43. Spotlight on Esquire Tek: How AI Is Revolutionizing Discovery

Pratik Shah (00:00):

We surveyed a hundred paralegals and lawyers, and what they said is — 70 percent said that most of the time spent in litigation is spent on written discovery. So not complaints, not trials, not depositions. Most of their time — vast majority — most of their time is spent on written discovery. So we take something that normally takes, you know, ten hours — eight to ten hours of work — and now it takes one to two hours of work.

Maria Monroy (00:26):

Welcome to Tip The Scales, where we discuss running and growing your law firm. I’m your host, Maria Monroy, president and co-founder of LawRank. Today I’m live with Pratik Shah, and we talked about AI. We talked about how Esquire Tek can help speed up your discovery process. We talked about working for Brian Panish, and there was a little bit of banter. I hope you guys enjoy it.

Pratik Shah (00:50):

I’m the CEO and co-founder of Esquire Tek and the associate director of litigation at Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi.

Maria Monroy (00:56):

Are you a lawyer?

Pratik Shah (00:57):

I am a lawyer.

Maria Monroy (00:58):

I don’t believe you.

Pratik Shah (00:59):

I’m licensed in California and Nevada.

Maria Monroy (01:02):

Wow.

Pratik Shah (01:03):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (01:04):

That’s amazing.

Pratik Shah (01:05):

Yep. Thanks.

Maria Monroy (01:06):

So let’s get straight to it, ’cause I know a lot of our clients use your services.

Pratik Shah (01:08):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (01:09):

But I don’t even really understand what it is that you guys do and how you can help.

Pratik Shah (01:13):

Yeah, thanks. Um, so Esquire Tek is a software that helps firms automate the written discovery process. So anytime a lawsuit’s filed, the two sides have to exchange information about the case, whether it’s a personal injury case or a family law case or anything. And what happens is there’s a certain process, and rules that have to be followed in that exchange of information. It’s manual; it’s tedious; paralegals spend hours doing it. And so our software helps speed that up.

Maria Monroy (01:40):

Is it AI?

Pratik Shah (01:41):

It is. We use artificial intelligence and machine learning to teach our so— or to teach our, um, software how to properly read the documents, extract questions, and apply certain objections and answers.

Maria Monroy (01:54):

That sounds amazing.

Pratik Shah (01:55):

Oh, thanks. I didn’t come up with that. I just came up with the idea. My CTO and co-founder, who’s really brilliant, put it together.

Maria Monroy (02:01):

How did you come up with the idea?

Pratik Shah (02:03):

I really, really hate discovery. I mean it’s really — I, you know, I had my own firm, and I started off as a solo. I did it all by myself, and I really hated it. And the only reason I wanted to hire people was so they could do it. Um, and then they really hated it. And, like, it’s the thing that’s slowing our cases down the most. And so I thought there had to be a solution. There had to be something out there. We tried to outsource it to a different country. That didn’t really work, and so I couldn’t find anything. So then I said, “You know what, I’m just going to go partner up and build it.”

Maria Monroy (02:35):

Okay. That’s awesome. How long have you guys been doing this? Because you guys kind of came in out of nowhere and, like, blew up really quickly.

Pratik Shah (02:43):

Uh, well thanks. Yeah. I mean I don’t — I don’t know if I would say that, but I appreciate that. We launched at the end of 2020.

Maria Monroy (02:47):

Okay.

Pratik Shah (02:48):

So yeah. And we’ve been growing fast. Um, a lot of it’s been word of mouth, right? A lot of our clients just — They end up — A lot of the, like, people that come to our website and, and the “How did you hear about us?” They say another lawyer friend’s firm. Um, and so that’s helped a lot.

Maria Monroy (03:04):

Yeah. So my listeners know, or should know, that I’m really selective with having vendors on, and it’s rare that I have a vendor on.

Pratik Shah (03:14):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (03:15):

Um, but, and you know that I checked with some of our clients —

Pratik Shah (03:18):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (03:19):

To make sure that they were happy before I invited you on. No offense. Like, I know you and I are friends.

Pratik Shah (03:23):

No, it’s good to check.

Maria Monroy (03:25):

Um, so tell us a little bit about how it works. How much does it cost?

Pratik Shah (03:30):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (03:31):

Um, is it hard to use? Is it hard to implement? Um, what’s the type of feedback that you’re getting?

Pratik Shah (03:36):

Yeah, great question. So the number-one thing that was important to me as a lawyer — ‘Cause I’m not the most — You know, everybody assumes I’m tech savvy ’cause we have this tech company.

Maria Monroy (03:44):

Mm-hmm.

Pratik Shah (03:45):

But I hate learning new tech and —

Maria Monroy (03:46):

I’m the same way.

Pratik Shah (03:47):

Yeah. And so, uh, I wanted it to be simple and all I kept telling my CTO the whole time, I was like, “I just want to click a button, and I want this to happen and — I want to click a button. I want this to happen, and I don’t want to have to do all this crazy stuff.” And so that’s been the mantra in — as we build out new features, as we build the product, is it’s got to be quick to learn and easy to use. Um, and, and then what we care about second to that is adoption, right? It’s one thing to be kind of a sales-led company and just say, “Hey, let’s go out and just get more sales and get more sales.” And, um, versus — We, we kind of see ourselves as an adoption-led company, is that we really focus on people implementing it in their practice and people using it.

Pratik Shah (04:25):

We offer free training. We offer retrainings. We want people to use it. We track how many orders are run. We want see that the orders run go up, not just necessarily accounts sold, right? Because we want this to be a business process change, uh, for law firms and lawyers. And, and we want to track that they’re using it. If we see that firms are not using it, we reach out, say, “Hey, do you guys need a training?” We don’t want people to, like, just buy because they feel pressured and then not use it. That’s not what we’re looking for.

