Hello again everyone. I suspect a number of you out there have been wondering when I was going to get around to today’s topic. Hell, even I was wondering about it. Back in January, I identified ChatGPT as one of my top ten things for in-house lawyers to pay attention to in 2023, but I must admit that I am shocked at how quickly it has overwhelmed the debate about legal tech. To be honest, I was hoping for a moment when the pace of “new” ChatGPT information would slow down. It hasn’t. And likely won’t. But I think it’s important enough of a topic to at least try to take a snapshot of where things stand today for in-house lawyers when it comes to ChatGPT (or more generically, generative AI). Back when I was general counsel, I would have grabbed a few folks on my team and said, “Let’s jump into a conference room and whiteboard ten things we need to know about ChatGPT.”[1] As I have been thinking about and using ChatGPT, I realize we may need two whiteboards – there is a lot to cover! What I have done is read a lot about it and I have tried it out a number of times with many different asks. All to put myself back in the chair of an in-house lawyer and cut through the clutter to make sense of just what this tool is and what can it do to help me and the legal department. So, get your dry markers out, grab a big mug of coffee, and join me in the conference room as this edition of “Ten Things” tries to set out what in-house lawyers need to know about ChatGPT (and be sure to click through the links and check the footnotes for – a lot of – extra information):
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Ten Things: The Productive Power of “Little Things”
English philosopher Thomas Hobbes famously wrote in his poem Leviathan that, “Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” That is a startling clear sentiment, both powerful and scary… Um, sorry. This has absolutely nothing to do with today’s “Ten Things” post. Just got off on a tangent here. Let me start over…
I have always been able to get a lot of things done in a day. I never really thought much about it. I just assumed everyone was the same. Over time I realized that was not the case. Everyone has a different ability or capacity to get things done in a day or a week or a month. I just happened to be really good at it. I was never really sure why. I certainly wasn’t the smartest person in the room – though I know now that being smart has little to do with it. It isn’t because my concentration abilities surpass those of mere mortals. I get as distracted by things as the next person. Nope, I could never put my finger on it. Then a few years back I came upon an interview with time-management author Laura Vanderkam. She led off with this statement, “Small things done consistently add up to big things.” It was literally as though someone had turned on the lights in the room. I had not been bitten by a radioactive spider. I had no secret superpower. I had simply stumbled upon the productive power of “little things!” This edition of “Ten Things” discusses what this is and how in-house counsel can harness it to get things done:
Ten Things You Need to Know as In-House Counsel® 