As the presence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in the legal community grows, conversation around appropriate use of AI tools grows too. Emma Huang discusses the balance to be achieved between using AI to increase efficiency and access to justice in law, while protecting against the less appealing features of this technology.

With Call to the Bar ceremonies taking place across the province this month, and a new cohort of legal change-makers carving out career paths, what better time to pull back the curtain to expose the possibilities – the intrigue and enrichment – found in some of law’s most dynamic legal specialties and settings?

The popularity of generative AI applications has skyrocketed, leading to an explosion of unique legal issues and potential harms that the law has been called upon to address. One of the most severe is the use of deepfake technology or AI image generation to create fake images depicting a real, identifiable person in an intimate, explicit, or pornographic manner – which has already become an all-too-common practice with a disproportionately harmful impact on women.

Litigation can be a long and expensive process. It’s important that a party who is owed costs by the opposing party has assurance they will be able to recoup the full amount owed before further steps are taken in a proceeding or appeal – especially when the other party won’t take reasonable steps to settle. Katherine Shadbolt outlines the rules and strategies for lawyers to consider in seeking security for costs and the options available to enforce payment of a cost order.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Cohere, and DALL-E2 are popular tools that allow organizations to generate images, text, sounds and creative content based on a prompt. While these tools can provide practical benefits such as improved efficiency and productivity, they raise privacy risks which are important to mitigate.

Whether it’s taking the time to get context around a client’s instructions, avoiding generic definitions, understanding that experiencing the death of a family member can be a form of trauma, or remembering to be alert to unconscious bias, lawyers who devote due consideration to family dynamics become better service providers.

Many lawyers contemplating making greater use of generative AI in their practices – a prospect entertained with equal parts curiosity and caution – are in the early stages of testing out just what the rewards and risks might be. So, we asked members who’ve used AI tools, what has been the most surprising result they’ve received from a request.

Solo practitioners tend to be motivated self-starters; however, given the demands of working at personal capacity, they are often acutely aware of their limitations. By way of encouragement, Rajen Akalu offers sole practitioners a reminder of why they should be respected by the legal profession and selected by clients in the market for legal services.

Understanding and addressing the impact of trauma on clients and practitioners is crucial for compassionate and effective representation. In a recent program jointly hosted by the OBA’s Elder Law Section and Family Law Section, experts in the fields of law, mental health and academia offered valuable insights and strategies to enrich legal services with a trauma-informed approach.

No firm is the same, but there are common keys to establishing a successful enterprise uniquely yours while building a solid reputation and stepping up client service. Sparing would-be sole and small-firm practitioners potential missteps or missed opportunities, OBA members from a variety of practice areas share what they wish they'd known before setting out on their own.