Maria Monroy (04:52):

Like, I signed up for Masterclass and then I never used it.

Pratik Shah (04:55):

Yeah, exactly. Or like a gym membership, like, right?

Maria Monroy (04:57):

No, I use my gym membership.

Pratik Shah (04:58):

No, and —

Maria Monroy (04:59):

I use —

Pratik Shah (05:00):

Obviously.

Maria Monroy (05:01):

I, yeah.

Pratik Shah (05:03):

But, and, and then how it works is — It’s real simple. You get the PDF from opposing counsel. You upload it into the system. It’s literally a drag and drop. We extract all the questions. You click a button. Your client gets a text message with the questions. They fill out the answers. The answers come back to you. There’s a box, you can edit them if you need to. You can insert objections with one click instead of copying and pasting, then you click a button that says “Create Discovery,” and it puts it all onto a finalized Microsoft Word document that’s perfectly formatted and it’s done in, you know, an hour instead of a week.

Maria Monroy (05:38):

Wow. So let’s say — Who does discovery typically?

Pratik Shah (05:41):

Most of the time it’s paralegals or legal staff. And then the attorneys oversee it to make sure it’s accurate before it gets sent out to opposing counsel.

Maria Monroy (05:48):

Okay. So let’s say a paralegal is doing the discovery. How much time do you think they get back from using this tool?

Pratik Shah (05:55):

Yeah, great question. Uh, we ran a survey before we launched the product because I wanted to see, “Is my firm just inefficient with discovery?”

Maria Monroy (06:03):

I’m sure it was.

Pratik Shah (06:04):

And, and it was. And it was, but I’m like, “Is — am I the only one?” Um, and typically what we found — We surveyed a hundred paralegals and lawyers, and what they said is — 70 percent said that most of the time spent in litigation is spent on written discovery.

Maria Monroy (06:19):

Wow.

Pratik Shah (06:20):

So not complaints, not trials, not depositions. Most of their time — vast majority — most of their time is spent on written discovery. So we take something that normally takes, you know, ten hours, eight to ten hours of work, and now it takes one to two hours of work. So depending on how many cases you get a month, right? If you’re filing ten cases a month and you’re getting ten sets of discovery, each set of discovery would be a ten-hour process, which is now two hours.

Maria Monroy (06:45):

That’s amazing.

Pratik Shah (06:46):

Yeah. It’s been — The feedback has been great. Like you said, I’m sure you’ve talked to your clients.

Maria Monroy (06:49):

Yep.

Pratik Shah (06:50):

And so it’s been great to see that this is something that’s helping and um — It’s something that just takes the tedious parts off of people’s plates.

Maria Monroy (06:59):

Yeah. So it’s cutting the time by, what, 80 percent?

Pratik Shah (07:02):

Yeah. On the, on the time spent on discovery, about 80 percent. And, of course, paralegals do a lot more than just written discovery.

Maria Monroy (07:09):

Right.

Pratik Shah (07:10):

So I would say overall it probably, you know, gives them back 30, 35 percent of their day on —

Maria Monroy (07:15):

Wow.

Pratik Shah (07:16):

Their time. Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:17):

That’s awesome.

Pratik Shah (07:18):

Yeah, I mean, it’s almost like, um, I think it’s fair to say — and what we’ve heard from a lot of our clients is that, “Hey, I was about to go hire a new paralegal —“

Maria Monroy (07:24):

Mm-hmm. ,

Pratik Shah (07:25):

“Or I was about to bring on another part-time employee, and instead I use this as a stop gap to see. And then I never needed to hire that extra person.” So that’s been really cool here.

Maria Monroy (07:35):

Well, then they should call me.

Pratik Shah (07:36):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:38):

But you know what’s funny? I feel like everyone’s, like, freaking out about AI and talking about AI really in the terms of, like, Chat GPT —

Pratik Shah (07:43):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (07:44):

Right?

Pratik Shah (07:45):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (07:46):

But there are so many companies that are AI-based.

Pratik Shah (07:48):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:49):

And it’s like, they’ve been around for —

Pratik Shah (07:50):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:51):

A couple of years and it’s like, well, that is AI.

Pratik Shah (07:52):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:53):

Like when we talk about how to utilize AI in your firms, this is one of the ways.

Pratik Shah (07:55):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (07:56):

Right? I would argue. EvenUp is another way.

Pratik Shah (07:57):

Yep.

Maria Monroy (07:58):

For demand letters. Like there are these services, and everyone’s wondering, “How is AI going to change our industry?” It already has.

Pratik Shah (08:10):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (08:11):

Right?

Pratik Shah (08:12):

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think that what happened when Chat GPT got released was AI became mainstream because Chat GPT was really easy to use.

Maria Monroy (08:21):

Yes.

Pratik Shah (08:22):

Um, before that it was for the engineers, the developers that were able to play with the code and do what they needed it to do. And the format in which it got released — In the large language models that got released, it became really easy for everyone to use. And then it became on the forefront of everyone’s minds. Now, the technology that they’re using with large language models and the vector, um, that they’re — and the vector banks and stuff that they’re using is amazing. And so there is kind of AI, pre-GPT, and then —

Maria Monroy (08:50):

Right.

Pratik Shah (08:51):

AI post. Um, and it’s really, really exciting where it’s going, because it’s taking what we were already doing, as you mentioned, and now we’re going to be able to turbocharge it. So —

Maria Monroy (09:02):

Right.

Pratik Shah (09:03):

We’ve gotten access to the API, and we’re building out some really cool features over the next three, six, nine months. We’ve got a whole product roadmap that we’re super excited about, uh, what we can do with the new technology.

Maria Monroy (09:13):

That’s amazing.

