Category Archives: Artificial Intelligence

AI impact on Big Law

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Husch Blackwell LLP is a prominent American law firm headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, with a significant presence across the United States. Established in 1916, the firm has grown into a “Big Law” contender with over 1,100 attorneys and more than 20 offices. Barb was a member (and partner) in the firm for twenty-plus years. Yesterday the firm announced the appointment of “a transformation office, which seeks to accelerate technology and operations change at the firm….” I asked Claude.ai for an analysis:

This is an interesting development that touches on some significant trends reshaping Big Law. Here’s what it likely signals:

The “Transformation Office” framing is deliberate. Law firms have had IT departments and process improvement initiatives forever, but elevating this to a C-suite role with dedicated infrastructure suggests Husch Blackwell is treating this as a strategic priority rather than a back-office function. The word “accelerate” is key — they’re acknowledging change is already underway but needs more velocity.

AI is almost certainly the primary driver. The timing is no coincidence. Large law firms are under real pressure to figure out how generative AI affects their core business model — document review, research, contract drafting, due diligence. A transformation office would presumably coordinate how the firm adopts, governs, and monetizes these tools rather than letting individual practice groups experiment in silos.

There’s a business model tension underneath this. Law firms traditionally bill by the hour, so technology that makes lawyers faster can actually reduce revenue if the billing model doesn’t evolve. A CTO-style role might be tasked with navigating that contradiction — figuring out whether to pass efficiency gains to clients, develop new flat-fee products, or find entirely new service lines.

Clients are pushing for it. 

Corporate legal departments have been demanding more efficiency and transparency from outside counsel for years. A formalized transformation function is partly a signal to clients: we are taking operational improvement seriously.

Talent and competitive positioning matter too. Firms that can credibly say “we work differently” may have an edge recruiting younger attorneys who don’t want to grind on tasks that AI can handle, and in competing for clients who want a modern partner.

The risk, of course, is that this is largely rebranding — giving a glossy title to work that was already happening quietly. The proof will be in what actually changes about how the firm delivers legal services and structures fees.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Crime Fiction Philosphy

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The #1 reason I started this blog was to have a place I could save (and later find) stuff. Lines from movies, favorite quotes from books, a photo, etc. Additionally, I save stuff in a folder in the cloud. AI tools like Gemini offer interesting and creative ways to look at these archives. Below are ten quotes of a philosophical nature from Crime Fiction novels I’ve read.

  1. “The memory is like twin orbiting stars, one visible, one dark, the trajectory of what’s evident forever affected by the gravity of what’s concealed.” — “O” Is for Outlaw, Sue Grafton
  2. “Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will.” — A Deadly Shade of Gold, John D. MacDonald
  3. “Civilization seems to be something we choose when it fits our purpose.” — A Drink Before the War, Dennis Lehane
  4. “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue, dear man.” — A Murder of Quality, John le Carré
  5. “Sometimes it’s a dog-eat-dog world and the rest of the time it’s the other way around.” — A Dance at the Slaughterhouse, Lawrence Block
  6. “The whole legal system—if you think it’s just a big set of rules, you’re dead wrong. It’s really a bunch of people sitting around and talking to each other, deciding what they want to do with you.” — A Cold Day in Paradise, Steve Hamilton
  7. “Real power around the world does not reside with governments any longer, but with private interests. Real power is secret power.” — A Firing Offense, David Ignatius
  8. “I believe in God, but not as a he or she or an it, but as something that defines my ability to conceptualize within the rather paltry frames of reference I have on hand.” — A Drink Before the War, Dennis Lehane
  9. “Education is something which should be apart from the necessities of earning a living… the measured and guided study of the history of man’s reiteration of the most agonizing question of all: Why?” — A Deadly Shade of Gold, John D. MacDonald
  10. “Even our most arbitrary actions are the result of the trips we take down our mental highways.” — A Little Yellow Dog, Walter Mosley

Pretty sure my list would have been different but I see that as a feature, not a bug.

I deleted my ChatGPT account today

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[click through to post to see comment/update]

I’ve been playing with ChatGPT for more than two years. I’ve shared a bunch (143) of those “conversations” here. Initially, I planned to drop back from the $20 a month Pro plan to the free version. But decided to go nuclear.

I’ve been using Perplexity more and find Google’s Gemini as good or better than ChatGPT. But the tipping point was probably OpenAI’s decision to start selling ads on their low-end plans. The other AI companies might follow suit and I’ll probably ditch them if and when.

Anthropic (the company behind Claude) is having some fun with this in an ad that will run during Sunday’s Super Bowl. (Watch on YouTube) The company says there are several dangers with including ads in chatbot conversations, including potential bias and incentivizing chatbots to keep users in conversations for longer periods.

Consider a concrete example. A user mentions they’re having trouble sleeping. An assistant without advertising incentives would explore the various potential causes—stress, environment, habits, and so on—based on what might be most insightful to the user. An ad-supported assistant has an additional consideration: whether the conversation presents an opportunity to make a transaction […]

Such ads would also introduce an incentive to optimize for engagement—for the amount of time people spend using Claude and how often they return. These metrics aren’t necessarily aligned with being genuinely helpful. The most useful AI interaction might be a short one, or one that resolves the user’s request without prompting further conversation.

