Professor Gerry W. Beyer’s article guides readers through the ethical complexities of practicing law responsibly while integrating generative artificial intelligence into modern legal work. While recognizing AI’s potential to help estate planners scale their practices and deliver time and cost efficiencies, Prof. Beyer urges lawyers to adopt a more skeptical stance: not “trust, but verify,” but rather “don’t trust, but instead, verify.”
He opens with a cautionary tale: A junior attorney misuses AI to draft an entire estate plan, and two overwhelmed partners fail to review it thoroughly before execution. The result? A document riddled with errors and inconsistencies. The plan fails to reflect the client’s wishes, angers beneficiaries and e…