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    3Nov, 2023
    Can’t Live Up to Reality: AI Will Not Replace Human Lawyering in Personal Injury Litigation

    Bring up the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) to a group of attorneys—odds are the responses you receive will vary, but at least one doomsayer is guaranteed to warn you about AI leading to the total collapse of the legal profession. My interest in the idea of AI replacing lawyers was piqued earlier this year while attending an event at which I had the privilege to witness the celebration and recognition of many seasoned attorneys’ careers. I intently listened as each of these honorees took to the stage to accept their awards and shared sentiments unique to their own backgrounds and experiences. Though no two speeches were the same, I could not help but notice an overwhelming majority of them similarly commentated on the rise of AI and its looming threat to eliminate the need for human lawyers. One part of my brain thought, “Well, being a lawyer was fun while it lasted!” while the other immediately (and predictably) opposed the notion that what we do as personal injury attorneys could ever realistically be replicated by robots.

    The latter thought led me to question whether I was overestimating the value of human lawyering in the age of rapid technological advancement, especially when I decided to dive further into the prevalence of legal AI by turning to my internet browser and customarily opening LexisNexis … before abruptly recognizing the irony in relying on an AI-generated search engine to educate myself about the very capabilities of intelligent machines. This was a humbling moment, and before long, I found myself reading about how the most recent version of ChatGPT, a popular AI chatbot that can perform a litany of legal tasks, not only passed the July 2023 bar exam but also outperformed 90% of new lawyers taking the exam. Debra Cassens Weiss, “Latest

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    29Aug, 2022
    I’m a professional who passed the bar, but Tennessee won’t let me practice law

    The Tennessee government won’t let me earn a living.

    I worked hard to obtain a legal education, and I’m proud of my competency as an attorney.

    But due to a tangled mess of red tape, the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners is refusing to grant foreign-educated attorneys like myself admission to the state bar — no matter our qualifications.

    That’s why I’m challenging this arbitrary bureaucratic approach in the Tennessee Supreme Court — so that qualified professionals can do their jobs.

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    I was educated in Canada and the U.S.

    Most lawyers in the U.S. follow a typical path to practice law: bachelor’s degree, juris doctorate (J.D.) degree, then the bar exam. But some American law professionals, like myself, are educated abroad.

    In 2019, pursuant to my undergraduate studies at an English college in the Canadian province of Quebec, I earned a bachelor of civil law degree and a J.D. from the University of Ottawa’s dual degree program.

    I subsequently enrolled in a masters of law, or LL.M, program at Pace University’s Elisabeth Haub School of Law in New York, graduated summa cum laude in 2020, then scored in the upper 90th percentile of the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE), which is also used in Tennessee.

    Violaine Panasci

    Violaine Panasci

    The New York Board of Law Examiners determined that my education was substantively and durationally equivalent to that of the traditional U.S. law graduate, and granted me a license to practice in the state.

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    The board exacted discretion before

    But entering the workforce in 2020, especially amid the pandemic, was daunting, and I soon joined my significant other, a Tennessee native,

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