Law
fromAbove the Law
17 hours agoWhy 'Helpful' Legal AI Is Often The Least Trustworthy - Above the Law
Lawyers distrust legal AI not due to safety concerns, but because it often feels inattentive and overly polite.
Your potential client is in pain, their car is totaled, the medical bills are piling up, and a claims adjuster is calling them relentlessly, trying to get a recorded statement. They do not want a gladiator in a suit; they want a lifeline.
The legal profession rewards endurance, precision and control. It also quietly normalizes stress, isolation and overextension. For patent practitioners and other IP lawyers, the pressures are uniquely acute: compressed prosecution deadlines, high-stakes litigation exposure, often unrealistic client-driven budget constraints, regulatory whiplash at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and increasingly complex technologies layered with global filing and prosecution strategy.
Genice Horta, 51, said that neither the shelter nor the rescue group she worked for told her the dog, a Belgian Malinois named Maximus, had bitten a teenager and a shelter employee, sending both to the hospital. After six surgeries to repair the bones and nerves in her right arm, Horta was left with permanent damage, according to a brief by her attorneys in the lawsuit she filed in 2022.
Effective discovery requires more than compliance - it requires strategy. Litigators can balance expansive discovery rights and privacy concerns without slowing cases down through practical, results-focused approaches that consider proportionality, electronically stored information management, and the specific discovery rules applicable to their jurisdiction.
In birth injury cases, the collection of evidence is crucial for establishing liability and demonstrating the extent of harm suffered by the child and family. Without sufficient evidence, it becomes challenging to prove that the injury was preventable and that the healthcare providers failed in their duty of care.
Constantin Iosca moved here from Romania in 1997 for a 'better life', but will be spending nearly three years in jail after bringing a fraudulent personal injury claim
Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo are presumed dead after a U.S. missile hit the boat they were taking home to Trinidad last October. President Trump said the strike targeted narco terrorists when he posted the video online, but families of those men say they had no ties to the drug trade. Now Joseph's mother and Samaroo's sister are suing the U.S. government in federal court in Massachusetts.
According to a 2025 MetLife personal injury study, the severity of injury plays a significant role in determining a settlement amount both in terms of economic and non-economic damages. As such, the MetLife study found that on average, the amount of settlement money a personal injury litigant receives is about $324,000.
Seeking legal guidance promptly can significantly influence the outcome of a case. When individuals face legal challenges, whether they are related to personal injury, criminal charges, or family disputes, the initial steps taken can set the tone for the entire process. Engaging a qualified attorney early on ensures that individuals are informed about their rights and obligations, which can prevent missteps that may jeopardize their case.
They don't drive it. They don't manage it. They don't control it. They let it control them. And then one day, they look up and realize discovery closed last week, the client is asking why nobody has taken the key depo, the adjuster wants a status report "by the end of the day," and the partner is asking the question that makes your stomach drop: "Where are we on this file?"
Lawyers and clients often develop years-long relationships during which clients and lawyers cultivate connections that often transcend the traditional attorney-client framework. During this relationship, clients may ask for favors in the form of favorable billing terms or other advantages that the lawyer is uniquely able to provide. Although it is acceptable to perform such favors for clients, lawyers should not do so under the assumption that it will result in additional work.
A mass tort lawyer fired by a Philadelphia law firm has been suspended from practicing law for three years after misleading clients about their cases, according to a story by Legal Newsline. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court imposed the punishment Friday against lawyer Brian McCormick Jr., who represented clients who had sued over the weedkiller Roundup and the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, according to Legal Newsline. The suspension goes into effect Feb. 22.
As a finite supply of business exists in the legal industry, practitioners need to compete against each other. Clients consider many attributes when selecting counsel, including abilities, costs, and the capability to handle a given representation. When a lawyer suffers a health issue, it can create difficulties in maintaining client connection, since clients might believe that they should select other counsel without the same health challenges.
They show up reliably in the HSE's stats and enforcement reports, like the 2024/25 figures where over 60,000 non-fatal injuries were logged, with slips, trips, and manual handling making up close to half, while the 124 fatal cases were mostly down to falls and strikes. What's driving all this? Usually, it's everyday lapses like lax cleaning habits, spotty risk checks, training that falls short, or gear that's not kept up to the mark under regulations like PUWER 1998.
You're getting ready to make a document production to the other side. You're worried though that the other side may use GenAI tools on the documents that don't ensure they are protected from public disclosure. You ask to see the other side's policies just to be sure. They refuse. You ask the judge for a protective order since some of your documents contain trade secrets.
From law firms to in-house legal teams, the rules of value are being rewritten. The question is: Who's ready to lead the change? In the first episode of 2026 for the UpLevel View podcast, Stephanie Corey and Ken Callander sit down with Rita Gunther McGrath, Columbia Business School professor and Wall Street Journal columnist, to talk about how AI is forcing professional services to price outcomes instead of hours.