
work.”
And
Schafer
has
some
thoughts
about
where
we
are
with
GenAI
as
well:
“I
feel
like
we’re
just
in
this
sort
of
AI
slop
era…One
of
the
biggest
things
that
I’ve
learned
from
being
in
the
trenches
and
developing
these
tools
are
that
there
are
just
certain
workflows
that
generative
AI
is
not
best
suited
for
because
of
the
uncertainty
element.
We
needed
a
way
where
there’s
no
possibility
of
hallucination
and
GenAI
creativity
coming
into
play
for
certain
types
of
tasks.”
The
Verification
Paradox
Cite
Check
Report
effectively
attacked
what
we
describe
in
Part
II
of
our
series
as
the
verification
paradox.
The
fact
is,
if
AI
is
used,
lawyers
and
legal
professionals
have
to
take
the
time
to
verify
each
and
every
AI
cite.
As
we
mentioned
in
Part
II
of
our
series,
this
verification
necessity
often
results
in
more
time
being
sent
than
is
saved
by
using
AI
in
the
first
place.
GenAI
may
cut
your
research
time
down
from
6
hours
to
30
minutes.
But
that’s
cold
comfort
if
you
have
to
spend
10
hours
checking
and
reading
all
the
cites
and
making
corrections.
The
GenAI
tool
isn’t
worth
it.
Cite
Check
Report
eliminates
the
paradox
because
it
can
very
quickly
and
automatically
do
the
cite
check
of
cases
and
factual
assertions
and
provide
an
analysis
of
the
magnitude
of
any
errors.
(The
latter
is
important
because
we
all
have
stretched
the
meaning
of
cases
before.
Cite
Check
tells
us
if
we
may
have
gone
too
far).
Cite
Check
Report
turns
the
paradox
on
its
head.
Instead
of
costing
more
to
have
GenAI
do
a
task,
Cite
Check
can
do
the
things
that
a
human
would
otherwise
have
to
do
in
checking
cites,
correcting
typos
and
finding
and
noting
slight
errors
and
even
misaligned
arguments
in
a
fraction
of
the
time.
Looking
at
the
Why
Every
day
we
hear
of
lawyers
using
AI
and
citing
cases
provided
by
AI
that
either
don’t
exist
or
don’t
stand
for
the
proposition
they
are
offered.
The
results
can
be
catastrophic:
fines,
loss
of
clients,
embarrassment,
even
malpractice
claims.
Yet
for
whatever
reasons,
lawyers
aren’t
saving
themselves
by
meticulously
checking
cites.
Clearbrief
recognizes
why
this
is
so.
In
its
refreshing
non-hyperbole
press
release
announcing
Cite
Check
Report,
it
articulated
the
reasons
in
a
way
I
have
addressed
before:
While
it’s
tempting
to
chastise
any
lawyer
who
fails
to
meaningfully
review
pleadings
before
signing,
the
reality
of
modern
litigation
is
that
a
single
filing
often
contains
hundreds
of
citations
to
both
facts
and
law,
and
many
hands
touch
a
complex
pleading
before
it
gets
filed.
Moreover,
generative
AI
mistakes
can
be
so
subtle
that
the
human
eye
can
easily
miss
them,
such
as
replacing
a
single
number
in
a
citation
such
that
the
cite
now
appears
to
be
from
the
court’s
own
jurisdiction
rather
than
another
circuit
court
where
it
is
not
binding
precedent.
Says
Schafer,
“Partners
are
being
sanctioned
and
suffering
reputational
damage
for
citation
errors
they
didn’t
personally
make.
We
built
the
Cite
Check
Report
to
give
them
what
courts
are
demanding:
documented
proof
that
they
satisfied
their
ethical
obligations
before
signing
that
pleading.”
The
Trust
Problem
Indeed,
it
was
precisely
this
problem
we
were
getting
at
in
Part
III
of
our
series:
the
work
process
in
legal
depends
heavily
on
work
being
done
by
someone
for
someone
else
.
