How Your Law Firm Can Correctly Use AI in 2024

Key Takeaways:

• AI can significantly enhance an attorney’s workflow by automating certain tasks, which can help law firms save time and increase productivity.
• While AI can offer many advantages, there are significant risks that can compromise the quality and effectiveness of content, including inaccuracies (AI hallucinations), unnatural language, and potential plagiarism.
• Google has repeatedly shifted its stance on AI over the last two years. The March 2024 Core Update targeted and penalized sites that rely on AI content.
• Law firms should focus on creating original, meticulously reviewed, and audience-specific content to stay ahead.
• Partnering with a digital marketing firm like Array Digital can help you meet SEO best practices and legal industry standards.

As an attorney who enjoys writing content for your website, you have likely heard about artificial intelligence (AI) content generation platforms. AI content has the potential to completely change an attorney’s workflow.

Imagine publishing dozens of pieces of content to your website each month. Is that something that you’ve wanted to try?

Before starting your AI content journey, it’s quite important that you understand the likely risks first. Read through this guide to understand how to harness AI content-generation platforms to your benefit.

The rise of artificial intelligence in digital marketing

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is certainly getting a lot of attention right now. Within the last two years, tools like Jasper.ai and ChatGPT have captured the attention of plenty of website owners who want the easiest and most efficient way to build content. There are several potential positives that can come from them.

Using machine learning, it’s possible for AI content generators to create content at a much faster pace than what you can expect from a human writer. These platforms promise to gather data from numerous sources to create a cohesive piece. Used correctly, AI content could be a good way to amp up the amount of work a computer manages for you as a law firm.

Some of the most notable potential benefits of the use of AI for law firms may include the following:

• Automatic content generation
• Long-form content writing support
• Numerous templates to select

You may already be using a form of AI right now — spelling and grammar checkers like Grammarly rely on AI language modeling. So do Siri and Alexa.

It makes sense for law firms to consider using automation and AI systems. However, it’s important to fully understand the implications before integrating them into your daily workflow.

How can AI help your law firm?

AI technology can help speed up tedious tasks and automate various aspects of the legal profession. Here are a few ways AI is supporting the legal industry right now.

Keyword research

Using AI tools, you can gather more information on the keywords people use to find the services you offer. It can help you find connections between the topics you want to write about and even make suggestions for you based on what content is out there. It can help to find connections between key topics and help make suggestions for what you can write about within your next blog post.

Website and link audits

Legal AI used in-house can help with managing a website and performing link audits on your site. That could help you with pinpointing problems or broken links on your site that could be limiting your overall ability to reach your audience. This net technology can help save time by handling that type of work in a matter of minutes.

Drafting content outlines

Another way to use an AI chatbot is to create content outlines for your website’s blog. While this could be helpful in getting content started, as any good attorney knows, due diligence matters. That is, you can use it to create an outline, but you’ll still need to review the content and suggested outline to ensure it is factual before moving forward.

Discovering new ideas

AI tools can help you to research points, develop new ideas, gather evidence for litigation, get some insight into what people are talking about, and offer ideas to help foster new content for your legal practice. You can then give these ideas to your writer, who can provide far more accurate content to fit your specific needs.

If you’re struggling with writer’s block and you don’t get enough content up because you don’t know what to talk about, this can help you get through that pain point.

Legal AI is an interesting new technology, without a doubt. However, it’s important to know that it may not be the great disruptor many people claim it to be. For example, it won’t create legal documents for you, nor will it handle contract reviews. It can be a supportive assistant to help you with the drafting stages, but it does not alleviate an attorney’s responsibility of reviewing and editing work at length.

How does AI content differ from human-generated content?

AI content is a type of predictive content development tool. It gathers information from multiple sources online and organizes it to answer questions.

Human-generated content is different. It’s written by a human who can gather all of that information as well but can then craft it and build it out in a way that does more than just communicate the facts.

Human-generated content is also more nuanced. It feels as though you’re talking to a human lawyer, not a chatbot. It includes phrases and unique language details that help to provide a unique perspective or may incorporate more natural phrasing that people connect with when learning or gathering information.

You should not overlook the benefits of natural language and the better flow of human-generated content. Although writing your own piece may be more time-consuming, it ensures that you are relating to your audience more effectively.

