Your World Frightens And Confuses Me

I'm a great fan of Keyrock, the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, played by the late, great Phil Hartman in several sketches on Saturday Night Live.  As I grow older in this profession, I come more and more to think, if not to say as he did:  "Your world frightens and confuses me."

Though I'm not an unfrozen caveman, I am an old lawyer, and am feeling my years.  I expect to retire next year.  When I began practicing, carbon paper was still in use.  Electronic typewriters with limited memory were available, but no word processors, and no computers.  Fax machines made an appearance after a time, but used thermal paper, which curled annoyingly.  There were no cell phones and certainly no smart phones.  Car phones were available, but were costly and cumbersome.  Research was done using books.

The practice of law changed with the technology, and while I have a working knowledge of what is essential to practice in these times, there's much I'm unaware of for the simple reason that there's been no need to encounter it--yet.  But those who are young in the law can do much I cannot do, and know much I haven't convinced myself that it's useful for me to know about the practice, and about the world.

That world frightens and confuses me.  So, in some ways, does the practice of law.  But the world is far more frightening to me than the changing, and changed, practice.  

Each year since 1996 I've attended a two day seminar in an area of law I've made something of a specialty of over the years.  This year it served to remind me of my age more than it served to educate me of anything else.  It did so by the youth of its attendees, but also by the subject matter of its presentations.  I had no idea that there are groups of people who carry cameras and microphones into city and town halls and courthouses for the purpose of filming and haruanging those trying to work there, hoping that they may find them so annoying as to engage with them.  When they do, they post the hapless and usually harmless people to YouTube.  The more obnoxious they are the more they are able to obtain clips which show those filmed in a bad light and which provide them with the opportunity to pontificate.

These folk are apparently called, for reasons unclear to me, "First Amendment Auditors."  Their antics may be dealt with easily enough with some training and signage, fortunately, but those ignorant of them (as I was until recently) will be annoyed and befuddled needlessly.   Some of them are actually paid for their sad displays, likely through advertisers who hope to influence their viewers.  It's astonishing--and frightening and confusing to me--what people will pay for in this bizarre new world.

Another presentation dealt with AI and the practice of law.  AI may be used to prepare memoranda of law which will adequately describe, in a general way, information on particular legal topics.  If care is not taken to review the product, though, the results can be devastating for counsel and clients.  A horror story was told of an experienced lawyer who presented a brief to a court, filled with argument and citations to case law.  The lawyer who filed it didn't bother to check the citations, but opposing counsel did and found that the cases referred to were fabricated by the AI.  It made up cases, apparently taking names which it found in the vast reaches of the Web which seemed related to the subject matter of the case.  The case involved airline liability, so the cases generated included names of defendants which included the word "airlines" thus seeming to be airline companies.  The lawyer was sanctioned by the court.  What befell the client wasn't mentioned.

I'll depart from the practice of law relatively soon, but when I'll depart this world is unclear and can't be determined.  Until I do, I'm in a world that seems designed to frighten and confuse.

As that world is more and more one generated by computers,  I'm reminded of a description of the product or data produced by computers I've heard--"garbage in, garbage out."   Bad data downloaded, means bad product.  I see no limits on the garbage entered, or the resulting garbage.  Do we live in a "World of Shit" (Full Metal Jacket reference)?  Where no effort is required, no discipline is needed.

What nobody seems to have considered thoroughly, it seems to me, are the characteristics of those who enter data into the system and those who view the results.  There is a demand for garbage, and an endless supply of it.  Welcome to the new world.