The logo for the Walt Disney World Dolphin is a fish.
Just a full-on, scale-covered fish. And while this conveys the aquatic theme of the resort, it is, decidedly, not a dolphin.
I pondered this perplexing reality while staring into the lobby bar fountain at the hotel playing host to the International Legal Technology Association’s 2023 convention. Perhaps this is a metaphor — or a coincidence clumsily cobbled into a metaphor for the purposes of this hastily composed short update from the exhibit floor seeking some sort of deeper literary meaning — for the whole event.
The dolphin is what lawyers want out of generative artificial intelligence. The fish is what it can actually deliver in 2023.
That’s not a knock on AI. It’s still a revolutionary tool that promises to disrupt the practice — somehow — but it’s not prepared to deliver on most of the mainstream hype. Lawyers need to walk a fine line between keeping an open mind to the potential for AI to streamline critical tasks and, you know, getting disciplined.
At the outset of this event, I wondered if lawyers would be a roadblock to adoption and stymie the industry. I assumed the show would feature a lot of comiserating between vendors and firm tech teams eager to bring realistic AI to law firms, but unable to get the lawyers on board.
Without discounting the population of lawyerly luddites out there, it seems as though the space may also have the opposite problem.
What is that problem? Find out more at
