SUPREME Court Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen has cautioned incoming law students against being overly dependent on artificial intelligence.
Leonen made the remarks in his speech at the Dela Salle Tanada-Diokno School of Law Seminar on Studying Techniques at the DLSU Bonifacio Global City Campus recently.
In his speech, Leonen said that while AI is a tool in education and research, students should avoid taking shortcuts through AI-powered applications.
He also warned against the temptation to use AI for cognitive offloading or delegating mental tasks to devices, adding that many nowadays simply save articles they want to read, instead of actually reading them.
“Your hard disk is more intelligent than you. Your cellphones are more intelligent than you because you do not absorb what you read,” he cautioned them.
He also told those who attended the gathering, which included law students, to read the full text of assigned cases and not rely on summaries.
“As you read your first case, the neural connections in your brain are not yet fit to be able to understand the language of the law. But as you read in your first year, your first 10 and first 100 cases, your neural connections will eventually be connected,” he said.
He stressed that this habit will help them easily read hundreds of pleadings and decisions when they become lawyers themselves.
At the same time, Leonen emphasized that understanding the law and building the right skills are the keys to becoming a good lawyer.
“You may be the smallest individual, the most petite individual, but if you know your law and you know the skills that are required, then it will be your power,” he said.
He also advised law students to listen intently to their professors, read all the cases assigned, reflect on them, and study consistently.
Lastly, Leonen reminded them to practice face-to-face communications, which he added is essential when dealing with their future clients.
“You’re not always going to talk to your clients through a screen. You have to be able to sit down with them and talk,” Leonen said, adding that communicating on a face-to-face level also helps them become effective lawyers as it allows them to sense their client’s emotions and expressions, enabling them to adjust their words accordingly.
The SC’s Strategic Plan for Judicial Innovations 2022-2027 includes various AI-assisted programs to facilitate court processes, such as AI-assisted generation of pleadings for litigants.
“This will contribute to improving access to justice, especially for those who cannot afford legal representation,” Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo earlier said of the innovations through AI.
Aside from this, Gesmundo said the SC is capitalizing on AI-enabled tools to enhance court performance, notably in voice-to-text transcription and legal research.
He said pilot testing of AI software Scriptix for court stenographers has been going on in select first and second-level courts.
Earlier, Gesmundo said AI can be of great help to the judiciary, but it should never replace the human elements of justice.
“Courts should still be populated with human judges if we are to expect that empathy and compassion would still go into the consideration of granting equitable remedies,” Gesmundo said during the 19th Conference of Chief Justices of Asia and the Pacific in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last year.
In that gathering, he emphasized the courts’ role in ensuring that AI remains a tool for judicial efficiency without compromising the integrity and human-centric nature of justice.
