For solo practitioners, time is money. And for CJ Grisham, a civil rights attorney in Temple, Texas, artificial intelligence has changed everything. Once skeptical, he now calls AI an essential tool for daily use in his practice – estimating a 50-to-1 return on investment.
“For every dollar I’m paying into [Lexis+ AI], I’m probably getting $50 back in time and money,” Grisham explains in a recent law.com podcast. “I look at it now as if I’m paying my water bill or my electric bill – because those are necessary to survive.”
Cutting Research and Drafting Time 60%
Before turning to AI, Grisham might have spent hours of legal research on a single issue. Drafting, too, was a time suck. Now, AI takes mere seconds to deliver case research and drafts to Grisham; he reports that he’s realized a 60% time savings with Lexis+ AI.
As a result, Grisham can take on more clients than a solo practitioner would otherwise have any business taking.
“In one year, I’m probably taking as many clients as another attorney would [take in] 10 years because I’m resolving them quicker,” says Grisham.
Grisham says AI has made him not just faster but also better.
“It’s really saved me in some cases where I’m tapped out [and] I don’t know where to go,” says Grisham.
In the podcast, Grisham tells the story of an ongoing Texas case involving a client charged with felony assault for, allegedly, “going limp” during an arrest – allegedly causing injury to the arresting officer. Dubious that the alleged behavior meets the mens rea element of the charge, Grisham reports spending 15 to 20 fruitless hours on legal research – despite broadening his research to the entire United States.
Stumped, he turned to Lexis+ AI – asking it if the public has a duty of care not to go limp while being arrested.
“Boom! It pulls up a civil case,” says Grisham. “Not just any civil case, but actually from the Texas Supreme Court.”
In that case, the court held that there is no such duty of care to law enforcement. Accordingly, Grisham filed a motion to quash arguing that if there is no duty to go limp in the civil context (where the standard of care is stricter), there is no duty to go limp in the criminal context.
“I would never have thought to do that without Lexis+ AI,” says Grisham.
At a glance, AI could seem risky for a solo practitioner. Multiple attorneys have made headlines for submitting court filings citing nonexistent precedent – fabricated by ChatGPT.
For Grisham, however, the problem is bad lawyering – not AI.
“You always want to make sure that your argument is based in a valid legal argument,” says Grisham. “Lexis+ AI helps provide that, but you’ve got to fact-check it.”
A former counterintelligence agent, Grisham is inherently distrustful of anything he hasn’t verified himself. That’s why he reviews, refines, and double-checks everything AI generates for him.
“I still don’t trust AI,” he says. “But I trust my ability to vet what it gives me.”
Joe Stanganelli is a writer and recovering attorney. He is managing director of content advisory Blackwood King LC.
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