The latest episode of the AZ Big Podcast with Michael & Amy has officially dropped. Episode 245 features Casey Blais, shareholder at Burch & Cracchiolo, who talks about the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) for lawyers.
Listen to more of the AZ Big Podcast here.
Transcript:
Michael Gossie
Welcome to the AZ Big Podcast, sponsored by Burch & Cracchiolo. I'm Michael Gossie, editor-in-chief at AZ Big Media, and I'm joined by my co-host, our vice president and publisher, Amy Lindsey. Amy, super excited about this topic today and super excited about the guests we have today.Amy Lindsey
Very interesting topic. I'm very, very interested to hear about some of the things I'm doing wrong.Michael
Right, right. Casey Blais, shareholder at Burch & Cracchiolo. Casey, great to see you again.Casey Blais
Thank you. Thanks for having me.Michael
Thank you for joining us. Casey, can you start off, tell us a little bit about what is your area of practice specialty?Casey
Yeah, so I've been practicing about 17 years, all at Burch & Cracchiolo. I do primarily real estate litigation. So anything involving lawsuits and land is typically where I am. I do a little bit of transactional work as well.Amy
Real estate and land in Arizona, that's a busy time.Casey
It is.Amy
It's a good practice specialty for this time.Casey
Absolutely. There's so much work here on the real estate side, and a lot of attorneys do that as well.Michael
Well, I'm going to tell you something. We're not going to talk about real estate today because I want to talk about artificial intelligence and its use in your practice. So there's a lot of talk about it. How much artificial intelligence are you using right now in your practice?Casey
So for me, I'm probably on the edge of testing things more than other attorneys are. It's certainly something that I try to incorporate as I see fit in my practice. There's concerns that we have as lawyers, and we can get to some of those topics, and clients may have as well. But overall, I feel like it's an excellent tool. It's a technology that we can't get away from, so we need to learn how to use it and use it correctly. And I think as we do that, it's going to be a huge benefit, not only for us as attorneys, but for our clients.Michael
So from a client's perspective, what are the benefits of you using AI in your practice?Casey
Well, I think one of the biggest benefits is it helps me be a better lawyer and it cuts down on certain tasks that you would do otherwise. There's a lot of different AI platforms out there. A lot of these are new in the legal field. We're sensitive to confidential information and things like that, so we have to be a little bit more careful in what we do and how we use it. Plenty of opportunity out there and lots of different platforms to use it in.Amy
So how do you explain to a client who might be skeptical that they're now hiring a machine to do their business and make them understand that it really is only as good as the person using it and how they can understand how to feel safe with their information?Casey
I think it's really natural and normal for people to be skeptical about it. I think until you actually use it and start engaging with it, it can feel completely foreign. But I mean, in the legal profession, we've always had technology that's helped change and improve the practice. I remember it was before my time, but they used to have books that had all the cases in it with head notes and you would go and search head notes and you'd spend hours in the library just pouring through.Amy
Can you imagine?Casey
Yeah. I mean, think about that. Do you want your attorney to do that now? No. You have software like Westlaw and LexisNexis that compile all those. You can do a quick search. You can narrow in very quickly on the issues and topics that you need. So I think it's okay to feel skeptical, but I think if you are confident in your attorney and their ability to navigate through it, it's a huge benefit to them.Michael
Do you remember what the moment was where you said, hey, I'm going to give this a try? I think it can help me in my practice.Casey
It probably started with chat GPT when somebody was like, oh, you know, hey, you can do this and I don't think I used it right away in my practice. I think I started noticing it in my everyday life. Instead of using Google to search things, I would start to use chat and I found that I was able to get answers much more quickly than I otherwise would. I mean, as attorneys, we research and analyze all the time. That's one of the skills we have. And so I always was, I felt pretty good in Google, but I mean, you know, you click through the top hits and you're trying to pour through something to get that information. It can be time consuming.Amy
Well, that information is cute. People are paying to be up on the top there. You know, that may not be really the answer you want. So it is kind of nice to be able to go directly to a different source on that.Michael
We have so many questions for you about this topic, but before I, before we get to them, I have to say, at Burch & Cracchiolo, there is nothing artificial about our intelligence. While we wholeheartedly embrace technology in all the ways that can increase productivity, nothing will replace the sound judgment, wise counsel, and the humanity of an attorney who is vested in you, your business, and your family. Burch & Cracchiolo attorneys will be there for you no matter what the need. We are your law partner for life. Learn more at bcattorneys.com. That's bcattorneys.com.Okay, let's talk about the ethical aspect of it. So you're beholden to a lot of ethical rules. So how d o you balance that with the use of artificial intelligence in your practice?