Pratik Shah (09:13):

Yeah. To answer the quick question on, um, on how it’s going to change your practice, you’re absolutely right. A lot of it has already changed our practice. But you have to be open to the change. And I think that’s hard for a lot of lawyers that have been around for ten, twenty, thirty years. “Hey, what I’ve been doing is working. I don’t want to change anything.” Um, so I think people have to be open to, “Let me see what’s out there. Let me see if it’s a fit. Let me try it out. It’s okay if I spend 500 bucks, a thousand bucks, 2,000 bucks and it doesn’t work.”

Maria Monroy (09:44):

Uh, yeah. Because if it does, like the reward is, like — It’s absurd. But it’s funny, because it reminds me of, like, the Yellow Pages —

Pratik Shah (09:50):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (09:51):

Right? When, like, those firms that didn’t adapt to Google —

Pratik Shah (09:54):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (09:55):

I mean, look at what happened to Blockbuster, right? It’s like, this is — There’s a big change right now. And this is some of the, I would argue, really beneficial and easy ways that firms can adapt, right? And as long as they make sure that it is used by their staff, right?

Pratik Shah (10:10):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (10:11):

And like you said, you don’t want it to just be, like, something that they pay for but aren’t using.

Pratik Shah (10:17):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (10:18):

And that shows that you really care.

Pratik Shah (10:19):

Yeah. I think the term they use is, they call it shelfware, right?

Maria Monroy (10:23):

Mm-hmm.

Pratik Shah (10:24):

Instead of software, right? Which is you buy it, and it just sits on the shelf, and you never really use it. Uh, you don’t want that, and you don’t want that for your client. You don’t want that for your company. That’s not what you want to be known as. And that’s not what you want your client saying about you. And, and you’re not really making a difference. Then why do you — What’s your purpose in existing if you’re not there to actually have people use it? Implementation is probably the biggest hurdle. I think for most law firms is they don’t want to disrupt whatever the machine is currently doing. And then they’re like, “Well, I don’t want to upset my paralegals or ruin my systems, and I got to learn this whole new thing.” But, but what you said is exactly right is if you don’t do it, someone else is going to, and you have to make that change sooner or later. There is a, a great book I read called Crossing the Chasm.

Maria Monroy (11:07):

Mm-hmm.

Pratik Shah (11:08):

And it talks about marketing service businesses. Um, and, but they talk about these kind of different categories of potential customers, and there’s the early adopters, and then there’s, like, the late adopters and the stragglers at the end. And the benefits that the early adopters get is they obviously get to get a leg up on everybody. The benefits that the late adopters get is oftentimes they don’t, you know — There’s risks that early adopters take, right? They try something new, it doesn’t work. They’ve wasted a little bit of money, they’ve wasted a little bit of time. Um, but it shows clearly that the, that the benefits do outweigh the risks in trying to be an early adopter. You don’t want to make any kind of extinction-level mistakes in your practice. Um, but going and trying something new that could really improve your practice by 30, 40, 50 percent, whatever it may be, whether it’s ours or someone else’s thing. And then, you know, try it for a month or two month, it doesn’t work, it’s — There’s really no — The downside really isn’t there.

Maria Monroy (12:03):

So how does it work? Do you guys have a contract?

Pratik Shah (12:05):

Uh, we have two ways. We have a month-to-month. So, um, and then a year. And the reason we did the month-to-month, I know a lot of software companies, they want people to sign a year- or two-year contract. Uh, but for us, we’re like, you’re know, you’re going to know within a month whether it’s a good fit for you or not, and we stand by our product. And if it’s not good, then you can cancel, and you don’t have to use it. And you’re not stuck paying us for something you’re not using.

Maria Monroy (12:27):

And the million-dollar question: How much does it cost, and how does it work?

Pratik Shah (12:30):

Million dollars. I’m just kidding. Uh, it’s, it’s $500 a month for ten users, $495 a month for ten users. And we did that because most firms kind of fit into that mold.

Maria Monroy (12:40):

Yeah.

Pratiik Shah (12:41):
And so they don’t have to worry too much about buying extra licenses and this and that. It’s like, “Here you get ten users. Whether you use one, two, three, or up to ten, you’re in that same bucket.”

Maria Monroy (12:49):

That’s really reasonable.

Pratik Shah (12:51):

Thank you. Yeah, we think so. And —

Maria Monroy (12:53):

Like, I, I would’ve thought they would’ve been per-user. Like most —

Pratik Shah (12:55):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (12:56):

Uh, softwares they are per user.

Pratik Shah (13:00):

Yeah, they are. And, um, we thought about that. We’ve gone back and forth on it, but when I ran a law firm, I really hated the per-user, um, pricing because it’s always like, “Who’s going to get a license? Do I really need the extra license?”

Maria Monroy (13:13):

Yeah.

Pratik Shah (13:14):

“Oh no, I let Lisa go. Now I got to delete her license.” And so —

Maria Monroy (13:19):

So what happens if somebody needs twelve users? Do they have to purchase two ten?

Pratik Shah (13:24):

Yeah, we, yeah, we have another bucket, uh, beyond ten. We go per-user.

Maria Monroy (13:29):

Okay, awesome.

Pratik Shah (13:29):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (13:30):

Cool. And what’s the cost for that?

Pratik Shah (13:31):

Uh, it’s $79 a user per month.

Maria Monroy (13:32):

Okay.

Pratik Shah (13:33):

So $500 for ten, for the first ten. Most firms kind of fit into that. And then we do $79 a user per month. And then we offer —

Maria Monroy (13:40):

What happens if it gets to twenty?