More so, many law firms need to be sure they are conveying information in a way that sets a particular tone. With natural language, it’s possible to do that, especially on a niche topic that’s important to your practice of law.

Major AI content issues for the legal profession

Generative AI simply cannot do many things you can do as an attorney and a leader at your practice.

Remember that your website content and blog are ultimately designed to draw in potential clients, educate them, and get them to contact you. Without a strong SEO focus, Google won’t find your website, and without quality content, when users get there, they won’t take action.

These are some of the major concerns our content specialists have noticed when experimenting with AI.

Blatant inaccuracies

Sometimes, AI presents “facts” that are blatantly wrong. It’s so common that it has a name: AI hallucinations. A recent study by Stanford RegLab and the Institute for Human-Centered AI found that three of the top AI models generated legal hallucinations anywhere from 69-88% of the time. Lawyers across the country have faced fines and sanctions for citing nonexistent case law generated by AI.

Inability to create new ideas

AI is not capable of producing new ideas. Instead of authentic information and insights, it compiles information from the web and summarizes the findings. It cannot reason or analyze; it can only parrot existing sources.

Here’s another obstacle to consider. The legal industry changes. How much has the legal field and laws changed since you became an attorney? AI cannot distinguish outdated or incorrect information.

More so, to stand out in the legal industry, you need to create thought leadership or high-quality content that reflects on your experience, insights, and the legal advice you provide to your clients, not just a list of facts. This helps clients better understand what you can bring to the table rather than just the same facts they can find with a simple search.

Limited ability to include valuable secondary keywords

Another significant limitation legal providers must consider is the limitations on optimized keyword research. Though this is something that has been talked about by many of the startup entrepreneurs behind these AI tools, there are big gaps here.

For example, AI can help with some keyword research. It can find common ideas among your competitor’s content. It can present this information to you. However, it consistently fails to connect these common ideas in a structure that is directly useful to the reader.

Poor and no integration with leading SEO tools

Many of our clients are already using some fantastic SEO tools to help them rank well in search engines. That may include tools like Moz, Semrush, Ahrefs, and others. These tools are, in our opinion, critical to building a strong website presence that meets the algorithms put in place by Google. Unfortunately, many of the AI platforms do not incorporate access to these, which limits your overall ability to be hands-off in content creation. In the best case, you have to go back and make adjustments to the content so that it meets your SEO goals.

Unnatural and repetitive language

We all know from law school that legal content is complex and has never really been easy to read. However, one of the most important concerns you should have in the legal field if you plan to use AI tools is that you simply will not create a quality piece.

Array Digital’s team tested several of these tools recently. We found that AI platforms usually degrade severely any time we need to write a long-form piece (1,000+ words). After a while, these tools just continue to repeat themselves.

This is not useful for legal SEO-optimized content, which is typically long-form. If you want to rank well, you need high-quality, comprehensive, long-form content, not just content that makes sense for the first hundred words.

Plagiarism

We’re not providing legal advice here, but we will make it clear so that you can interpret this risk as an attorney. These bots do not create new content but rather fetch it from various sources. In effect, they are plagiarizing content. This is detrimental to all industries.

It is particularly worrisome within the legal industry. You know the laws regarding intellectual property, and no law firm can put itself at risk from such claims.

Interestingly, we reviewed a variety of tools to get a better idea of how they worked. Not only did we create content using AI tools, but then we ran it through other tools that detect AI content.

Confused?

In short, these secondary tools can show if the content was human-written or AI-generated. Yet, even these tools have been found to be inaccurate time and time again. After all, they are AI tools grading AI content.

What we do find is that there’s a significant amount of plagiarized content – information, ideas, and even full sentences taken from other websites incorporated into the content. And the AI checkers will often fail to recognize this.

That’s worrisome.

More is not always better

Cranking out tons of content every month may be the true goal for many attorneys turning to AI, but that’s not a valid reason to use these tools in itself. Having tons of new content does not mean you’ll dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Your content has to be high-quality. That’s why at Array Digital, we frequently talk about E-E-A-T:

• Experience
• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

Publishing at extreme velocities can look suspicious to Google. Remember, value matters, and tons of new content isn’t going to convince Google that your site is better than a human-written, highly detailed site with valuable, unique information.

