The short answer is no; AI will not replace criminal lawyers, but AI tools are becoming a part of daily legal work. They’re also useful for non-lawyers, as people can now ask large language models like Chat GPT legal questions to get a steer.
But there’s much more to legal advice than a chatbot can provide. Criminal law requires human judgment, strategy, and advocacy in the courtroom.
How can non-lawyers use AI for legal questions?
Non-lawyers can look to AI like Claude and ChatGPT for answers to legal questions. It can help you understand legal terms that may be unfamiliar. It can give you an idea of legal procedures. It can even draft documents for you like a request for records, which might be helpful in a criminal case.
Chat GPT will give you general answers to basic questions. For example, if you ask it “what is the likely sentence for actual bodily harm?”, it will give you a range of outcomes from community service to 3 years in custody.
But it can’t give you advice on what the likely outcome is in your particular situation. For that, you need a human lawyer who can analyse the evidence, consider the defences that might be available to you, and advocate for you in front of a judge.
Similarly, if you ask it “what happens in the first hearing at the Crown Court?” Chat GPT will tell you roughly what happens. But it can’t advise you on whether to plead guilty or not guilty and tell you what the consequences are. It can’t prepare your bail application or discuss legal aid issues.
The AI tools can take you so far, but to protect your rights you need a human lawyer on your side.
How lawyers are using AI
Lawyers are also using AI in their work, to speed up processes and review large amounts of evidence.
AI can provide first drafts of documents (which will need to be amended), or an outline of a legal document, ready to be populated and completed by a lawyer.
Criminal cases often involve large amounts of evidence, including:
- Police reports
- Witness statements
- Surveillance footage
- Phone records
- Emails and text messages
AI can help organise and review this information faster than manual methods.
Another common use of AI in law is legal research. AI tools can quickly search through large databases of statutes, case law, and legal opinions and identify useful information.
A human lawyer will need to check the output and work out how it relates to the specific facts of their case, but identifying the relevant information has become easier with AI.
Limitations of AI
AI tools can speed up tasks, and provide guidance on answers to some legal questions.
But it can’t create a strategy for your case, and it can’t interpret ambiguous situations. In most criminal cases, there’s ambiguity about the interpretation of intent. What did the defendant want to happen? Was the outcome deliberate? Or was it an accident?
You need a human lawyer to prepare your case on nuances like that.
You’ll also need a lawyer to advocate for you in the court room. There’s a real skill in persuading a judge, responding to witnesses, extracting the right evidence from a witness, and winning over a jury.
Finally, AI can’t represent you at the police station. The interview at the police station can sometimes make or break your case. You need early representation to help you navigate the police questions, and put your best foot forward for the rest of the case.
Common pitfalls with AI
The technology is not perfect, and there are still pitfalls with AI.
Hallucinations and made-up information
There have been a number of cautionary tales in courts in the UK, the US, and elsewhere, where lawyers have submitted court filings containing fake legal citations generated by AI. This can damage credibility and even lead to sanctions from courts.
One of the most well-known problems with AI is this type of “hallucination,” where the system confidently provides false information and states it as fact. Lawyers should know that they need to check these references, and they have the tools and resources to do this. But non-lawyers may not know where to look to check if a case is real or not.
Use of confidential information
If you put confidential information about your case into a model like Chat GPT, it can use that information to learn, and feed it back to other people. So your information is no longer confidential and becomes available to the public more widely.
Be very careful with the information that you give to the models. Or at least turn off the “improve model for everyone” function so that it has limited access to your data.
Top 5 AI tools for legal work
Many AI tools are now designed specifically for lawyers and legal professionals. Here are five of the most widely discussed options.
1. Harvey
Harvey AI is an AI platform built for legal professionals. It helps with research, drafting, contract analysis, and document review. Several major law firms have adopted it.
2. CoCounsel
CoCounsel is an AI legal assistant developed by Casetext. It can review documents, summarise them, perform legal research, and help prepare litigation materials.
3. Lexis+ AI
Lexis+ AI combines traditional legal research with generative AI features. Lawyers use it to search cases, draft documents, and analyse legal issues more efficiently.
4. Westlaw Precision AI
Westlaw Precision offers AI-powered legal research and citation tools. It is designed to help lawyers find relevant authorities quickly while improving accuracy.
5. Spellbook
Spellbook focuses on contract drafting and review. It integrates directly into Microsoft Word and helps lawyers generate and edit legal language faster.
AI-assisted lawyers
AI isn’t a replacement for criminal lawyers, but it can help to speed up our work and give you the best service possible. So really you need lawyers who know how to use AI, but also have the knowledge and experience to navigate the nuances of your case.
At Harewood Law, we’re experienced criminal defence lawyers, who know how and when to use AI to help in our work. If you’d like representation for a criminal defence, please get in touch.