Casey
So that's a huge topic right now among all lawyers. In fact, we have these continuing legal education or CLE classes.Amy
Right.Casey
This is probably the hottest topic. I gave a presentation within our firm probably about a year ago on this same topic. The way that you handle it, there's different ethical rules. One of them is competence actually. So we're required to be competent in the tools that we're using. So in some way, it's encouraging to, you know, we should be up, we should be up to speed on the technology and how it's being used. The biggest one that gets a lot of, well, there's two big ones. One is confidentiality, taking confidential information, putting it into a public or even a private database where that confidential information could be used is a very important concern. There's ways that you can do that. There's firms that have purchased, you know, software where they're within their own sandbox. And so they're not disclosing that outside of their firm. There's ways that you can change and replace names and individuals so that the context changes that way. But you still get the analysis that you want. The other big one is probably the candor to the court. This is one that's come up a lot because AI can hallucinate things. And in the legal world, it's happening a lot.Amy
Oh, wow.Michael
So can you explain that?Casey
Yeah, so if you give it a prompt and you say, hey, help me write a brief and include Arizona cases on point, you know, it can come up with cases that are completely made up.Amy
Oh, wow.Casey
That have no bearing. They're non-existent or the citations are wrong. And so there are attorneys that have been sanctioned in court and through state bar organizations for making up cases because we're supposed to be truthful and present candor to the court. And so by submitting those types of things, attorneys are getting whacked and in trouble. And rightfully so. The way to do it, well, a couple of different ways. Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis specialize in legal research. So as you use that, you're not going to get anything there. You can also, you should always double check everything that comes from other types of things.Amy
There's a due diligence requirement.Casey
Yeah. Okay. And so basically you can do it and you can go through. My experience is there's less hallucinations that I'm seeing in the way that I use it, but you still always have to double check.Michael
So how does a responsible attorney balance the, hey, this is a great tool that's going to help me in my practice with staying on the ethical side of the law? How do you balance those two?Casey
We're still figuring that out. No, it's genuinely, that's a real issue that we have to navigate because one, there's tremendous benefit in using it.There's also, we have to be cognizant of those confidentiality issues. I think there's a lot of professions that don't have those same restrictions and ethical obligations. And so it's easier for them to implement and experiment with and do all those things. But on the legal side, it may just mean that adoption takes longer than we normally would see in other industries.
Amy
So what would you say responsible AI use looks like in a law firm?Casey
Yeah, I think it's one that you, number one, you would always double check everything that comes out of there. You need to make sure you have enough experience and knowledge to be able to look at it and say, that's accurate. Or it's taking an assumption here that I can see that's coming through this thread that's not right and you correct it and so on. The other big one is not putting confidential information in there. We need to make sure that we as attorneys through attorney-client privilege protect those confidences for our clients.Michael
You know, it's very attractive when the latest toy comes out or the latest piece of technology comes out to jump on the bandwagon. But you mentioned that you've given presentations to other attorneys. How important is it to share that information and to kind of like, you know, make it a group effort to kind of make sure that you're using this effectively and responsibly?Casey
So great question. That's exactly what we were trying to do last year when we did this presentation within our firm. There were a lot of folks that didn't know much about it or never experimented with it. So in my presentation, I actually had live things and I would say, do this, do that and made up a fake case that I could show them how you could use it in their practice. And a lot of them, I think their minds were blown. But what we were trying to do is a couple things, help people understand the technology better, but then also trying to establish policies within our firm of how this can and cannot be used.Michael
So your firm, age range from attorneys just out of college to folks that have been practicing for decades, how was it taken by all the different ages?Casey
Well, as you might imagine, some of the older attorneys, their minds were blown. I mean, they absolutely were shocked.Amy
You're talking some attorneys that had to go to the case law by books.Casey
Yeah, they were used to that. And honestly, they've all transitioned really well through the technology years. But this is probably the biggest tool that has ever hit the legal profession, probably everybody.Amy
I'm sure the medical has got to be dealing with kind of the same thing as well.Casey
Every profession can benefit in some way from using it and needs to understand how to do it. So it was received differently. I mean, the younger attorneys, of course, they're like, oh, yeah, we already know a lot of this stuff.Amy
But did they know how to use it safely and smart and all of that? That's the key part that I think is going to be the challenge moving forward. How do you navigate through that? So I mean, working in the real estate litigation, you deal with a lot of moving parts and it requires a lot of strategic judgment. So where specifically do you kind of decide when to use AI within the process?Casey
That's really great. It's a process that we're all learning. I think the more time you spend with AI and you start questioning it and challenging it and looking at it that way, you can understand where the judgment and experience comes from. I know clients that, you know, they may use AI to create a form lease or something and it may be pretty good now. I don't know. I haven't done that. But the important things are you always have to have good judgment. Experienced attorneys that are using this are at an extreme advantage because they have the experience and know how and they can challenge it and understand it better that way.I think of AI, a lot of it depends on what information we put in, right? The prompts that we're giving AI. So I've been thinking about garbage in, garbage out as a saying that they came up with a long time ago that's really applicable. If you give some really broad prompt like, hey, take a look at this and tell me what I should do, that may not be that effective. But if you give it a more detailed prompt like, I'm a practicing litigation attorney in Arizona and I, you know, from the perspective of a plaintiff in this situation, you know, give me more information. The better the prompt is, the better results we're going to get from it. So I'm finding that that's where it's a combination of your judgment and your prompt to help guide it.
