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