AI and Law: What Skills Do Paralegals Need?

Written by C. Alex Hahn, Esq., BU Instructor

Signs of an AI boom are everywhere. However, for the legal profession and the delivery of legal services, what are the tangible implications? For paralegals and attorneys, how can the hype be separated from reality?

In the Boston University Center for Professional Education (BU CPE) Paralegal Certificate program, for more than 25 years we have prepared paralegals for long-lasting careers within law firms, legal departments of corporations, and public agencies. Our training includes the Legal Technologies module, where we teach students core skills that are desired by employers. We also provide up-to-the-minute information about new technological tools and trends that are impacting the legal profession, including AI.

Our first mission is to provide students with specific and actionable professional skills. And in doing so, we are guided not by the latest headlines about purported AI breakthroughs, but rather by the needs of hiring partners and other attorneys in the organizations where paralegals work. We are also guided by the expertise of instructors—including both attorneys and paralegals—who collectively have centuries of experience in the legal profession.

A Closer Look at Generative AI

Broadly speaking, the term artificial intelligence refers to the possibility that machines—that is, computers and software—can accomplish “thinking” tasks long thought to be achievable only by the human brain.

Judging by the headlines, AI has arrived like a thunderclap in our society. In truth, artificial intelligence of one form or another has been around for decades. For example, Google’s search algorithms, despite being highly confidential, are understood to rely on highly complex pattern recognition and predictive analysis, thus allowing its search browsers to provide tailored recommendations.

A more detailed discussion of AI’s countless dimensions is beyond the scope of this article, so let’s turn back to the more specific term generative AI. Simply put, programs such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini allow the user to input questions, after which the program generates written responses—hence the term “generative AI.”

Many of us are familiar with the problem of programs such as ChatGPT generating inaccurate results, sometimes called hallucinations. Indeed, there have been media reports about attorneys facing disciplinary sanctions after submitting case citations that were fictionalized by ChatGPT.

There are some professions where generative AI has been helpful, which has prompted excitement about these tools in the media. Some software developers, for example, find that ChatGPT can assist them with coding new programs. During an iterative process of software development, any errors emitted by ChatGPT can gradually be tested and corrected by these programmers.

However this process is, in our view, not presently replicable in a manner that is actionable and reliable for legal professionals. Legal research and analysis involves a mixture of logic, information gathering, high-level reasoning, imagination, and intuition. There are even psychological issues at play, such as how an argument might land with a judge, how a client might react to specific advice, or how a draft of a contract might impact a negotiation. Both lawyers and paralegals, when addressing legal problems, toggle back-and-forth among these various facets of human intelligence.

In terms of actually “thinking,” in this manner, AI is in its infancy. In fact, there is currently no single software program or tool that can replicate or approximate these sorts of thought processes. Relatedly, the steps that a lawyer employs to analyze a legal problem in one case are often profoundly different from case to case. Two cases could be about the same subject matter but require entirely different approaches in terms of legal research, fact gathering, and professional judgment.

Accuracy and the Legal Profession

As we teach our students, rigorous accuracy is at the heart of the legal profession. A program that produces inaccurate information creates profound concerns for legal professionals. For these reasons, the use of ChatGPT and similar programs is discouraged or prohibited at many law firms and legal departments.

Moreover, the problem of hallucinated citations has not gone away over time. ChatGPT still provides inaccurate case citations and will even argue with the user about whether or not the cases are real or fake. This can lead to wasted time and distraction. Developers also have not been able to remove hallucinations from their programs, despite having had many years to do so. Indeed, this raises the question of whether creating a hallucination-free generative program is feasible.

Lawyers and paralegals providing information to courts, colleagues, and clients must have a zero tolerance for inaccuracy. In short, with generative AI unable to satisfy this standard, it should be viewed with great caution.

Some scholarship suggests that the error rate for generative AI programs—including some non-public tools—is as high as 30 percent. To say that this is unacceptable in the legal profession is a huge understatement.

Let’s imagine that we have a paralegal who is responsible for a great many things, such as preparing patent applications, HUD statements in a real estate transaction, or complex discovery requests in a lawsuit. If the paralegal consistently turned in work that was 95 percent accurate, this would be considered disastrous and entirely unacceptable. Most importantly, the interests of the clients would be direly impacted. In short, a five percent error rate in the creation of legal documents is not acceptable. Nor is a one percent error rate.

This does not mean that legal professionals never make mistakes—we are human, after all. However, the acceptable error rate for submission of documents to a court or in a corporate transaction must be close to zero. Each day, legal professionals strive to meet this standard.

Most importantly, this exacting standard is not the invention of lawyers. Rather, it emanates from a wide variety of specific and binding professional obligations. The legal profession is governed by multiple layers of supervision, regulation, and professional requirements.

