An expert witness let ChatGPT write his report

Your math teacher was right. Showing your work is as important if you want full credit. Just ask the expert who relied a little too much on ChatGPT, or take a look at why legal directories and awards are suddenly a marketing must. Plus we’ve got a quick way to benchmark where your practice stands, and some podcast recs that'll help you earn CLE on the go.

Coming soon, we’ll talk to a lawyer’s lawyer about the mistakes made when setting up a firm. 

But first, you might want to check what’s in the mysterious safe your son asks you to hide for him before saying yes.

RIP Dolly Parton
One of her many acts of kindness was helping find a kidney donor for her long-time lawyer.

Ex-Prosecutor about to be prosecuted.
A former Tennessee AUSA has been indicted for threatening to kill his former colleagues and their children. An investigation was triggered after he created some deepfake nudes of one colleague and threatened to ruin her reputation with them.

Talk about imPASTA syndrome. 
When even lawyer-turned pastafluencer @dannylovespasta struggles with how to fill out the law school alumni update form, you know we’re all putting too much pressure on ourselves.  

International surrogacy law is still in its infancy.
And that’s causing lots of problems. 

What we’re watching.
Coyote vs Acme comes out this weekend after a very long wait. Here’s The New Yorker article from 1990 that inspired the film.

Most lawyers benchmark themselves against the wrong people. Jay Harrington of Latitude Legal says that comparing yourself to your firm’s biggest rainmaker, or any lawyer decades into building relationships, reputation and scale, distorts your perception of what’s possible and how you are doing professionally.

Instead, identify the handful of lawyers a prospective client might realistically hire and compare yourself to them. Or better yet, track yourself against yourself six months ago, measured by whether the right people know what you do and whether your relationships are getting stronger.

Why this matters: Putting business development into perspective is how you get to be the rainmaker everyone mistakenly measures themselves against. (Attorney At Work)

By now you’ve seen the headlines about the 3M-retained expert in the Watson Grinding explosion case who “wrote” his report almost entirely with ChatGPT. His prompts asked the chatbot to help him “create an exceptional expert witness report defending the standard of care at 3M” and to “show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion.” He also uploaded a picture of a gas detector and asked, “What am I looking at?”

But this is not the first case where an expert’s AI prompts have been disclosed. Last month, a Connecticut magistrate judge held that an expert's process for using AI to cull a document production before analysis was part of her methodology, and therefore discoverable. 

Why this matters: 35% of surveyed expert witnesses use generative AI tools, with 24% having adopted them in just the past year. The top use case isn't drafting reports (it's research and literature review), but 14% use AI for drafting or editing reports, 12% use it for reviewing opposing experts’ reports and 11% are doing data analysis/trend identification with AI tools. (404 Media / Greenberg Traurig / National Law Review)

A number of CLE providers across the country are now offering attorneys credit for tuning in to podcasts. The cost varies, as does each state’s approach to certifying these programs. But it’s worth a look to see if a program like this is available in your state:

The Beverly Hills Bar Association has turned a couple of its most popular CLE programs into podcasts. It also puts out episodes on topics in the news on a frequent basis.

The popular Amarica’s Constitution podcast, hosted by Professor Akhil Reed Amar and Andy Lipka, is partnering with the New Jersey State Bar Association to offer CLE credit to listeners. 

A couple of attorneys in Tennessee (Sean Martin and Joel Surber) launched CLEarly Legal because they wanted an option for CLE on the go. 

This is just a sample of what’s out there. Check with your certifying body to see what’s available in your state.

Why this matters: You’re already listening to podcasts, so why not get some CLE credit while you’re at it? (Beverly Hills Bar Association / Amarica’s Constitution / CLEarly Legal)

@ItsMattsLaw points out that, “Statistically speaking, at least some of you have to be the 2027 Worst Lawyers in America.” Everyone in the legal industry knows why this joke lands so well. AI doesn’t. 

As companies that list, rate and award attorneys are no doubt overjoyed to announce, popular AI tools don’t independently evaluate attorneys; they summarize what other people are saying about them. This means completing your firm and individual profiles on legal and local directories, and applying for or accepting awards, is now very important.

Why this matters: Potential clients are increasingly using AI to search for attorneys. Firms that want to show up in AI search should think about how they can influence what third parties are saying about them. (Best Lawyers / Martindale-Avvo)

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Raise the Bar is written and curated by Emily Kelchen, edited by Bianca Prieto.