Amy
It's almost a concern that people are going to start getting scammed because they're going to go to a lawyer that is not as practiced, doesn't have as much under their belt and just assume that AI is going to do the job for them. So you guys are going to have a challenge in that area as well.Casey
And it's true. I mean, I've seen it a couple of different ways. We've seen some pro per individuals on the other side that you write an email or a motion and it comes back and I can tell what's AI generated and, you know, versus others. So I definitely have seen a little bit more of it, but for the most part, I think most people are continuing to practice primarily the way they've learned using AI as a little bit of a help here in this.Amy
Help versus doing the job.Michael
Well, from a client standpoint, it's got to be a huge, there's got to be a huge upside because you're going to be more efficient. If you're billing by the hour, you're not going to have as many hours spent on it. So what are some of the other benefits that the clients are going to see from the long-term use of it?Casey
I think it makes attorneys better. I mean, the law covers so many areas and there's so many topics. Every case has a different set of facts. It's slightly different. It's a different industry. I mean, there's so many things. AI can help get us up to speed a lot quicker on things, things that I don't know about. I can ask it. And so in a way, it helps us become more knowledgeable faster. And that's a really good thing for clients. It really is.If I'm a client, I want an attorney that's experienced, that doesn't take an inordinate amount of time and also just gets the job done in a way that you want. And so I think AI will continue to help in that. But I don't think it's replacing the profession at all. I mean, everybody worries about their job going away. I don't know that I think that's maybe a little bit of fear in general. I think a lot of people are around. But if you try to ignore it, it's not going away. I think you'll be at a severe disadvantage if attorneys are not figuring out how to incorporate it. I mean, there's a simple thing that's been around already that's AI based. There's an e-discovery platform called Disco where you upload all of the documents and you can do searches and it searches all these PDFs, emails, Word documents. And you can get through an enormous amount of material in a very short period of time. And that's a form of AI that we use.
Michael
Okay, Casey, I can't let you leave here without asking a real estate question. What are you seeing out in the marketplace? What are the trends that we should be watching through the rest of 2026?Casey
I'm seeing a lot. I primarily do more on the commercial end. The residential area is handled very well by our realtors and so on. I do see some of those cases. But for the most part, I think the trend will continue to be relatively stable. Everybody was worried about office completely going away. I think we're seeing that people recognize the benefits of personal connection and being in an office and so on. Whether you're more productive there or not, I think I am, but not everybody says they are. But I definitely see the trends. Obviously, the industrial uses continue to be an area that we see a lot of growth in.Michael
So you see the growth continuing in Arizona for the next foreseeable future?Casey
I do. I see no reason not to. Even redevelopment, I mean areas that aren't being utilized well, there's so much real estate here and so many different opportunities to redevelop if needed. It's not always an expansion of making the valley bigger. It can be using the valley in a better way than we have.Amy
I think Arizona is finally figuring that out. We just kept going out for so long and there's so much good land in good areas.Casey
For good reason, it's easier to expand that way than it is to deal at least on a zoning side or a dispute side where you're redeveloping something that people are used to and they don't want to change. We saw that with 44th Street and Camelback in that big project, which has turned out beautiful.Michael
Casey Blais, great stuff. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for listening to the AZ Big Podcast with Michael and Amy for the latest and greatest business, real estate and lifestyle news. Check out the all new azbigmedia.com. Once again, thank you to our sponsors, Burch & Cracchiolo and thank you to Casey Blais, shareholder at Burch & Cracchiolo. Casey, great stuff.Casey
Thank you very much for having me.Amy
Thank you Casey.