Lawyers are subject to Rules of Professional Conduct and the supervision of state bar overseers. They must also conduct themselves in accordance with applicable rules of court. Their activities are governed by attorney-client privilege and the work product doctrine, both of which require ironclad and assiduous confidentiality. And lawyers owe fiduciary duties to clients that, if breached, can lead to lawsuits, disciplinary investigations, and damaged reputations.

Thus, as we explain clearly to our students, confidentiality and accuracy are at the heart of the legal profession. Because we have insisted upon this standard for more than a quarter century in the BU CPE Paralegal Certificate Program, we have built a sterling reputation among lawyers, firms, organizations, and entities that employ paralegals.

The student body for our online classes ranges from Boston locals, to the heartlands of Middle America, to soldiers on deployment. These students acquire a range of aptitudes and skills that leaves them ready for long and fruitful careers in an honorable and challenging profession.

Key Technological Aptitudes

For a variety of reasons, including inaccuracy, AI is not a major consideration for lawyers in their day-to-day lives right now. As such, we continue to focus on other key technological aptitudes such as docket searching, electronic filing in lawsuits, the application of Microsoft Excel to legal problems, advanced internet research, and the increasingly important topic of cybersecurity. Indeed, such skills are of direct and specific interest to employers of paralegals.

One of the exciting areas of technological advancement for paralegals is that of firm practice management software tools, such as Clio. We began teaching students about Clio very early in the life cycle of that company and product, and today it is a national leader. We cover the functionality of Clio and talk with students about the growth opportunities for paralegals in practice management.

Relatedly, lawyers continue to prefer to delegate technological tasks to paralegals, such as electronic filing of legal pleadings and the management of electronically stored information (“ESI”) in a lawsuit. Thus, BU’s Legal Technologies module presents a rare opportunity for students to gain skills that will help them stand out in the job market and to impress attorneys with their work from the very start of their careers.

At the same time, given how much lawyers rely on paralegals for technological tasks, paralegals must remain mindful and observant of the AI trend. The profession desperately needs paralegals who are not only keeping abreast of various developments, but also thinking critically about them.

The Evolving Landscape of AI in the Legal Field

The question “how are AI tools used in the legal profession?” does not currently offer any meaningful answers. However, a slight tweaking of this question illustrates how valuable BU paralegal students can become to their prospective employers concerning the emergence of AI.

In our view, a much more helpful question is this: “How might artificial intelligence be used in the legal profession in the coming years?” In the Legal Technologies module, we ask students to think about this question broadly and imaginatively, but also specifically with the legal profession in mind. Students in this module are thus required to create a short oral and/or written presentation concerning how AI or other developments such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) might impact the legal profession in the coming years.

In presenting their findings, students also hone their thoughts in connection with the many legal skills they have learned throughout the online Paralegal Certificate Program. And, students practice conducting themselves with the professional, polished demeanor that is instrumental in a long-term legal career.

This process provides students with a mixture of critical judgment, imagination, caution, and initiative. That is what lawyers want in paralegals, and that is what we deliver.

Critical Thinking: The Paralegal’s Key Skill

The basic process by which lawyers and paralegals learn their craft and develop professional judgment has not changed a great deal in the last few centuries. Have we, as a profession, suddenly reached the point where a new technological development will change all of this? Where years of learning, thinking, and struggling can be supplanted by typing a question into a chat box?

Rather than answer that question in this article, we will close with a final but critical point: law is about asking the right questions, not getting quickly to an answer. Students who learn their craft via generative AI—no matter how good the tools get—are likely to be circumventing a key part of the learning process for legal professionals. Learning from a software program is also likely to corrode the development of the strong writing skills that are another bedrock of the legal profession. Indeed, the process of becoming a skillful writer also remains little different than it was centuries ago. It is a slow, steady, and challenging endeavor.

BU’s online Paralegal Studies Program would be remiss in allowing new technological developments to discard the learning process that has served our students so well. However, we are also steadily and relentlessly developing elements of our curriculum that relate to technological trends, such as cybersecurity.

Our profession needs paralegals who are critical thinkers, effective researchers, and skillful organizers. The profession also needs paralegals who will be at the vanguard of observing and understanding technological trends and developments. We prepare students for both jobs, and we always will.

Take the Next Step in Your Law Career with Boston University Online Paralegal Studies Certificate Program

Boston University’s flexible online Paralegal Studies Certificate Program gives students living anywhere access to expert hands-on training from a university renowned for academic excellence. Whether students have prior legal experience or are transitioning into the field, the program’s instructors and curriculum provide learners with distinct benefits and the professional know-how that today’s employers seek.