In case your authorized staff is exploring tips on how to use generative AI in follow, and let’s be trustworthy, most are a minimum of testing the waters, the dialog usually jumps straight to instruments and outputs. Which chatbot ought to we use? Can we belief it to draft one thing actual? How will we management hallucinations?
However earlier than you even get there, there’s a extra fundamental query that many authorized departments overlook. What are we feeding the AI within the first place?
In a current episode of “Notes to My (Authorized) Self,” Linsey Krolik, a regulation professor at Santa Clara College and longtime in-house counsel at corporations like PayPal and Arm, made a compelling case for what she calls AI literacy. However the greater perception was between the strains: you may’t use AI successfully in a authorized setting with out understanding the inputs, and which means contracts.
Watch the episode right here:
The AI Second Isn’t Coming. It’s Already Right here.
“We’re utilizing generative AI immediately, whether or not we wish to admit it or not,” Linsey stated through the interview. “It’s taking place. So get on board and we are able to be taught collectively.”
That sense of collective studying, and the hole between curiosity and confidence, is one thing many in-house groups are experiencing firsthand. There’s stress to maneuver rapidly, cut back turnaround time, and do extra with much less. AI guarantees all of that. However as Linsey identified, we have to begin with the fundamentals.
She’s coaching regulation college students to construct real-world authorized paperwork like phrases of service and privateness insurance policies for early-stage startups. These college students are already experimenting with AI. They’re studying the place it helps, the place it fails, and tips on how to critically assess its output. They’re creating muscle reminiscence not simply in drafting, however in understanding why contracts are structured the way in which they’re.
That foundational ability, contract literacy, is what too many working towards groups are lacking.
AI Is A Mirror. If Your Contract Knowledge Is A Mess, It Will Present.
When attorneys take into consideration AI instruments, it’s simple to concentrate on the output. What can it draft? What questions can it reply?
However what issues simply as a lot is the underlying information. In case your staff can’t simply reply questions like “What are our normal cost phrases throughout all NDAs?” or “Which vendor contracts auto-renew within the subsequent 90 days?” then any AI resolution you implement can be looking for patterns in chaos.
Linsey emphasised that in-house groups are more and more being requested, “Did you employ AI for this?” And when the reply isn’t any, the follow-up is commonly, “Why not?” That stress to discover and undertake is rising. However AI isn’t magic. It received’t clear up your contract portfolio for you. It would solely floor what’s already there, or worse, what’s lacking.
Contract Literacy Isn’t Simply Understanding Authorized Phrases. It’s Understanding The Enterprise.
One of many sharpest observations Linsey made through the dialog was about how contract schooling has advanced. She’s moved past conventional authorized writing assignments to incorporate issues like AI-assisted drafting and quick business-style shows.
Why? As a result of she understands that attorneys immediately don’t simply write contracts. They clarify them. They negotiate them. They implement them. And more and more, they design workflows and information techniques round them.
AI can help that work, however solely when the lawyer understands what the enterprise wants from the contract. If you happen to can’t articulate the distinction between what a procurement supervisor desires to know and what your finance lead must see, no AI instrument will bridge that hole for you.
The Actual Threat Isn’t AI. It’s Staying Unprepared.
Linsey acknowledged the moral issues round AI, confidentiality, accuracy, and unauthorized reliance, however she additionally made it clear that the larger threat is paralysis.
“There’s quite a lot of uncertainty now,” she stated. “However I believe we have to begin being extra curious and fewer scared.”
She teaches her college students to reveal once they use AI, to mirror on why they used it, and to guage the standard of the output. In doing so, they discover ways to construct belief within the instruments and in their very own judgment.
That very same framework applies to in-house authorized groups. As an alternative of asking whether or not AI is ideal, begin asking whether or not your staff is prepared. Are you able to clarify what your normal indemnity clause appears to be like like? Are you able to audit vendor agreements for renewal triggers? Do you may have a structured solution to examine phrases throughout contracts?
These are contract literacy questions. And till you may reply them confidently, AI will stay a shiny resolution in search of an issue.
Need To Get AI-Prepared? Begin With Your Contracts.
Linsey Krolik is coaching the following technology of attorneys to assume critically, use rising instruments responsibly, and work instantly with the enterprise. If immediately’s regulation college students are studying to draft, construction, and analyze contracts with AI as a companion, then the remainder of the authorized world must catch up quick.
AI readiness begins with understanding what you may have, what it means, and tips on how to use it. That begins not with software program, however with ability. Not with automation, however with understanding.
Contract literacy isn’t the top purpose. It’s the beginning line.
Watch the full interview with Linsey here.
Olga V. Mack is the CEO of TermScout, an AI-powered contract certification platform that accelerates income and eliminates friction by certifying contracts as truthful, balanced, and market-ready. A serial CEO and authorized tech government, she beforehand led an organization by way of a profitable acquisition by LexisNexis. Olga can be a Fellow at CodeX, The Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, and the Generative AI Editor at regulation.MIT. She is a visionary government reshaping how we regulation—how authorized techniques are constructed, skilled, and trusted. Olga teaches at Berkeley Law, lectures broadly, and advises corporations of all sizes, in addition to boards and establishments. An award-winning basic counsel turned builder, she additionally leads early-stage ventures together with Virtual Gabby (Better Parenting Plan), Product Law Hub, ESI Flow, and Notes to My (Legal) Self, every rethinking the follow and enterprise of regulation by way of know-how, information, and human-centered design. She has authored The Rise of Product Lawyers, Legal Operations in the Age of AI and Data, Blockchain Value, and Get on Board, with Visible IQ for Legal professionals (ABA) forthcoming. Olga is a 6x TEDx speaker and has been acknowledged as a Silicon Valley Girl of Affect and an ABA Girl in Authorized Tech. Her work reimagines individuals’s relationship with regulation—making it extra accessible, inclusive, data-driven, and aligned with how the world truly works. She can be the host of the Notes to My (Authorized) Self podcast (streaming on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube), and her insights commonly seem in Forbes, Bloomberg Legislation, Newsweek, VentureBeat, ACC Docket, and Above the Legislation. She earned her B.A. and J.D. from UC Berkeley. Observe her on LinkedIn and X @olgavmack.