How Law Firms Are Adapting to AI with Jeff Lewis

Jeff: For the first time last month, I went in front of a judge, and the number I put up there, the judge said, "Well, you know, lawyers can use AI now, and us judges, we have to measure that number against what we think you could do it in with less time using AI." And he reduced our fee award.

There's going to be a pressure both by judges and clients in terms of how much lawyers can really charge for their services, given the expectation that lawyers start using AI to accomplish tasks that used to take a long time.

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Melissa: Welcome to The Law Firm Owner Podcast. I'm so thrilled that you're here today. We have a very special guest in-house, in person, Jeff Lewis. 

Jeff: I'm Jeff Lewis. I do appeals and First Amendment.  I'm asked to comment on First Amendment issues, defamation issues, appellate law issues. I was interviewed today by Forbes about President Trump's ban on CNN from the Oval Office. We do the California Appellate Law podcast with my podcast partner, Tim Cole, and it is super interesting to appellate nerds who are interested in two spaces versus one space or serial commas. And if you're not into appellate law, it's a great natural sleep remedy. Check it out, calpodcast.com. 

Melissa: This is such a treat to have you here in Denver. We've known each other a long time now.

Jeff: Since COVID.

Melissa: Since COVID. That's right. I was telling my son that you're our longest-standing client. It's over, over six years. It's been a really cool ride, really cool journey. And now you and your main man is here with you, Jason, who we'll meet in a little bit. 

Jeff: Right.

Melissa: I wanted to talk to you about AI because I have plenty of clients who are using AI. I think you have dug in a way that a lot of people haven't. You've created some systems with AI. You, tell me where I'm wrong, but it seems like your work, your experience with work, has changed now that you have workflows that include AI. 

Jeff: Absolutely. On an individual level and also on a firm level, and how we process our briefs. 

Melissa: Yeah. 

Jeff: Yeah. 

Melissa: So I would love to talk to you about where is it in your workflows? What tools are you using? What do you lean on? I have questions from there. So maybe I'll just let you kind of riff on that for a minute. 

Jeff: Yeah, on the tools question, things change so quickly. It was a year ago I was attending ClioCon and finding out about Clio's new AI product. And I think back then when most of us were using ChatGPT, and now most lawyers I know are using Claude and some version of CoCounsel. And I feel like whatever I tell you is going to be out of date in six weeks. I'll tell you what we're doing now and where my mindset is. 

First of all, we're working on developing firm-wide skills to kind of standardize the prompting and the output to get predictable results from our AI work. And I personally have a concern that last year's flavor was ChatGPT, this year it's Claude, next year it'll be something else, that it's important to document those, those skills, those prompts in a place outside of Claude or outside of ChatGPT so that you can easily export to other AI and migrate to the next big thing without friction. It's very important.

And what we're using primarily today, or what I use primarily today, is a combination of Claude and CoCounsel, which is a Westlaw product. And what it allows you to do is do an inquiry in Claude and run it against a trusted legal database of real cases and real statutes. You can do inquiries like, “check this brief and make sure all these cases are real,” or “check this brief and make sure all these cases are, say what the brief says they say.” And that's not our final check, but that's an intermediate check.

And the final check we do, it's not really an AI product, but we use a product called Clearbrief, which allows you in Word to see a Word document and your cases side-by-side in one window. And you can look at the site on the left and then read the case on the right and make sure it's a real case and it says what you're saying it says. Because in my industry, reputation is everything. You don't want to be one of those ChatGPT lawyers who get, you know, sent a notice to the state bar.

Melissa: Yeah. No, absolutely. Okay. And then who is using these tools? You're mentioning you use them, but talk about your team. 

Jeff: I think everybody in my firm is using AI to some degree, but they use it at different processes. Like for me, I like to write out the headings, the argument of my brief first, before it even touches AI. And then I will take that and throw that into Claude and ask Claude to help me identify, are these good arguments? Are there additional arguments I haven't thought of? Fill out some additional research if I've missed any.

