Most lawyers using AI today are typing questions into a chatbot and reading the answer. But what if AI could act more like a team of junior colleagues working alongside you?

In this episode of the Future Ready Lawyer podcast, we're joined by Helen Fan, a California lawyer and founder of the Silicon Valley Legal Tech Frontier Community, to discuss her experiments building an AI-powered law firm.

Helen set up two AI Agents, Morgan, a senior associate, and Cleo, a junior, and gave them a real legal research task. To her surprise, they divided up the work, debated each other, and even created additional helpers on their own. We explore what this means for supervision, accountability, and trust when AI starts taking action rather than just answering questions.

Helen also shares her vision for the AI-native law firm, why smaller firms are leading the way, and her advice for law students.

Helen Fan — Personal & Community

• Helen Fan | LinkedIn — link
• Helen's Legal AI Lab — link
• Helen's Substack — link
• Silicon Valley Legal Tech Frontier — link

Helen's Own Writing

• "Claude for Legal — Webinar Summary" — Helen breaks down how legal professionals can use Claude's Skills feature to build reusable, domain-specific workflows for document review and client communication. — link
• "AI-Native Law Firm Workflow at OpenClaw Law LLP" — A behind-the-scenes look at Helen's experimental multi-agent "law firm in a group chat," documenting how Morgan (senior associate) and Cleo (junior associate) agents collaborate on client work. — link
• "California Lawyer Tests AI-Law Firm Model with First Client" — Helen recounts the real-world test of OpenClaw Law LLP with its first client, including how she configured risk flags and decision rules for the AI agents. — link

OpenClaw & Agentic AI

• "OpenClaw Surpasses GitHub Records, Raises Security Concerns" — Coverage of OpenClaw hitting #1 on GitHub Trending and the security conversations it sparked in legal tech circles. — link

Related Viral Legal AI Discussions

• "Lawyer Uses Claude Skills, Legal World Loses It…" — link
• "I Interviewed the Claude-Native Lawyer Whose Viral Post Broke the…" — link

There’s been plenty of discussion about how GenAI might boost lawyers’ efficiency. But does it actually help lawyers deliver work faster?

In this episode of the Future Ready Lawyer podcast, we’re joined by Dr. Joshua Yuvaraj, Senior Lecturer at Auckland Law School and Co-Director of the New Zealand Centre for Intellectual Property, to discuss his paper, “The Verification Value Paradox: A Normative Critique of GenAI in Legal Practice.”

Yuvaraj proposes a simple test: AI’s net value equals the time saved minus the cost of verifying its work. In legal practice, however, using AI to gain efficiency can demand more verification, given lawyers’ strict duties to courts and clients. He explains how GenAI can be unreliable and opaque, creating risks that go well beyond fake citations, including subtle errors about what cases actually say.

We compare AI review to supervising junior lawyers, examine what “good enough” might mean in AI x legal work, and explore real-world examples of AI implementation in legal process (including Garfield AI). The conversation also touches on liability and insurance questions, and why legal expertise and AI literacy matter more than ever.

Dr. Joshua Yuvaraj, Faculty webpage https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/joshua-yuvaraj

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuayuvaraj/

The Verification-Value Paradox https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.20109

'Lawyers, think hard before you use AI' (Newsroom NZ, 7 Nov 2025): https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/11/07/lawyers-think-hard-before-you-use-ai/

Other mentions:

Deloitte AI incident https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/06/deloitte-to-pay-money-back-to-albanese-government-after-using-ai-in-440000-report

Garfield Human versus AI experiment https://www.garfield.law/press/garfield-ai-featured-on-channel-4-dispatches-human-vs-ai-experiment

Professional Legal Training Bell CJ speech PDF (28 Aug 2025): https://supremecourt.nsw.gov.au/documents/Publications/Speeches/2025-speeches/bellcj/BellCJ-20250828.pdf

In this episode of Future Ready Lawyer, hosts Alex, Armin, and Mark, are joined by Vicki McNamara, Senior Research Associate at the UNSW Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession, to discuss the growing global trend of generative AI misuse in litigation.

The conversation centers on Vicki’s upcoming research, which identifies over 470 cases across common law jurisdictions where AI has generated "hallucinated" citations or procedurally flawed documents. The panel explores the resulting strain on court resources, the phenomenon of "verification drift" where users become too confident in AI outputs to verify them, and the potential long-term risks of eroding critical legal thinking and creativity among junior lawyers.

They conclude by discussing the necessity of better public education and the "average effect" of AI on legal excellence, looking ahead to a future where AI errors may become more subtle than blatant hallucinations.

Show Notes & Links

Guest & Organizations

• Vicki McNamara: UNSW Staff Profile; LinkedIn
• UNSW Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession: Website
• GenAI, Fake Law & Fallout Report Website

Cases & Legal Resources Mentioned

• Mata v. Avianca: The "ChatGPT Lawyer" Case (The US case regarding fake citations mentioned early in the episode)
• May v Costaras [2025] NSWCA 178: Case Judgment (The NSW Court of Appeal case mentioned involving Chief Justice Bell)
• New Zealand Courts - Generative AI Guidelines: Guidelines for Lawyers, Judges, and Non-Lawyers
• Fair Work Commission (Australia): Website (Cited for good plain language material)

NZ Parliamentary Counsel Office: AI Chatbot Initiative