AI and Dispute Resolution: Why You’ll Need It Sooner Than You Think

Imagine doing your work without word processing, spell checkers, email, the internet, search engines, voicemail, cell phones, or Zoom.

That’s how you’ll probably feel in the not-too-distant future about working without artificial intelligence (AI).

Innovations often seem radical at first.  In time, people just take them for granted.

ABA Formal Opinion 512 states that lawyers soon may be ethically obligated to use AI.  “As GAI [general artificial intelligence] tools continue to develop and become more widely available, it is conceivable that lawyers will eventually have to use them to competently complete certain tasks for clients.”

AI isn’t replacing dispute resolution professionals any more than calculators replaced accountants.  But just like calculators, AI tools are becoming essential tools for legal and dispute resolution work.

Remember when everyone freaked out when they first had to use Zoom at the beginning of the pandemic?  Now people don’t give it a second thought.  It probably will be the same way with AI before you know it.

You Don’t Have to Love AI – But You’d Better Get to Know It Soon

Two companion articles – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bot: What I Learned About AI and What You Can Too and Getting the Most from AI Tools: A Practical Guide to Writing Effective Prompts – are designed to help dispute resolution faculty, practitioners, students, and program administrators get comfortable with AI.  The first article tells why AI literacy is becoming more important all the time.  The second shows how you can easily become more AI literate.

Together, they offer a friendly nudge for people who feel they’re behind – spoiler alert: this may be you – and training wheels so you don’t fall flat on your face.

Love the Bot describes my own reluctance to use AI.  Now I use it every day to think and write better, faster, and more creatively.

But I’m not the only one.  Law students are already using AI.  Practitioners and clients are too.

So this isn’t a quirky corner of practice anymore.  It’s the center of a growing professional expectation.  Law schools are adding AI courses.  Some are embedding it across the curriculum.  If professors don’t engage with AI now, they’ll be learning from their students instead of the other way around.

Good Prompting Can Be Your Superpower

Getting the Most from AI Tools is a hands-on guide to producing better results with AI.

It walks you through the mechanics of writing effective prompts.  It’s packed with examples for mediators, attorneys, students, faculty, program administrators, and even disputants.

We all know that AI sometimes hallucinates.  But you’re hallucinating if you think that you can wait to start using AI tools until they stop hallucinating.  Ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.

In the meantime, you can benefit from AI tools if you know how to use them (and how to manage hallucinations and other problems).  You don’t need to be an expert – just thoughtful, curious, and careful.

The results from AI tools may depend less on the technology itself and more on users’ skills.  Like other skills, it improves with practice.

Becoming AI Literate Is Easier Than You Think

These articles describe AI literacy as a process of continual learning as AI technology continues to evolve.

The first steps are just getting curious and trying it at your own pace.  Try starting with simple tasks like:

• Asking questions you already know the answers to
• Getting recommendations for movies appealing to your tastes
• Summarizing something long and boring
• Brainstorming ideas for a class, article, or paper
• Polishing a rough email, memo, or draft

As you gain confidence, you can ask it to help with your work.  Professors can revise a syllabus.  Students can prep for a simulation.  Mediators can brainstorm tough moments.  Program directors can develop orientation materials.   Etc. Etc. Etc.

The possibilities are limited mostly by imagination and fear.  These articles help with both.

Don’t Regret Waiting to Get the Benefits of AI

AI isn’t just about efficiency.  It’s about equity, ethics, and excellence.  You can choose how to express your values through it.

AI tools can reveal students’ thinking, making teaching more responsive. They can also help lawyers and clients make better decisions, especially when time or money is short.  And lots more.

If you’ve been hesitant, these articles can help you do things you want to do – and things you haven’t even imagined.  But only if you take the first step.

Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle writes, “We are resting in the eye of a gathering [AI] storm, and those who fail to fortify themselves now risk being swept away when the storm finally unleashes its full power.”

Take a look – and don’t get swept away.