Beyond the Answer: AI, Judgment and the Value of a Good Lawyer — with Matti Neustadt

Okay, yeah, the client, obviously a very important player in this value equation.

Talk a little

bit about- Every client is different.

And it's funny to me because especially with AI, you see a lot of people trying to use AI to say draft a contract.

And AI will spit out something that looks wonderful.

It looks professionally drafted.

It's got the headers.

It's got the language you expect.

It's got some capital letters in there that you know you see in contracts.

But it doesn't mean it actually knows what's going on because the risk profile, the business aspects, what people are doing, how they're doing it, what their risk profile is, it's different.

It's not the same business contract for Ben and Jerry's as it is for Boeing.

Uh-huh.

But AI, if you just go and you say, oh, I'm going to sell some software, I need a contract, they'll treat your dating app the same way it will treat maybe a contract to sell cybersecurity software.

Those are two different risk profiles.

And so unless you keep in mind the client needs and understand not just what the client says they need, but what you understand from your experience working with many clients, what they should need and what they should look for.

I always tell some people that the best thing the lawyer can do usually is tell you what you should be asking rather than what you want to know.

People come to me all the time.

They're like, oh, I need this.

I'm like, well, wait, why? Why do you need that? Well, because Claude told me, and I'm like, well, hold on, what's your business do? What are you trying to prevent? What harm are you trying to prevent? What are you trying to achieve? What goals are you looking for? You know, you ask a question that you thought would give you a legal answer.

And then you came to me and said, do this legal work for me.

And I was like, well, wait, I don't understand why you need that.

And then when I talk to them about it, they go, oh, well, maybe, maybe I don't need that.

So, you know, I get people coming to me like, oh, can you help me set up a Delaware C corp? In fact, I can't, that's not the type of law I practice.

And I'm like, well, why are you looking for a Delaware C Corp? Well, I've got, you know, I started developing this technology with these three guys I went to college with who were in Florida and Texas, and we've got the MVP out and we're starting to make money.

And now we want to get investment.