Pratik Shah (13:42):

Yeah. We just do it $79 a user per month for the next ten. And then usually what happens in most firms is there’s a small group of people that are doing the discovery, right? You may have a firm of 200 employees, but maybe only twenty are doing the discovery, or maybe only thirty are handling it. And, and you know, when we get to that enterprise level — like, we work with some large firms and large corporations that use us. And when we get to that enterprise level, there’s always a discussion of what makes sense for that company. When you’re at a firm that’s, you know, a hundred people or more, everybody’s got their own systems. And so we’re flexible in making it work. We’re not rigid in saying like, “You have to follow this model that we’ve created. Hey, what’s going to work for you? How many users do you really need? How much discovery are you really doing? Let’s figure out what makes sense at this enterprise level for you.”

Maria Monroy (14:32):

Got it. And what is the pricing if they want to sign up for a year?

Pratik Shah (14:36):

Yeah, so for a year, we offer a bit of a discount. If you are not afraid of commitment and you commit for the year, you basically get twelve months for the price of ten. So you, you basically get two months free. So instead of $495 a month, which would be $6,000 for the year, essentially, you pay $5,100 for the year. So it’s a little bit cheaper.

Maria Monroy (14:54):

Got it. Okay. Cool. Um, what else do we need to know?

Pratik Shah (14:59):

Um, we also, we all hate discovery. And if you hate discovery, then it’s definitely something to check out.

Maria Monroy (15:06):

Okay. So I think everyone’s probably wondering like, who is using you? Like, is, is this something that people recommend? And I know I’ve done my own, um, background check.

Pratik Shah (15:19):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (15:20):

But are there any firms that you can mention that are using them, that maybe are known firms?

Pratik Shah (15:23):

Yeah, of course. I mean, we have over 300 law firms using us across the country. We’ve got, uh, large corporations using us. I have NDAs on those. I can’t name them. But, um, some of the firms, Claggett and Sykes in Nevada uses us, uh, Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi —

Maria Monroy (15:38):

I would hope.

Pratik Shah (15:38):

Yeah. Right? Um, and they started using it before I started working there, for the record.

Maria Monroy (15:41):

Okay.

Pratik Shah (15:42):

So that’s important to know.

Maria Monroy (15:44):

For the record.

Pratik Shah (15:45):

Yeah, for the record. And, um, you know, Trial Lawyers for Justice, Nick Rowley’s firm, uses us. Um, Arash, Arash Homampour’s firm, Homampour Law Firm uses us. So, you know, quite a few. Um, BD&J uh —

Maria Monroy (16:01):

Got it.

Pratik Shah (16:02):

God, the list goes on.

Maria Monroy (16:03):

Yeah, no, that’s amazing.

Pratik Shah (16:04):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (16:05):

Now is there — What, so what is the process? If I’m a firm and I want to start using your services, do you guys set up a call? Go through a demo?

Pratik Shah (16:13):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (16:14):

Um, is there an activation fee? Like, how does that work?

Pratik Shah (16:16):

Yeah, so a couple options. Some people really just want to not interact with humans, which I understand.

Maria Monroy (16:22):

Yeah. I would love to not interact with humans right now.

Pratik Shah (16:25):

Yeah, exactly. So you could go to the website, Esquire Tek, that’s esquiretek.com. You can self-educate. There’s a demo video on the website. So you can watch the demo video on the website. There’s a free trial. You can sign up. You can run a couple documents through the system to really get a feel for it for yourself to see if it’s a fit. And if it’s a fit, then you can move forward. You can request a demo if you want to have a demo done by a live person. And we have account executives that will do a demo for you on your schedule. It takes about 30 minutes and answer all your questions. So depending on kind of how everybody kind of buys things differently or likes to test things out differently. And, and I encourage everybody to check out the reviews. You know, we’ve got reviews on Google and Facebook and G2 everywhere. They’re all five stars and, and they’re all, you know, people that use the product.

Maria Monroy (17:10):

How quickly can someone get up and running?

Pratik Shah (17:14):

Oh, ten minutes. I mean, they can sign up and upload a document and they’re, they’re done.

Maria Monroy (17:18):

Wow.

Pratik Shah (17:19):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (17:20):

And is there an activation fee?

Pratik Shah (17:21):

There is an activation fee, um, $295. But —

Maria Monroy (17:26):

Per user?

Pratik Shah (17:26):

No, no. Just a one time.

Maria Monroy (17:28):

Just total.

Pratik Shah (17:29):

Yeah. For the firm. One-time, $295 activation fee. But if they come from LawRank, we will waive the activation fee.

Maria Monroy (17:36):

So use code LawRank.

Pratik Shah (17:38):

LawRank.

Maria Monroy (17:39):

Yes. Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

Pratik Shah (17:41):

Thank you.

Maria Monroy (17:42):

Okay. So enough about you and your company. Let’s go back to AI.

Pratik Shah (17:45):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (17:46):

How do you think that’s going to affect law firms?

Pratik Shah (17:48):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (17:49):

Besides, like, the cool softwares that we’re seeing?

Pratik Shah (17:52):

Yeah, that’s a great question. Um, it’s really amazing. I’m, I’m, I am very optimistic, right? There’s, there’s kind of two schools of thought that are going on with AI. Some people —

Maria Monroy (18:03):

In life in general.

Pratik Shah (18:04):

Yeah. Right? Some people that are more pessimistic, they’ll say like, “Oh man, they’re — People are not going to need lawyers anymore. They’re going to use AI, and this is going to eliminate jobs.” I, I think it’s going to create a lot of jobs, right? I think there’s going to be a lot of opportunities that are created with AI. What my hope is for the future of law with AI is that more cases are decided on their merits, rather than the resources of a particular firm, right?

Maria Monroy (18:29):

Interesting. Okay.

Pratik Shah (18:30):

Because a lot of times you’ve got big firm —

Maria Monroy (18:31):

Yeah.