Most recently, I've pointed it to, I have a brief bank of old anti-SLAPP motions where I could point Claude to this bank of my motions, my oppositions, trusted sources, and say, look at these old briefs for cases and fact patterns to help me identify potential new arguments for this, this current case. 

That's what I do. I know my paralegal relies heavily on the Clio Vince product, which is their AI product that they announced last year.

Melissa: Oh, Vincent.

Jeff: Yeah, Vincent. Well, he and I were, we go by Vince, you know. And it's good because you know, Clio has the context of your matter. It has the matter documents. And so when you upload a motion that needs an opposition or when you upload a motion to have it generate a proposed order, it's a pretty good tool for that. I don't know that it's the best tool for raw analysis or coming up with arguments, but it's a pretty good start for paralegals looking to get a head start on motions. 

And then I know Tim, the attorney from my office, he also uses Vincent and he uses a little bit of Claude, and we all use CoCounsel pretty heavily, even without Claude. You know, CoCounsel's Westlaw's new product, they keep trying to make it more and more ChatGPT-like. It used to be very stiff in terms of the prompts you could give it, and the results were so-so, but it is getting better and better every day.

I hate the Westlaw interface, and so to be able to access Westlaw's co-connector through Claude, without opening Westlaw, without logging in the five different screens you have to log in and the waiting of the ten minutes, just tell Claude what you want it to do inside Westlaw, and it will do it. It's fantastic. 

Melissa: Nice. Okay. Very cool. All right. So I mean, everybody's really using it. You have a good flow. 

Jeff: We do have a pretty good flow. My personal flow is I like to generate research or initial brief onto Notion. We use Notion at my firm for tracking tasks and whatnot. We have a research database where it'll throw the initial research with checkboxes saying, this hasn't been checked by paralegal, or this needs to be vetted by Jeff. We clean it up in Notion and then we port it back into Word. My experience is that Claude has a little trouble formatting Word documents correctly, and so having it in Notion lets us work with it in AI with less friction. 

Melissa: Okay, great. And I remember you talking at the last retreat, really helping your team adopt the flow that they should have because you expect them to use these tools, right? 

Jeff: I do. I think the thrust of my presentation to my staff was to scare the hell out of them to make sure there's not any misuse of AI. That was the punchline at the end. But the middle of the presentation was, these are good use cases for ChatGPT, like, for example, preparing for oral argument, uploading publicly available briefs that any member of the public has up to ChatGPT, and asking ChatGPT to come up with moot court questions. That's a great use case for ChatGPT.

Whereas, if we're ever going to upload client documents and they're not subject to a protective order, we would want to use a Westlaw product or a CoCounsel product that has that extra layer of security. 

Melissa: But even, I want to ask this specifically because I hear that this issue arises often in practices, is you wanted them to put it through something that would help just with the, the silly mistakes, right? The grammar or punctuation, which I guess is grammar, but you know, the things that you don't want to find when it comes to you to review. 

Jeff: That's a great use case. When it's close to filing-ready, when you feel like it's going to be close to getting on file, we have a skill we've developed to check a motion or a brief against our internal style guide and our general requests for grammar proofreading, pinpoint sites. And I'm stunned sometimes to see the things it picks up.

I recall once that it got, the name of the judge had been misspelled. The "I" and an "E" had been transposed. And I wouldn't have caught that just looking through it real quick. Or an error on the proof of service, which means really nothing. On the other hand, it should be corrected. Typos, grammar errors, and pinpoint sites for cases. Very important. 

Melissa: Okay. Nice. Now, I wanted to ask you, dovetailing, this dovetails nicely, how are you feeling about the models in terms of, like, what's your confidence with accuracy? You did mention that you're using Westlaw. So I'm assuming that's your answer, but what do you have to say about that? 

