It will be decidedly rare that I hold up a celebrity as an example. There is little, in my experience, that they bring to the table for frank or even useful discussion. Certainly, their perspective matters, but no more or less than anyone else's.
At a recent lecture, we devolved into a discussion of the challenges of law school and the bar examination. A college student voiced some trepidation regarding the testing requirements for bar membership, to which another noted, "Kim Kardashian did it," and a lively debate ensued.
To be clear, Ms. Kardashian has not passed the bar exam (she passed the "baby bar exam"). But a great many famous folks failed a bar exam along the way. I have met a few who did not pass the exam on the first or even second try. Those I have met are nice people. Some I practiced against were adequate attorneys. Nonetheless, it is not a good sign when someone who has three years of quality education cannot pass the exam.
There is one rub. Ms. Kardashian elected not to attend law school. Now, many who did will likely tell you they did not learn much from their law school professors. But most I have spoken with admit they learned a great deal from the scholarly experience. This includes the reading, the discussing with classmates, and the processing that is a blue book exam. Of course, for many, it also includes life skills like eating on less than $20 per week, but I digress.
By the time a law school attendee reaches the bar exam, they have written thousands of words in response to conniving and contriving interlocutors. In other words, they are used to the exercise and they have built muscles for it.
So, let us not be too hard on Ms. Kardashian. After all, despite not being a lawyer, she plays one on television. But there is a point raised in my recent classroom discussion that is worthy of further attention.
In a recently published Vanity Fair interview, Ms. Kardashian explained that she uses ChatGPT for legal advice. With all that has been written about the advent of large language models (LLM), hallucination, and unreliability, that is simply astounding. It is an admission on par with "I often perform surgery on myself and friends, despite never studying medicine."
She noted that she "use(s) it for legal advice." She inputs a concept and looks to the LLM to provide solid and useful analysis, and Kardashian said, “When I am needing to know the answer to a question, I’ll take a picture and snap it and put it in there.”
She confided that the answers provided were "always wrong." Thus, ChatGPT has "made (her) fail tests all the time." Uh, no, and neither has people allowing me to do surgery on them "made" them suffer injury and death (this is fictitious; I have never performed surgery).
No one (or thing) "made" Ms. Kardashian "fail tests." Non one "made" anyone do anything. This statement is about as delusional as "the devil made me do it."
Having received LLM advice she did not like, she has been further disappointed that the LLM has been less than supportive. She blames the tech for her failure. But, in a constructive manner (sarcasm), she has found it helpful to "get mad and yell at it and be like, ‘You made me fail. Why did you (do) this?’" This, according to Futurism.
No, yelling almost never helps anyone in any manner unless their point is to somehow become hoarse. And yelling at a machine is perhaps even less likely to help than yelling into the Grand Canyon.
Despite the increasingly lifelike nature of chatbots, they are not human. They are computer programs. Sophisticated, complex, and intriguing computer programs. You do not blame your car for "making" you wreck, your fork for "making" you fat, or your LLM for "making" you flunk. You put the responsibility where it belongs, on you.
So, the real point is simple. If you dream of a legal career, find a good educational program. Strive to enroll in a school that offers you instruction, interaction, and growth. Don't take shortcuts, such as relying blindly on law professors, fellow students, or computer programs to tell you the answer. Understand that the answer in the law is almost always "adult diapers."
The answer for the lawyer is rarely "the answer," but an interpretation, argument, or nuance through which the advocate expresses understanding of and application of the law. The answer almost always "depends," and even the best LLM will not master that nuance and complexity as a well-trained lawyer can.