Pratik Shah (18:32):

Big corporation, tons of resources going against a smaller firm, maybe somebody starting off as a solo that doesn’t have these resources. Now, they’ve got these tools, whether it may be Esquire Tek or any other company, or just Chat GPT itself, to help them formulate their thoughts quicker. Uh, give them starting points on discussions quicker, writing emails quicker, doing some research quicker. There’s, there’s great, uh, there’s great products out there. One of my favorites is Co-Counsel by Case Text. They’re not paying me to say that. You know, uh, it’s really great, ‘cause you can go in there, you can type in a legal issue. They’ve got all the legal research there. When you’re doing legal research, as any lawyer knows or any law clerk or law student knows, when you’re doing legal research, you start with this universe of cases.

Pratik Shah (19:19):

There’s a gajillion cases out there. You have to narrow it down to the ten or fifteen cases that are relevant to you. Then you have to read those cases and really narrow it down to the three to five cases that pertain to your particular situation. So that process takes a couple of hours, because you’re trying to go through this ocean of cases to find the location and the, the spot that’s right for you. Now with Co-Counsel and with these other AI tools that are out there, you can get there faster. So it’s not going to replace lawyers, but it’s going to allow us to do more. And what it’s going to do is it’s going to allow firms to take on more clients. A lot of times when firms decide to take on a client, they have to make the decision about whether the case is economically viable, right?

Maria Monroy (20:02):

Right.

Pratik Shah (20:03):

Whether it’s going to make sense of how much effort we have to put into this case to what it’s going to — how much it’s going to cost the client. Whether you’re billing hourly or how much fees are there at the end of the day. ‘Cause it has to make sense for time that you’re putting in. Anybody in any business knows that. This thing with AI and the tools that are coming out — and remember it’s only a couple months old — it’s going to allow lawyers to take on cases that they normally wouldn’t have taken on in the past, because it’s not going to take as many resources to get to the answer, to get to the conclusion. And so I’m very optimistic, not only for lawyers and law firms of what it means from a business perspective, but just from a justice perspective of where I think it’s going to help the general public. There was some study done a couple years ago that said 70-plus percent of legal issues are never handled by a lawyer.

Maria Monroy (20:52):

Wow. That’s crazy.

Pratik Shah (20:55):

And so this create— there’s a huge blue ocean of, of work and justice that needs to be done. That —

Maria Monroy (21:02):

Yeah. Because it’s not lucrative. I get it.

Pratik Shah (21:05):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:06):

Well, you know what’s funny? I was writing an amendment today for a contract, and I asked a lawyer, I was like — one of our clients — I was like, “You’re a lawyer. Help me with this.” He goes, “Chat GPT. Just go.”

Pratik Shah (21:15):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:16):

Yeah. And literally within two seconds, I had the perfect sentence and I was like — He’s like, “Hey, I was pretty close,” ’cause like he had said it. But then he was like, “Oh, maybe check Chat GPT.”

Pratik Shah (21:26):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:27):

And it totally worked. I copied and pasted it. Done, sent, like —

Pratik Shah (21:29):

It’s a great tool.

Maria Monroy (21:30):

And I don’t even have the up— the upgraded version. Which is funny, because the other day, I was arguing with it and I was like, “How does it not know? Like, it’s wrong.”

Pratik Shah (21:38):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:39):

I didn’t know that it, it didn’t have, like, newer data.

Pratik Shah (21:41):

Right.

Maria Monroy (21:42):

And then I — So I actually felt better at first. I was like, “Oh, I’m glad it was wrong. So can’t take over the world.”

Pratik Shah (21:47):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:48):

And then someone’s like, “Oh, it only runs through 2021.” I’m like, “So it was right.” Like —

Pratik Shah (21:54):

Back then, right?

Maria Monroy (21:55):

Yeah. And it kept, like, arguing with me.

Pratik Shah (21:57):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (21:58):

And I was like, “But you’re wrong.” It was like, “No, I am not wrong.” And I’m like, “Yes, you are!”

Pratik Shah (22:02):

I could just imagine you getting into this argument.

Maria Monroy (22:06):

Well, I was, but then I got scared. I was like, “Maybe I shouldn’t be arguing with it.” I was like, “Okay, thank you so much.”

Pratik Shah (22:10):

“You’re the best.”

Maria Monroy (22:12):

I’m, like, friendly to it ’cause I’m like legit a little bit, like —

Pratik Shah (21:14):

For sure.

Maria Monroy (21:15):

I think it’s a bit. Oh my God. It’s going to re — it’s going to listen to this.

Pratik Shah (22:19):

Yeah, it is.

Maria Monroy (22:20):

Oh my God, that is so scary.

Pratik Shah (22:22):

Yeah. And I, and I want to say for anybody using Chat GPT, which most people are these days, it’s super simple to use, but you can’t use it like Google. You have to really give it instructions, right?

Maria Monroy (22:31):

Yes, you do. Yeah, absolutely. Like you have to say like in an, like, in an authoritative voice.

Pratik Shah (22:35):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (22:36):

Or “I want this,” in a friendly manner, or “I want this,” in a really, like, chill way. Like you have to tell it exactly. And then, even when it gives you something you can, like, add to it. You can be like, “Well, can you try that again? But —”

Pratik Shah (22:47):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (22:48):

“This way,” or “I like this, but not this.” And then, like, it’ll literally just keep going. It’s the coolest thing.

Pratik Shah (22:55):

It’s like having kind of a semi-assistant that can — That you train, you train to be smarter —

Maria Monroy (23:00):

A smarter, more eloquent.

Pratik Shah (23:01):

That doesn’t call in sick.

Maria Monroy (23:02):

Yeah, that doesn’t —

Pratik Shah (23:03):

Just kidding.

Maria Monroy (23:04):

It’s just there.