Jeff: I am most confident in the Westlaw CoCounsel products, or I should say the Westlaw deep research product. In terms of my fear of hallucination, of making up cases, that the cases that it brings up are relevant and it has a nice tool for asking follow-up questions to refine your research. So it's a great product for just plain old vanilla research. It can't generate any documents off that.

But for confirming propositions or getting started on a brief, it's great. Claude is my preferred model, and I use most of the time Opus, every once in a while Fable, for working inside a Microsoft Word document and crafting a brief.

ChatGPT, I have to say I rarely, I use it for personal projects and I use it for sometimes moot court. I find it does a better job with moot court than Claude. But I expect, again, in six weeks, maybe those rules will flip. I'm hearing good things about the new Astra model coming out for ChatGPT. And I'm super interested to see this announced integration they just announced between ChatGPT and Clio, where the two have synergies together. And right now I wouldn't be interested because the output of Chat alone isn't very good, but I could see a future where the Chat output is elevated, and its synergies with Clio will be very attractive to Clio users. 

Melissa: I did not know that. I didn't hear that. 

Jeff: Yeah. It's interesting. So Claude has an approach of having connectors to bring in QuickBooks data so you can crunch your numbers for your coach, or Westlaw research, or a variety of things. It brings it and you work within Claude to get that information. It seems like ChatGPT is taking a different approach where ChatGPT is used as a tool inside of Clio, like the reverse. They're taking kind of a different approach. 

Melissa: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Any fun projects in your personal world that come to mind that you use AI for that it's just been fantastic?

Jeff: Yeah, I'll tell you one. I'm trying to entice my wife to learn how to use AI. She's a little resistant. And we recently replaced a 25-year-old water heater in my house. It was occupying a closet. And so now we have an outside tankless water heater. And we have this empty room that the water heater used to be in. And so we took some pictures and asked ChatGPT to come up with a variety of different layouts of closets or sitting rooms or other configurations. And it came out with some great pictures. It modified the pictures we took and gave us some great ideas. 

Melissa: Okay, nice. Are you going to move forward on them? 

Jeff: With one of them, for sure. 

Melissa: Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff, since I have known you so long and I don't know, I've seen you at different chapters along the way, what right now excites you about your future and where things are going with your firm? 

Jeff: Well, let me just say this. A year ago around ClioCon, I felt like AI was out-pacing my ability to keep up and my ability to keep the business competitive with other law firms. Now I'm a little less panicked. Now I feel like AI could really be a tool to help me compete with other law firms and to help reduce some of the friction in the law firm in terms of getting product out the door, getting our briefs done. So I am feeling much more optimistic today than I was a year ago. 

Melissa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jeff: You remember, I think you and I talked.

Melissa: Oh, you were freaked out. 

Jeff: Yeah.

Melissa: And I didn't really know what to do with that either. I mean, it was more, nobody was. Everybody's just trying to figure it out. And you went with Ernie or you went, Ernie was there. And so you encouraged me to have him on and I did. Oh, cause you wrote that awesome LinkedIn post. 

Jeff: Yes. 

Melissa: That's what, that's what it was around. And just your realizations. It's like you appreciated that wake-up call. You weren't really sure what to do with it, but you're the kind of person that will dig in and figure it out. You have a great partner, Jason, in that. 

Jeff: Yeah, I don't dig in so much as I ask my trusted paralegal to dig in. 

Melissa: Okay, fair. Jason does the digging in. Yes. But, you know, I think there's a lot of people that have stayed frozen and are just kind of doing things the way they've always done them. They're not sure where to start. It can be overwhelming. 

Jeff: Yeah. You remember when Dropbox first started and lawyers were like, "We can't put documents in the cloud. That violates our duty of confidentiality." We got to have our file cabinet and paper backup copies of everything. And now, Dropbox, OneDrive, SharePoint, they're all pretty commonly used and lawyers with the right security in place will use those tools. A similar thing is happening with AI in terms of balancing old-school lawyers' terror at privacy violations, confidential issues, glitches, balancing that with the need to stay competitive against your peers and serve clients. 

