“Obviously I still reviewed everything myself but the initial review saved me some serious time.”
in “Does anyone actually use ChatGPT in practice?” · 49 voices
ValuesTime savedUnverified voice
48 more voices in this thread
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 16, 2025
ChatGPTValues“It does a great job at providing me with a starting point.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 7, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“I also pay $20 for chatgpt and it hallucinated summing columns, as well as pulling climate data for cities”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 6, 2025ChatGPTMixed
“If you are trying to solve a problem solely by asking chatgpt without actually looking at the laws, then it will take you longer than if you had done it by yourself”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 6, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“Until recently, using the “share” feature (not necessarily just for posting to social media, as I understand it, but also to share with colleagues) would make the information publicly available and would appear in Google searches.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValuesThe author uses ChatGPT to write memos from their own research and outline and to simplify language for clients, reviews output carefully, and finds it mostly accurate and time-saving. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“It helps me because I prefer to edit rather than write.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“It's good enough that I would hand it to a paralegal or new attorney and tell them to follow it verbatim.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“It’s really good at finding them and saves me a bunch of time.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“It’s not perfect, but it can definitely save time and make your day-to-day more efficient.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizesThe author does not use ChatGPT in practice and recovered fees after having to respond to opposing counsel's brief containing hallucinated content from it. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“Saves hours every week.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025Westlaw AIMixed
“It’s not bad for getting the basics of an unfamiliar area of law, but it’s not going to give you a good or even helpful answer to anything nuanced.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTMixed
“It does make up stuff a lot though.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“What it spits back at me is amazingly insightful.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValuesThe author finds ChatGPT good for outlining long client emails and turning notes into an agreement, faster than a first-year associate, though the output must be proofed. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025PerplexityValues
“Faster than Lexis research for such items.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“I like using it when I’ve been staring at a screen all day and can’t make words.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025Westlaw AIValues
“Ive been impressed with the Westlaw AI search feature.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValuesThe author uses ChatGPT daily for brainstorming and getting started on tasks, edits its output heavily, and says it makes them more efficient. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025NeutralThe author says AI and TAR are essential in ediscovery and helpful for summaries and drafting, but warns that confidentiality requires an enterprise agreement and that many tools labeled AI are older technology. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025Westlaw AIValues
“Westlaw’s AI tool is helpful though. It actually provides relevant (and real) cases and statutes.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“It really struggles to understand direct quotes vs summaries. And this is on the premium version paid for by the firm.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025Westlaw AICriticizes
“People using it are the same as used natural language, they believe it’s the same search and it isn’t.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValuesThe author as in-house counsel found ChatGPT saved much time by building a search strategy and script for a large ediscovery project and by flagging export size limits. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ValuesThe author says AI builds Boolean search strings for Westlaw and Lexis well enough to save time, though they need tweaking. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“Sometimes it’s on the money, most of the time it’s not. ChatGPT will make some random statute up,”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025Lexis+ AICriticizesThe author says their firm's paid Lexis AI is even worse than ChatGPT despite having access to the Lexis database. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“General purpose AI, e.g., ChatGPT, is very useful for a whole host of tasks day in and day out.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTNeutralThe author says ChatGPT can be used without letting it train on your data and has many legal uses that involve no confidential material. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTMixed
“Legal research. It sucks at this. It just doesn't have access to the amount of materials that Westlaw or Lexis has.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025CoCounselValues
“The most AI I use is asking that Westlaw Co-Counsel thing a question so I can riddle out what I’m actually trying to research.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“ChatGPT is much more toy than tool.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTMixed
“I've had ChatGPT provide made up cases (or at least cases that failed to turn up in Lexis or Westlaw) or provide holdings from the cases that are wildly different than what I read the cases to actually say.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ValuesThe author argues that reviewing and editing an AI draft is faster than writing from scratch and that AI is a tool lawyers should learn. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025GeminiValues
“A careful prompt can get me like 80% of the way to a good contract of a common sort, and then I take it the rest of the way.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“General purpose AI like ChatGPT have the whole Internet as the reference pool for answers and they mine your data and inputs to train themselves, which is a client confidentiality nightmare.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“I’m not using it for any mission critical purposes, but ChatGPT is great for ancillary tasks that are not a good use of my time.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ValuesIs happy with Smokeball's built-in AI for summarizing police reports, case law and documents and for drafting letters, while still reading everything. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“I have to manually fix the entries that it flags, but it's way faster than screwing around with appeals.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTCriticizes
“It makes stuff up to support its arguments because it’s not capable of creating arguments supported by existing cases.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ClaudeValues
“It helps me be more creative in how I make arguments but I never have it do research.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“I found that to be the most helpful use of it, rather than specific substantive questions.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValuesFinds ChatGPT and Copilot far better than Google for research and say its summaries of public documents match a typical paralegal's, but confidentiality and ethics concerns keep them from using client material. (summary, not a quote)open
- r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTMixed
“It didn’t produce any arguments I didn’t come up with through my own research, but the results were decent.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“ChatGPT is a good tool to use if you’re editing non-sensitive non client information.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“It takes 2 minutes to generate as opposed to me working it from scratch for a 3rd time and taking a half hour.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025
CopilotMixed“I don’t trust the cases or quotes it send back, but it’s helpful it providing a different vocabulary and giving me ideas on how to formulate search inquiries.”
open - r/Lawyertalk · Aug 5, 2025ChatGPTValues
“I’m in ID and one thing that people have consistently said ChatGPT is decent for is coming up with billing narratives.”
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