Pratik Shah (23:05):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (23:06):

Oh my God. What if it called out sick one day? What if it was like, “I’m sick.”

Pratik Shah (23:09):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (23:09):

And, like, it wouldn’t respond.

Pratik Shah (23:10):

Well, I’m sure the server will go down once in a while and sometimes it’s not available. But what I was going to say is —

Maria Monroy (23:15):

Really? I’ve never had that.

Pratik Shah (23:17):

Oh, well usually if it’s too busy it’ll say like, you know, if you’re on the upgraded version, then there there’ll be space —

Maria Monroy (23:23):

Is it worth it for you?

Pratik Shah (23:24):

Yeah. I think it is.

Maria Monroy (23:24):

How much is it?

Pratik Shah (23:25):

Twenty bucks a month.

Maria Monroy (23:26):

Oh, dude, that’s so worth it.

Pratik Shah (23:27):

Yeah, it’s worth it.

Maria Monroy (23:28):

I need to do that.

Pratik Shah (23:29):

Yeah, it’s worth it.

Maria Monroy (23:29):

I was honestly, like, hesitant. I didn’t — Like, they launched it, and I waited, like, two months to use it.

Pratik Shah (23:34):

Right. Which —

Maria Monroy (23:35):

I was, like, weirded out by it.

Pratik Shah (23:37):

You know, it’s only a couple months old, and it’s so advanced. So it’s really — When you think about where it’s going to be two years from now, three years from now, it — It’s going to be incredible.

Maria Monroy (23:44):

Yeah.

Pratik Shah (23:45):

Uh, it’s growing at such an exponential rate, and everybody’s kind of using the APIs to build out their own relevant niche, niche, uh, part of their, their industry, right? Whether it’s Expedia using it or Open Table using it, where you can now say like, “Hey, I want to take my wife on a nice dinner date in this part of town. I’m not looking to spend more than $200. Can you find me a place that’s Italian food, uh, with good parking and has this dish and that dish, da da da da.” And it’ll say, “Okay, here it is,” and it’ll go make the reservation for you. So it’s really cool in that sense that when you get these APIs and you get these companies using them and building out their specific use case. How cool it’s going to be six months from now, all the things you can do. “Hey, I’m trying to travel to Mexico and I want to leave —“

Maria Monroy (24:35):

Why did you say Mexico? Is it because I’m from Mexico?

Pratik Shah (24:38):

Well, I was going to say Utah, but I didn’t want you to think I was promoting our conference, PSBR Playbook Live, June 1 through 4.

Maria Monroy (24:44):

Wait, I wanted to ask you what, what’s it like working for Brian?

Pratik Shah (24:48):

It’s amazing. It’s great.

Maria Monroy (24:49):

I mean, what are you going to say?

Pratik Shah (24:50):

What am I going to say? He’s not going to listen, so it doesn’t matter.

Maria Monroy (24:52):

I know.

Pratik Shah (24:53):

I could speak freely.

Maria Monroy (24:54):

You can’t shit talk him at one of —

Pratik Shah (24:55):

No, he’s great.

Maria Monroy (24:56):

No, I know he is.

Pratik Shah (24:57):

No, he’s great.

Maria Monroy (24:58):

But no, I mean it more like, like, it must be, like, really neat to work for him.

Pratik Shah (25:02):

It’s, it’s really neat to see the firm, right? I think when I was on the outside running my own firm for ten years. I’ve only been with the firm a little over a year. I didn’t really know all of the lawyers in the firm. I didn’t know the deep level of talent that exists at the firm. And I don’t want this to sound like just, you know, some commercial for the firm, but, but it really is the case is when you look at an attorney, like, you know, you got Brian and then you got Rahul and then you got Spencer Lucas.

Maria Monroy (25:29):

He’s the nicest.

Pratik Shah (25:30):

And then you got, you know, yeah. And then you got Robert Glassman and you got Erika Contreras, and you got all these great attorneys at the firm that are wonderful trial lawyers in their own right. Even outside of Brian, right? So it’s, it’s not a one-man firm. And I think that was really eye-opening for me to see is, you know, David Rudorfer who, outside of the firm, I’d never even heard of him before. And in the last six months he’s had two eight-figure verdicts: one for $30-plus million and another for $13 million. And it’s like, they just have so much talent. And so there there’s definitely a training and a culture of winning and pushing and trying to get the best for your client that I really love being a part of.

Maria Monroy (26:13):

That’s amazing.

Pratik Shah (26:14):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (26:15):

I’ve got to get him on the podcast.

Pratik Shah (26:16):

Yeah, we can do that.

Maria Monroy (26:17):

Yeah, we should.

Pratik Shah (26:18):

He’d make a much better guest than me.

Maria Monroy (26:20):

Oh, I’m — Of course, yeah. Nobody would argue with that.

Pratik Shah (26:25):

Oh, well, come on. There might be some people who would argue.

Maria Monroy (26:27):

Your mother.

Pratik Shah (26:28):

Yeah, no she wouldn’t. She —

Maria Monroy (26:30):

Well, fuck, dude, if your own mother —

Pratik Shah (26:34):

But yeah, so, you know, the other thing I was going to say on the Chat GPT — just going back to that — is obviously you have to be careful, right? We want to put that caveat out there.

Maria Monroy (26:42):

Careful how?

Pratik Shah (26:43):

Don’t — you don’t just rely on it. And I think what’s going to happen with AI too is everybody —

Maria Monroy (26:48):

“Write my closing argument.”