So, you ask, are you going to stop using LLM’s all together? Doubtful. They’re just too useful. And the technology is going to be everywhere. (see my previous post on The Agentic iPhone)

If these AI tools had been around in 2002 when I started this blog, it would be a very different creature today. They know more and they write better. Maybe it’s like long division or cursive writing. I worked to hard to learn those skills and I’d hate to lose them. Don’t want some AI writing my blog even if it’s better at it. And, yes, Gemini and Perplexity get mentioned here frequently so torching ChatGPT is mostly symbolic.

The agentic iPhone

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Last month Apple announced a partnership with Google that will mark a fundamental shift in the iPhone architecture. The integration of Gemini into iOS means the system is pivoting from a collection of apps to an agentic operating system. It turns the iPhone into a more powerful cognitive lever, but it demands you trust the “black box” more than ever before. I prompted Gemini to show me what that might look like. Excerpts below, the full thread here)

I asked how a new, more powerful iPhone might change the way I write or research my blog posts:

When the operating system moves from being a “file cabinet” to an “active participant,” the boundary between your thoughts and the machine’s suggestions begins to blur.

  • The Loss of Serendipity: When the AI “fetches” the exact answer, you miss the accidental discovery of a different, unrelated factoid in the “wrong” folder. The “digital twin” optimizes for efficiency, but creativity often thrives on inefficiency.
  • The Echo Chamber of One: If Gemini is trained on your “Personal Context,” it will get very good at sounding like you. There is a real risk that your blog posts will start to feel like they’ve been “laundered” through an AI that is simply reflecting your own style back at you, stripping away the rough edges of original thought.
  • The “Privacy vs. Utility” Trap: To get these benefits, you have to let the “Campos” agent index your “private thoughts.” You’re essentially trading the sanctity of your “unrecorded” mind for a more powerful cognitive lever.

I’m sure I’ll find some uses for the new iOS but writing my blog posts won’t be one of them. Near the end of the thread Gemini gives specific instructions for how to disable some of these features.

Gemini analysis of my taste in movies

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(Gemini) MovieLens.org is a non-commercial movie recommendation engine and research platform operated by the GroupLens Research lab at the University of Minnesota. Since its launch in 1997, it has served a dual purpose: providing users with high-accuracy personalized film suggestions and serving as a critical “living laboratory” for the study of collaborative filtering and human-computer interaction.

Unlike commercial alternatives like IMDb or Letterboxd, MovieLens is entirely free of advertisements and corporate sponsorship. Its primary output is academic insight. The site is famous for pioneering early collaborative filtering algorithms which predict how you will rate a film based on your historical behavior and the behavior of similar users.

Last year I spent a few hours on MovieLens.org rating 435 movies I had watched. I think my criteria was “would I watch this movie again?” I uploaded those those movies and my ratings and asked Gemini for an analysis.

Based on your 435 ratings, I’ve performed a skeptical audit of your cinematic preferences. I’ve bypassed the “predictive recommendations” fluff to look at where your taste actually diverges from the consensus.

1. The “Lebowski” Anomaly (Contrarian Profile) -You are significantly more critical than the average MovieLens user. While the site average is ~3.72, your mean rating is 3.41. You are most “contrarian” when it comes to established cult classics and high-concept stylistic films.

  • The Big Lebowski (1998): You gave this a 1.0, while the average is 3.99. This is a massive 3-point delta.
  • The Hateful Eight (2015): You gave it a 1.0 (Avg: 3.89).
  • The Abyss (1989): You gave it a 1.0 (Avg: 3.68).
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010): You gave it a 1.5 (Avg: 3.77).

Analysis: You appear to have a low tolerance for “quirk” or indulgent stylistic flourishes that others label as “genius.”

2. The “Maverick” Picks (Guilty Pleasures or Hidden Gems?) – Conversely, you value certain films far higher than the general public. Your “Maverick” score is highest for:

  • Duets (2000): You gave it a 5.0 (Avg: 2.85). This is your largest positive divergence (+2.15).
  • World War Z (2013): You gave it a 5.0 (Avg: 3.30).
  • The Bourne Legacy (2012): You gave it a 5.0 (Avg: 3.43).
  • Mosul (2019): You gave it a 5.0 (Avg: 3.52).

Analysis: You seem to favor competence and high-stakes procedural/action narratives (Mosul, Bourne, Sicario) over “vibe-based” cinema.

3. Historical Bias (Decade Analysis) – Despite your skeptical leanings, you have a soft spot for the mid-century.

  • 1950s: Your highest-rated decade (Avg: 3.80).
  • 2010s: Your most critical decade (Avg: 3.30).
  • 1990s: Where you spent the most time (100 movies rated).

4. Interest Alignment: Radio & Mechanics – Given your interest in radio history and mechanical vehicles:

  • Radio: You gave Broadcast News (1987) a perfect 5.0. You seem to appreciate the “transmission” of truth or the mechanics of the medium.
  • Mechanical/Procedural: You rated Sicario (2015) a 5.0, which aligns with your preference for technical precision and unsentimental realism.
  • Consciousness/Mind: You gave A Beautiful Mind (2001) a 2.0, suggesting a skepticism toward Hollywood’s “glossy” portrayal of cognitive struggles.

You are a Pragmatic Realist. You reward movies that execute a specific function well (thrillers, procedurals, mid-century classics) and punitively down-rate movies that rely on irony, surrealism, or “cult” status to earn their keep.

Hmm. Not sure I agree but I guess the data doesn’t lie.