{"id":5569,"date":"2025-04-30T21:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T21:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/one-lawyers-story-of-reclaiming-20-hours-a-week-with-ai\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T21:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T21:20:13","slug":"one-lawyers-story-of-reclaiming-20-hours-a-week-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/one-lawyers-story-of-reclaiming-20-hours-a-week-with-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"One Lawyer\u2019s Story of Reclaiming 20 Hours a Week with AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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David Smith, a solo practitioner based in Houston, is a self-confessed technophile \u2013 but to him, AI is more than a luxury. In Smith\u2019s practice, AI is a time-saver and strategic must-have. Smith reports saving roughly 20 hours a week using AI in his criminal defense practice. The result is 20 hours each week reclaimed and reinvested in business development and courtroom strategy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI’m free to actually do lawyer activities and not do the activities of [a] law clerk,\u201d says Smith in a recent law.com video<\/a>. \u201cI am [also] able to put out my next update to potential clients or the community with my YouTube videos or my blog posts \u2013 so that I can have more revenue coming in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In terms of time savings, Smith reports seeing the most bang for his buck in the areas of research and drafting. In the podcast, Smith tells the story of a trial in which, after a late-breaking jury-charge issue surfaced, the judge gave Smith five minutes to produce a proposed instruction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Fortunately for Smith and his client, he had his AI tool (Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 for Lexis+ AI) ready on his laptop \u2013 as well as a printer. Within the five-minute timeframe, Smith got Prot\u00e9g\u00e9 for Lexis+ AI to give him a jury instruction that he got admitted with almost no edits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI gave [Lexis+ AI] a brief synopsis of the issue . . . And I was blown away with what I was presented with,\u201d says Smith. \u201cI think it saved my client.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Smith supposes that he could have objected and asked for more time (Smith even says in the podcast that he didn\u2019t \u201cthink the judge thought [he] was going to be able to do it\u201d) \u2013 but with AI, asking for more time was unnecessary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere’s those gut punches that happen, but you have to respond,\u201d says Smith. \u201cYou can’t say, \u2018Oh, judge, it’s not fair.\u2019 You have to do everything that one can do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To this end, Smith frames AI use as part of his professional responsibility.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201c[AI] is capable of saving time and money and being extremely effective against someone who may not be using those tools,\u201d says Smith. \u201cI do not feel that I would be doing a service to my clients if I ignored this.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This isn\u2019t just empty pro-AI rhetoric; Smith has the citations to back up his argument, specifically pointing to both Comment 8 on Rule 1.1<\/u><\/a> of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and Comment 8 on Rule 1.01 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct<\/u><\/a>. Both dictate that a practicing attorney must keep up with technological developments in law practice \u2013 \u201cincluding the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Smith further points out that the Texas Rules go further than the ABA\u2019s Model Rules do \u2013 specifically requiring proficiency in technologies such as AI.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re tasked with knowing this, knowing what\u2019s appropriate for our clients, and staying at the forefront \u2013 so we need to do that,\u201d says Smith. \u201c[Otherwise] it would be like turning down CLE.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Joe Stanganelli is a writer and recovering attorney. He is managing director of content advisory Blackwood King LC.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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David Smith, a solo practitioner based in Houston, is a self-confessed technophile \u2013 but to him, AI is more than a luxury. In Smith\u2019s practice, AI is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2210,7,5741,4912,1261],"class_list":["post-5569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-hours","tag-lawyers","tag-reclaiming","tag-story","tag-week"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}