Pratik Shah (26:49):

Yeah, exactly right. Number one, you have ethical issues you have to consider. You can’t be putting your client’s confidential information on there, because the terms and conditions of Open AI, the company that owns Chat GPT is that they retain all that information and help train their modules on it. So you want to make sure that if you’re going to use these public things, that you understand the security behind it. You understand that you’re not violating any pot— or potentially violating any ethical rules. So when it comes to specific use cases in, in your particular case or for your particular client, you want to be careful. Um, and and I, I, I probably wouldn’t recommend anybody use it just yet for those kinds of specific use cases. If they want to ask more generic terms that, “Hey, I have a case in Nevada where an employee went to a site and got hurt.”

Pratik Shah (27:38):

“What are the worker’s comp rules and the tort rules in Nevada?” And that’s a general case or a general question. That’s a much better use for that tool. So you’re not using your particular client’s confidential information. So you got to be careful with that. Number two is a lot of times, the information that it spits out is pretty accurate, but you have to do your own due diligence as a lawyer. Don’t let them do the lawyering for you. You don’t want to submit a motion, write down case law, write down arguments, and it turns out that it’s incorrect, and sometimes it is incorrect. Most of the time it’s right. But it’ll take a piece of a case out that maybe is dicta and isn’t really part of the reasoning, the final reasoning in the case. You still want to read the cases yourself. You still want to make sure that it’s accurate. You want to use it in the right way.

Maria Monroy (28:28):

Right. That makes perfect sense.

Pratik Shah (28:29):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (28:30):

But I could see how someone will eventually get in trouble.

Pratik Shah (28:32):

It’s going to happen.

Maria Monroy (28:33):

Oh, absolutely.

Pratik Shah (28:34):

You know, I think it’s going to make good lawyers better, and it’s going to make bad lawyers worse.

Maria Monroy (28:39):

You probably said it perfectly.

Pratik Shah (28:42):

I say a lot of things perfectly, Maria.

Maria Monroy (28:43):

We agreed we were not going to banter. So. Pratik and I have a lot of banter. Um, and we — Well, I agreed I wouldn’t be mean to him.

Pratik Shah (28:55):

Yes, yes. It’s true. She’s very mean.

Maria Monroy (28:56):

I am very mean. But you started it, so. Not the meanness, but the banter.

Pratik Shah (29:03):

Oh, fair. Yes, that’s true. Yes.

Maria Monroy (29:04):

That’s your, your fault.

Pratik Shah (29:05):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (29:06):

But we are who we are. We are who we are. So what can we do about it?

Pratik Shah (29:10):

Where’s Mariano?

Maria Monroy (29:12):

He’s not real.

Pratik Shah (29:13):

Stop.

Maria Monroy (29:13):

You know that.

Pratik Shah (29:14):

Stop. He’s my favorite.

Maria Monroy (29:15):

Favorite. I know. . So this is this one thing. Last time I — So we met at a conference, and last time that I brought Mariano to a conference, Pratik told me that he liked him better than me. So that was the last time.

Pratik Shah (29:33):

The best part is his name. It’s “Maria. No.” Which is — When you told me that —

Maria Monroy (29:40):

Did you laugh?

Pratik Shah (29:41):

I was laughing. Literally out loud.

Maria Monroy (29:42):

Wasn’t it an Insta story?

Pratik Shah (29:43):

I don’t, I don’t remember where, maybe it was an Insta story. I’m not sure. But I was like, that is so perfect.

Maria Monroy (29:50):

I know. I should have listened to — I’m glad I didn’t listen to the signs of the universe. Because I’m not going to lie, I really did back then was like, “Maybe it’s a sign.”

Pratik Shah (29:58):

Oh, no. No, he’s great.

Maria Monroy (30:00):

No, I know, I know. I’m glad I didn’t like take my craziness of, like, you know, signs.

Pratik Shah (30:05):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (30:06):

To that extent.

Pratik Shah (30:07):

Maybe if you had asked Chat GPT — I wonder what it would’ve said.

Maria Monroy (30:10):

Maybe we should ask it.

Pratik Shah (30:11):

Yeah. ,

Maria Monroy (30:13):

Do you think like — How would I phrase it?

Pratik Shah (30:14):

Oh man.

Maria Monroy (30:15):

“Do you think that —“

Pratik Shah (30:18):

That’s another caveat. Don’t take relationship and love advice from Chat GPT.

Maria Monroy (30:23):

I don’t know. It might actually have, like, some really good advice.

Pratik Shah (30:27):

There’s only one way to find out.

Maria Monroy (30:29):

I’m going — You know what I’m going to be doing.

Pratik Shah (30:31):

Exactly.

Maria Monroy (30:32):

You’re not going to see me for the rest of the conference. Yeah. “Where’s Maria?” “She’s —“ Maybe it acts like a therapist.

Pratik Shah (30:40):

Yeah. But just know —

Maria Monroy (30:43):

But if you think about it —

Pratik Shah (30:44):

Open AI’s going to have all whatever information you put into it.

Maria Monroy (30:45):

Yeah. But I mean, whatever, I mean for me, whatever I’m going to put into it — “Mariano yelled at me for not doing the dishes.” I mean, you know. But okay. But if you think about it, couldn’t it be like a way for it — Okay, so let’s just back up. What if they did an AI version therapist and now, like, their own, like, preconceived notions and, like —

Pratik Shah (31:06):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (31:07):

There’s no filter of that person, right? So, like, now it’s just giving you, like, really, like, factual advice, like, do you know what I mean?

Pratik Shah (31:15):

No, that’s a great point. And there’s, there’s a lot of talk of that, not only just — Obviously with therapy, but even in the judicial space and juries and things like that is, “Hey, can this try — Can this help eliminate inherent bias?”

Maria Monroy (31:30):

Wow. That’s crazy. And, and — But then it, but then it, it’s like, how do you make sure that the algorithm isn’t biased?