I'll tell you one AI story that I knew this was going to happen. I do a lot of fee motions in court where we tell a judge, "Hey, this is the number of hours I worked, this is my hourly rate, please give me these fees." And for the first time last month, I went in front of a judge, and the number I put up there, the judge said, "Well, you know, lawyers can use AI now, and us judges, we have to measure that number against what we think you could do it in with less time using AI." And he reduced our fee award. 

There's going to be a pressure both by judges and clients in terms of how much lawyers can really charge for their services, given the expectation that lawyers start using AI to accomplish tasks that used to take a long time. 

Melissa: But you're hourly. 

Jeff: Yes. 

Melissa: And I certainly know you guys well enough to know that you have a lot of integrity when it comes to tracking time. So that's almost like the judge saying, "I don't believe the time you logged." 

Jeff: I would put a different point on it. Judges, judges are tasked not with saying how much did Jeff spend in terms of time, but more, what is a reasonable amount, given all the lawyers in the community, what is a reasonable amount for a lawyer to have spent drafting a motion?

And AI has now entered that equation in terms of how a judge thinks about accomplishing tasks. So in reducing my fees, the judge wasn't saying, "Jeff, I don't believe you didn't spend that much time." He's saying, "Given the tools that you had available in terms of AI, maybe the reasonable amount is less today than it was a year ago before AI." 

Melissa: But the amount of time you're submitting now is less than a year ago. 

Jeff: That's true. And the question is, do those equate? Meaning, am I keeping up with the reasonable lawyer standard and using AI at its maximum efficiency, or does this lawyer, or does this judge have an overly optimistic view of how well AI can help a firm? And it's going to be that balancing act for the future.

And I've got corporate clients, Fortune 200 clients, that have the same mindset in terms of budgeting for litigation and how much they think lawyers should be charging this big company. And they, and they have a lot of lawsuits and they have certain expectations that are lower now than they were a few years back because of AI.

Melissa: Wow. Yeah. That's wild. Was it a big bummer? Like, was it a big dent in what you were asking for?

Jeff: Uh, no. It was a, it was a gut punch, though, in terms of, it was the first time I heard a judge utter the words “AI” in connection with a fee motion.

Melissa: Okay. Okay. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that is, that's wild. So, talking about time, one thing that I'm excited to hear from you guys tomorrow, but maybe you can give me a little preview now, and maybe it'd be good for listeners.

You mentioned before we started recording that things are busy right now. Like, enough that you were thinking about maybe just for a little bit backing off some of the marketing efforts that you have or being a little more discerning. Or being more discerning about the cases you're taking on because of capacity.

But you guys have used AI quite a bit, which increases capacity with the same team that you have. So this is interesting. It's like your ability to handle more work, and you can handle more work. That is true with AI as a part of the equation. And you're feeling at capacity. 

Jeff: Yeah. 

Melissa: Again. Right? 

Jeff: Again. Yeah. 

Melissa: Yeah. So I don't know if you want to speak to that at all or what your experience is on… 

Jeff: Well, I'll tell you what my thinking was. It was kicked off by a conversation I had last week with a bright young lawyer by the name of Eli Underwood, whose sole practice is partition actions. All he does, it's one cause of action, it's a very arcane real estate claim for partition. It's when two people own property, they can't get along, they want a court order to sell a property. Very niche, okay?

I bring this up because as long as you and I have known each other, I've wanted to have a firm that does only appeals and SLAPPs. And we've done some other things along the way to pay the bills and or other interesting opportunities. But this conversation I had with Eli the other day, I was mining his thought process and having a website that says, "Nope, we're not going to do any of those other cases. All we do are partition."

And he's successful, he's got a statewide practice, he's got 11 lawyers working with him. And it really had me thinking again, maybe given how busy we are, maybe this is the time to say “nope” and just do SLAPPs and appeals and be a little more discerning about the non-appeals and SLAPPs that we take. 