This
could
be
an
associate
for
a
senior
partner,
a
national
counsel
sending
brief
to
be
filed
to
local
counsel
or
vice
versa,
even
a
law
clerk
for
a
judge.
Before
generative
AI,
that
work
was
by
and
large
trusted
by
the
recipient.
If
it
can’t
be
and
everyone
has
to
check
every
cite
tendered
to
them,
it
bogs
the
work
process
down
to
the
point
that
AI
becomes
useless.
As
Schaefer
puts
it,
“It’s
breaking
the
trust
that
we
have.”
And
practically
speaking,
Gen
AI
would
be
useless
for
certain
tasks
like
legal
research.
It’s
Not
Just
for
Lawyers
It’s
often
forgotten
that
much
of
what
goes
into
legal
work
is
not
performed
by
lawyers
but
by
paralegals
and
other
legal
professionals.
It’s
the
paralegals
who
have
to
check
cites.
They
are
called
on
to
do
the
timelines
and
run
other
checks
on
documents
and
pleadings.
But
like
the
lawyers,
it’s
not
work
they
went
to
school
to
do.
It’s
boring
and
tedious.
And
if
something
goes
wrong,
it’s
the
paralegal
who
ultimately
catches
hell.
So,
in
addition
to
helping
lawyers,
Cite
Check
Report
and
other
Clearbrief
tools
help
everyone
in
the
workflow
do
better
work.
To
use
their
skill
where
they
have
the
most
impact.
As
Schaefer
put
it,
“There’s
multiple
layers
in
legal
workflows.”
And
the
better
those
in
the
work
flows
are
at
what
they
do,
the
better
the
product.
More
Hat
Than
Cattle
We
need
more
thinkers
like
Schafer
who
offer
more
cattle
than
hat,
who
offer
more
substance
than
talk.
People
who
look
at
what
we
can
do
to
prevent
the
problem,
to
help
lawyers
save
themselves
seamlessly
and
easily,
who
make
using
AI
easier
and
more
practical.
That
would
be
a
refreshing
change
from
the
constant
“hat”
many
vendors
offer.
The
solution
to
GenAI
challenges
is
not
just
more
GenAI.
Sometimes
it’s
the
use
of
other
tools.
And
it
will
always
be
the
result
of
independent
thinking
instead
of
mass
hype.
Looking
for
a
way
to
solve
a
problem
or
get
rid
of
a
pain
point?
Stop
talking
to
vendors
who
lead
with
GenAI
capabilities.
Start
with
those
who
lead
with
solving
your
problems.
The
Pompeii
Series:
Like
Lawyers
In
Pompeii:
Is
Legal
Ignoring
The
Coming
AI
Infrastructure
Crisis?
(Part
I)
Like
Lawyers
In Pompeii: Is Legal
Ignoring
The
Coming AI
Cost
Crisis?
(Part
II)
Like
Lawyers
In
Pompeii:
Is
Legal
Ignoring
The
Coming
AI
Trust
Crisis?
(Part
III)
Like
Lawyers
In
Pompeii:
Is
Legal
Ignoring
The
Coming
AI
Financial
Crisis?
(Part
IV)
Like
Lawyers
In
Pompeii:
Is
Legal
Ignoring
The
Coming
AI
Definition
Crisis?
(Part
V)
Stephen
Embry
is
a
lawyer,
speaker,
blogger,
and
writer.
He
publishes TechLaw
Crossroads,
a
blog
devoted
to
the
examination
of
the
tension
between
technology,
the
law,
and
the
practice
of
law.
Melissa
“Rogo”
Rogozinski
is
an
operations-driven
executive
with
more
than
three
decades
of
experience
scaling
high-growth
legal-tech
startups
and
B2B
organizations.
A
trusted
partner
to
CEOs
and
founders,
Rogo
aligns
systems,
product,
marketing,
sales,
and
client
success
into
a
unified,
performance-focused
engine
that
accelerates
organizational
maturity.
Connect
with Rogo
on
LinkedIn.