Pratik Shah (31:37):

Exactly. And that’s, that’s the next level, right? It’s like one, can this help avoid implicit bias that exists out there and make it more fair? And then two is how do we know that it’s doing that? And it just doesn’t have a different kind of bias.

Maria Monroy (31:52):

Right.

Pratik Shah (31:52):

Right? It may have a bias towards people that write a certain way, because that’s the prompt you put in. Or it may be able to recognize tones of voice and be biased towards one versus another. And you know, look, time will tell, and there’s going to be trial and error things, and some things are going to work the way we intend them to work, and some of them aren’t. But overall, over the next decade or two decades, I’m very optimistic about where it’s going to go, how it’s going to, uh, proceed, and, and the results, what they are going to be, particularly in the legal industry.

Maria Monroy (32:26):

Yeah. It’s, it’s fascinating, and, like, the time that we’ve gotten to be a part of, which was, like, total luck, right? Like —

Pratik Shah (32:32):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (32:33):

Or who knows, maybe it wasn’t, but it is, like, crazy, because we’ve lived through, like, the inception of the internet.

Pratik Shah (32:41):

Mm-hmm.

Maria Monroy (32:42):

And so quickly. Now here’s another huge shift.

Pratik Shah (32:45):

Right.

Maria Monroy (32:46):

Right? This whole AI thing.

Pratik Shah (32:47):

Yeah. So what’s interesting about AI is it, it’s got its limitations, right? Like Chat GPT, you have to — We were talking about being careful about where you use it, and you don’t want to be getting medical advice from it. You don’t want to be getting relationship advice. Maybe. I don’t know. But you don’t —

Maria Monroy (33:05):

I wonder what would happen if I, if I tried.

Pratik Shah (33:08):

Well I, I saw this, you know, one of these cool YouTube videos or Instagram videos where this guy was you know, trying to date, and he just went into chat GPT and was like, put in the profile information of the girl he was texting and said this is what she’s all into and I need to text her an opening line to start the conversation. And he just got examples from Chat GPT and just started using it.

Maria Monroy (33:32):

That’s crazy.

Pratik Shah (33:33):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (33:34):

People are worried that it’s going to take over Google.

Pratik Shah (33:37):

You know, I think there’s some things that probably it can help with, right? ‘Cause it can help you get right to the answer. Like one of the most annoying things I think we all deal with is if I’m looking up a recipe, ‘cause I want to cook dinner or my wife’s going to cook dinner or whoever’s cooking dinner that night, and I’ve got to read somebody’s life story before I get to —

Maria Monroy (33:55):

Yeah, I fucking hate that.

Pratik Shah (33:56):

It’s the worst.

Maria Monroy (33:57):

I just don’t — I don’t get it.

Pratik Shah (33:59):

Yeah. And so, you know, Chat GPT’s great for that, right? Because I can just say —

Maria Monroy (34:02):

Okay, but what if, like, somebody googles “car accident lawyer.”

Pratik Shah (34:06):

Yeah. Well, Chat GPT’s going to say, “Hey, I can’t give you — I can’t tell you — You know, picking a lawyer is a very personal choice, and there’s a lot of factors that go into it.” So it’s not going to make recommendations.

Maria Monroy (34:17):

I just want people to hear it from you.

Pratik Shah (34:18):

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Maria Monroy (34:19):

Because if I say it, people are going to think it’s like —

Pratik Shah (34:20):

Oh, right.

Maria Monroy (34:21):

Biased.

Pratik Shah (34:22):

Right, because of LawRank, right?

Maria Monroy (34:23):

Yes.

Pratik Shah (34:24):

But it, yeah, it’s not going to make recommendations and, and, and you shouldn’t rely on it to make recommendations, because just like with anything — you know, picking a doctor, picking a lawyer, picking an accountant — it’s all situational-based, and you want to find the lawyer that makes sense for you, for your particular situation, and it just can’t really quite give you that.

Maria Monroy (34:45):

Yeah. Well, I would assume it’s going to be careful in three areas. Which Google’s really careful in these three areas, and they call it “Your Money, Your Life,” which is finances, health, and law.

Pratik Shah (34:52):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (34:53):

Those three areas, they’re scrutinized, because they affect your money or your life.

Pratik Shah (34:58):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (34:59):

Right? So I would assume that it’s the same concept. It’s going to be really careful with those three things.

Pratik Shah (35:05):

Yeah. And that makes sense.

Maria Monroy (35:08):

Totally. Perfect sense. Intuitively, you’re like, “Of course.”

Pratik Shah (35:09):

Yeah. Yeah.

Maria Monroy (35:10):

Right? Like —

Pratik Shah (35:11):

You can’t rely on it for these kind of big decisions, right? You shouldn’t be asking Chat GPT which accountant to hire.

Maria Monroy (35:18):

Right.

Pratik Shah (35:20):

Like if you’re running a business and you’ve got taxes, you’re going to deal with the I— If the IRS comes after you and audits you, you can’t be like, “Oh well Chat GPT told me to do it.” That’s not going to work. So, you know, pick your accountants carefully. Pick your lawyers carefully. Pick your doctors carefully. And I, I didn’t know about that big three, but that makes a ton of sense.

Maria Monroy (35:38):

Yeah, totally. Well, thank you so much.

Pratik Shah (35:40):

Thank you for having me.

Maria Monroy (35:41):

I really appreciate it. I know we’ve been talking —

Pratik Shah (35:42):

Yeah.

Maria Monroy (35:43):

About potentially doing this forever, so.

Pratik Shah (35:44):

This is great. No, I appreciate you having me on.

Maria Monroy (35:45):

Yeah, of course. Thank you.

Maria Monroy (35:47):

Thank you. Thank you so much to Pratik Shah for everything he shared with us today. If you found the story valuable, please share it with someone you want to see succeed, and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Don’t forget, we also have the video live on YouTube.