Melissa: Yeah. Oh, I love that. Well, because you love that work. That's, you really enjoy. 

Jeff: Absolutely. It's great work. It's enjoyable. Our clients are very appreciative when we get them out of, often times it's their first time ever being sued and they're thinking they're going to lose their house, and instead we get the case dismissed and they, the other side pays their attorney's fees. It's very personally gratifying to do these cases. 

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. That's great. I think as we start to round the conversation out, tomorrow we have our retreat. Wondering if, because people don't always know what it's like to be a part of those days, if you can give your interpretation of those days, cause it's probably going to give some sort of chuckle. 

Jeff: Don't you dare come to the retreat without knowing your numbers. That's my word of advice for prospective clients of your coaching services. It's important. You will help us find our numbers and wrap your fingers, but let me just say you get much more out of a retreat when you're prepared with what your numbers are in terms of the past and the future. 

Melissa: Yes. You guys have a good rhythm now. You never not know.

Jeff: That's mostly because of Jason.

Melissa: Yes. Oh, that is for, that is very true.

Jeff: For many years, when you and I met, Jason was in the other room hearing you pull out your hair and me pull out my hair, and he wasn't part of the process. And the best decision I ever made was bringing Jason into the process to help me with the numbers. 

Melissa: Yes. Yes, yes. Absolutely. Well, okay. So people don't necessarily, not every, all the listeners know what it's like to be a part of a retreat. So, anything you think would be helpful to share about that? But then also, maybe give a preview of, do you have topics that you know you want to discuss tomorrow that doesn't feel like a big deal to share here that's not too private? 

Jeff: Well, look, there's a topic you and I have talked about a little bit in the past, and that my wife's nearing retirement. She's six years out. And she's going to actually retire, retire. Unlike me, I don't think I'll ever retire, but I'm going to slow down.

And so I've been thinking more and more in the summertime, when she's not working, what should those summers look like as we approach retirement? Both in terms of me and preparing my team. And so one of the topics we might talk about tomorrow is taking between June and August off to go explore the world, me and the wife. And maybe I'll be working a little bit, maybe I won't, but that's a topic that in the future. That’s one.

And then yeah, this other topic of I'm curious from a numbers point of view, a facts not feelings point of view, what would it look like to turn down some of our non-SLAPPs and non-appeals? What are some of the things that we would be need to watch for if we did that going forward? 

Melissa: Oh, I'm excited for that conversation, cause it will just make it math. It'll help. It'll help with the final decision. It may not necessarily perfectly inform the decision, but it'll give you information that you need.

Jeff: It gives you a scaffolding. 

Melissa: Yeah. 

Jeff: So that, you know, so that you're not just hanging out there without something to support you. 

Melissa: Yeah. Those were exciting topics to dig into tomorrow. Looking forward to it. 

Jeff: Yeah. Always, always fun. 

Melissa: Yeah. And okay, anything else that you might share with people? What are these days like in your opinion? 

Jeff: So the end result of every retreat is setting goals, both quantitative goals and qualitative goals, in terms of personally and the firm. And it's great for setting expectations for employees in terms of us being able to communicate to the employees, you know, what our expectations are for the year. So that's the end product.

But the journey to get there is really super interesting conversations. I prefer the ones that don't involve math and numbers, but it's part of the process. But, you know, you start thinking about how much would we need to make in a year for me to go off for the summer with my wife and explore the world? And what would need to happen money-wise and numbers-wise at the firm for that to happen? 

Melissa: And team-wise. What kind of support do you need? Is there any change to the support that you have that you would need? Yeah. 

Jeff: Would I have to cancel all of Jason's vacations for the second half of the year? That's, we'd have to talk about that. 

Melissa: Jason's behind the cameras for anybody who's, you probably picked up on that, but soon you'll be in front of the camera. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for coming to Denver. Thank you for sitting down with me.

Jeff: Yeah, thank you, coach.

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely.

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