{"id":3985,"date":"2025-02-02T14:23:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T14:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jacqueline-schafer-has-long-seen-the-potential-of-ai-to-help-lawyers-work-more-efficiently\/"},"modified":"2025-02-02T14:23:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T14:23:24","slug":"jacqueline-schafer-has-long-seen-the-potential-of-ai-to-help-lawyers-work-more-efficiently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/jacqueline-schafer-has-long-seen-the-potential-of-ai-to-help-lawyers-work-more-efficiently\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacqueline Schafer has long seen the potential of AI to help lawyers work more efficiently"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(Photo of Jacqueline Schafer by Rick Dahms)<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Before artificial intelligence became a common legal tool, Jacqueline Schafer was hooked on it.<\/p>\n

This was back in 2018, and Schafer, a litigator who had started her career in BigLaw at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and spent several years doing appellate work as an assistant attorney general in Washington and Alaska, was working as in-house counsel at a national nonprofit. She had taken on her first pro bono asylum case, representing a mother and her toddler at risk for deportation to Honduras.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were really terribly scary stakes, and at the final hearing, the judge was very biased,\u201d Schafer recalls. So she pointed the judge toward one of her exhibits showcasing the medical evidence.<\/p>\n

In an asylum hearing, Schafer says, you have one final chance to show the judge why your client deserves asylum. \u201cI had written a long brief where I referenced factual evidence, like the medical declaration. But what truly appeared to make the difference was when the judge went directly to review the declaration himself,\u201d says Schafer, 42.<\/p>\n

The experience helped Schafer envision how technology could make this simple for every judge: With the click of a button, they could access hyperlinked pleadings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe case really had a huge impact on how I thought about change,\u201d she says. \u201cWe could make it so much less stressful to prepare the documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020, Schafer raised capital for what would soon become Clearbrief, a system using AI to search through volumes of discovery to find relevant facts and related concepts. Once the data is extracted, Clearbrief provides a fact-checking link that displays every cited source and scores how well other evidence in the record supports it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the idea of Clearbrief was transformational,\u201d says Mark Britton, a former lawyer, founding investor in Clearbrief and Expedia executive who founded the legal marketplace Avvo. \u201cThe idea that whatever you assert or would like to assert in a brief is rated by an AI assistant that tells you how supported the assertion is in both the facts and the law\u2014I immediately had goosebumps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearbrief is used by hundreds of law firms, including large global firms, courts and government agencies, Schafer says. And it can help smaller law firms compete with larger ones, says Joseph McMullen, an attorney in San Diego who used the technology for a big immigration case last year, winning $1.5 million for his clients.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustice and accountability in the courts can feel elusive for people without pockets deep enough to afford expensive law firms with large document review teams to distill vast amounts of records and data down to their essential facts,\u201d says McMullen, who relied on Clearbrief to help him with a case against Customs and Border Patrol after it kept two children in an underground holding area for 33 hours before being released.<\/p>\n

Schafer says the process of building Clearbrief has been one gigantic lesson in learning. She did not have a tech background, so she reached out to many people prominent in the tech field, asking each if she could meet them for coffee to talk about AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how I learned,\u201d she says. \u201cI had to be humble: I sounded like an idiot at first, and lawyers are afraid of looking foolish.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it worked. She learned venture capital and AI lingo, and built her vision piece by piece with a goal that every pleading prepared globally will be written with Clearbrief.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re at a tipping point that I dreamed about: When a certain number of the larger firms start using it, then others hear about it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"Lady<\/div>\n

Legal Rebels Class of 2025<\/h2>\n

Rodrigo Camarena<\/p>\n

Roy Ferguson<\/p>\n

Joan Howarth and Deborah Jones Merritt<\/p>\n

Oregon State Board of Bar Examiners<\/p>\n

Swapna Reddy<\/p>\n

Jacqueline Schafer<\/p>\n

Noella Sudbury<\/p>\n

In This Podcast:<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n