Guam’s Chief Justice talks AI at joint conference

The Pacific Judicial Council held the second day of the 2024 Joint Annual District Court of Guam Conference and Pacific Judicial Council Biennial on Aug. 27 at the Westin Resort Guam.

Chief Justice Robert J. Torres Jr., of the Supreme Court of Guam, and Dustin Hodges, Microsoft work technical specialist who appeared virtually, gave a joint keynote address on how legal teams can leverage Microsoft’s Copilot digital assistant in their workflow.

Copilot is an artificial intelligence that integrates itself into the Microsoft Office 365 digital suite allowing users to manage and generate content using prompts submitted by the user. 

According to Hodges, 75% of people are already using artificial intelligence at the workplace. 

Hodges demonstrated the different use cases for legal professionals to use Copilot: 
●    Summarize emails and documents while providing links to specific points in the documents it summarized from;
●    Revise and generate text while allowing users to adjust tone, length, and style; 
●    Generate presentations and text to taken from information within the professional’s legal repository, from documents submitted as part of a prompt, or from the internet; and
●    Summarize meetings and message in Microsoft Teams for users 

Hodges says that Copilot keeps its data secure and gives users control of the data that is stored within the system. 

According to Torres, there are no official guidelines in Guam for the use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, however he outlined the different schools of thought in its use: prohibitory, disclosure, and cautionary. 

Prohibitory is the outright non-use of artificial intelligence in the legal practice which, according to Torres, stifles innovation and creativity. 

Disclosure is the notation of each instance artificial intelligence used in the practice in which he says, increases the costs of legal services.

Cautionary is the allowance of artificial intelligence usage with the understanding that legal professionals have an ethical obligation to verify information and content generated by the artificial intelligence. Torres says that this is the ideal way of using artificial intelligence in legal practice.

“You can use [artificial intelligence] for brainstorming, thinking about [a topic], and editing and understanding that when you make representations to the court about the documents that you submitted, you read it, vetted it, and you made sure that the data is accurate and the citations are accurate,” Torres told the Journal after his address. “We think that’s the better approach with dealing with [artificial intelligence] in the judiciary.”

On the Wave 105.1 FM morning show with Patty Arroyo, Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood of the U.S. District Court of Guam discussed with Arroyo the inclusion of artificial intelligence in the courtroom. She echoed the ability for artificial intelligence software to make a legal professional’s workflow more efficient, but also highlighted instances where the software referenced cases that do not exist. 

Copilot is available in all versions of the Office applications with applicable licenses. The government version of the artificial intelligence is scheduled to release on Oct. 15 with additional features being added in the following months. 

Additionally, Copilot has integrated access to Westlaw, an online research platform for legal professionals. 

Other discussions throughout the day included the future of regulatory litigation by John Marshall Law School and representatives from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa’s Richard School of Law discussed the Online JD Flex Program, an online program where the curriculum format is 100% online. 

There were also panel discussions: “Art of Appellate Advocacy: Tips and Strategies for Brief Writing and Oral Argument,” moderated by F. Philip Carbullido, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of Guam; and “Understanding the Build Up and its Regional Impact,” moderated by Rodney J. Jacob, attorney representing the Ninth Circuit. mbj