[E-trademarks] Reviewing ChatGPT Documents

[Carl Oppedahl]

Yeah it has not yet happened to me (so far as I know) but surely it is 
only a matter of time before every practitioner will have faced this.

I cringe to think of the risks.

If I draft something myself, then likely as not I will usually think 
through what needs to be in the document.  Maybe I might completely 
forget some important bit that ought to have been in the document, but 
I'd guess I would not screw up in that way very often.  Not only that, 
if I take as my starting point some earlier document that I had touched 
and had already checked for missing items, that reduces the risk that I 
completely forget to put in a choice-of-law clause or whatever.

But when you or I get asked to review a document prepared by some other 
person (or by some AI entity), its so very different, right?  Yes if 
there were a misspelled word it would jump off the page at you.  But 
that's not the kind of mistake that an AI would make.  And yes if some 
human or AI strings together some words that are internally 
inconsistent, that can jump off the page just from reading it aloud.

But suppose the document that was prepared by somebody else (or by some 
AI entity) happens to be /*completely missing*/ some item or provision.  
When some item or provision is completely missing, that is not the sort 
of thing that jumps off the page, at least not for me.  It doesn't 
actively look wrong if what we are talking about is a dog that didn't 
bark (to use the Sherlock Holmes metaphor).

When I started my law firm a long time ago, one of the things I wrote on 
our web site was that if the potential client wants to retain me to 
review a draft document that they prepared, just to "touch it up" as 
they would say, my bill for the work would likely be just as large as, 
and probably bigger than, my bill if they had sucked it up and asked me 
to prepare the document myself.


On 12/11/2023 4:51 PM, Scott Landsbaum via E-trademarks wrote:
> Twice now a client has asked me to review a draft document that the 
> client had ChatGPT write.  I find this offensive, but I'm not sure if 
> I should. Have you encountered this?  Are you agreeing to do it?  I'm 
> considering telling clients that I won't do it, although if a client 
> told me they had another lawyer draft a document and wanted me to 
> check it, I would.  It's a wonky area and sure to happen more.  Your 
> thoughts?
>
> Regards,
> Scott
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