AI content’s impact on SEO

AI content is such a recent topic that there are many unknowns. We don’t know how search engines will sort this type of content or how it can impact SEO in general. In April 2022, Google announced that AI content violates its webmaster guidelines. However, Google shifted its stance on this issue in February 2023 to be neutral towards AI-generated content and evaluate it by the same quality standards as human-produced content. Now in 2024, Google has shifted its stance once again to filter out vast amounts of AI content on the web.

Google’s March 2024 update targeted AI content

The March 2024 Google Core Update significantly impacted AI-driven sites, focusing on enhancing search result quality and reducing low-quality content. The update introduced new spam policies targeting practices like scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse.

• Over 800 websites were deindexed due to the update.
• One study revealed that 100% of the affected sites had AI-generated content.
• Half of the sites that Google deindexed had 90-100% AI-generated content.

We expect to see several updates in this area over time. As users demand higher-quality search results, sites that produce AI content are likely to be penalized more in future updates.

How does Google detect AI content?

How is the search engine even going to know you’re using AI? There are numerous AI detection tools out there (we briefly mentioned these above). OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT, has an AI classifier tool that says it can detect if a piece was automatically generated or written by a human.

Google isn’t sharing the specific parameters it’s using for AI detection. However, it certainly can identify content that was generated or written by a human. Take a look at some of the insights into how easy it can be to detect AI content.

Historically, Google penalizes websites that use huge amounts of SEO-focused content, like those old days of keyword stuffing. Even if Google does not penalize sites using pure AI content (yet), the bounce rates for those sites will surely increase. That means that even if it gets people to your site, those readers aren’t likely to stick around and connect with you.

AI content, then, may produce a short-term gain for a lawyer’s website, a bit of a boost in getting some more traffic. That is until they are penalized. Then, the traffic to your site plunges far below what it once was. In short, it worsens your position.

Research indicates that sites that do not use AI perform better than those that do. This is true for law firms.

Overcoming other law firms using AI

Your competitors may be using AI for their content. So, how are you going to stay ahead of them?

Be original

AI formulates content by gathering information from what’s already out there, not new content, ideas, and inspiration. When you discuss a recent legal case or developments with a new law, you need to inject as much original thought into it as possible. Ensure your content is truly unique.

Be meticulous

Read your content through with a fine-tooth comb. Make sure it’s perfect. Get rid of all of the spelling and grammar errors that readers will notice.

Keep your audience in mind

Write content for your audience specifically. Human readers want to hear from a human attorney who is providing them with authentic information and support. They don’t want content that’s generated for SEO purposes only. As an attorney, it’s critical that you write content that engages with your readers and answers their legal questions.

Why law firms partner with Array Digital

At Array Digital, we pride ourselves on transparency and quality. That’s why we take the time to educate our clients about SEO, digital marketing, and the shifting landscape of search. When you work with Array Digital, you work with a team of specialists who will collaborate with you to meet your goals. We create custom strategies for every client and keep you informed throughout the process.

Testimonials

We are confident in our services, but don’t just take our word for it. Learn what others have to say about the Array Digital experience.

“Have worked with Array for several years and after having website management / SEO services provided by many companies over the years, Array has been the most productive and effective for my business. They have always remained professional and stay on top of such an ever-changing industry. Their customer service is superb!” — Sergio V.

“Kevin and the Array Digital team are exceptional at what they do! If you are looking to grow your law firm, look no further. Array is the expert team that you need to take the complexities of digital marketing off of your plate and bring customers that need you to your doorstep.” — Greg T.

Bottom line: Be wary of relying on AI for your law firm

As an attorney, you know the value of legal research. At Array Digital, we want you to know what goes into ranking well in the search engines and creating a website that’s truly beneficial to your law firm. With our additional research and true hard work in understanding how AI could help or hurt our clients, we’ve found that there’s a definite risk of harm if not properly harnessed.

We encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date with developments in AI and how these changes will affect your law firm in the coming years. Furthermore, we’re happy to share our internal research regarding AI content if you give us a call!

If you want to discuss content or get some help with your website, our founders and strategists are available to provide a preliminary audit for your website.

Contact Array Digital today at 757-333-3021 or fill out our contact form now to get in touch with us.