Lawyers, Disability and the Advent of Artifical Intelligence: A NOIR STORY

It is Monday and the day is dying. I am in the office with my tie loose and my sleeves rolled up. Heavy rain is drumming the window. It’s a Raymond Chandler kinda day, complete with a voiceover in my head. There is a low saxophone soundtrack playing sorrowfully. To hear it you have to listen closely.

My office is cluttered. Papers all over, even though the world is electronic. It hasn’t been the best day for me. I am late for an appointment with my doctor, but I am still here. I am still with her.

I don’t have words. All I have is a headache and lump in my throat. Can’t do much with that. The lady across from me is crying. She can’t understand why I lost her case. The long and short of it is that she is a grieving daughter. Filled with pain and frustration because her father died of a heart attack while his disability case was pending. I’m a lawyer. I’m a disability lawyer for crying out loud. I’m supposed to help people like this.

It was a mess from the very beginning. We lost at every level. Her father was denied by the Agency, by the judge and by the Federal Court. Despite his underlying impairment, there was substantial evidence his file that his condition was WNL. That means ‘within normal limits’ up until the day he didn’t wake up. As always, some evidence was supportive, and some was not. Because some of it was within normal limits, there was substantial evidence to deny.

We went over the case again and I provided Kleenex and apologies. She left and I walked her to the elevator. The doors closed and her face disappeared, but I could still see her in my head. Back in the office, I scrolled through the file absently. Gait: WNL; Station: WNL, Head, Ears, Eyes, Nose, Throat: WNL; Ability to dress, undress: WNL; ability to lift and carry: WNL. And so on. Normal functioning said the judge. Harmless error said the appeals court. I just don’t understand, said my client’s daughter. He’s dead. How could he have worked as a hand packager? What even is a hand packager?

Feeling bad but without any good options, I turned off the computer and headed to my doctor, already 10 minutes late. I needed a blood pressure check and a refill of my medication. Systolic was up and stress was up, but the rest of me was down.

“How are you doing?” asked the nurse, tearing the Velcro cuff off my arm with a rip.

“Hanging in there” I said, as she spun around like a ninja to type on her computer. I watched over her shoulder. Everything on the screen began to self-populate. WNL. WNL. WNL. “WNL,” I thought. “More like WTF.” Said the millennial tinged voice in my head. “What the heck was going on here?

I looked as closely as I could. Ability to dress and undress: WNL. On the screen as clear as day. A little weird though, since I didn’t get dressed or undressed. I guess I did roll up my sleeve. The nurse left, the doctor arrived. A second blood pressure test. More typing. More self-populating.

Later, armed with a prescription and some advice to take it easy, I drove through the rain, windshield wipers swaying, rain a drumbeat, headache thumping. I don’t wear a fedora, but if I did, it would be soaking the seat next to me.

I wonder what my medical records would say if I requested them. Would they tell me everything was WNL even if it wasn’t? Does it matter? Notwithstanding my wife telling me my ties don’t match, I can pretty much dress myself, so there’s no conflict here, but did this happen to my client?

With the advent of managed care, are the computer programs self-populating informa- tion to make it easier? Are we trading easy for correct? Is the default setting on a medical chart WNL? Is this hurting my clients? Too many questions and not enough answers.

While I steadfastly believe that the medical providers can properly evaluate their own charts and do a good job of tracking things, do subsequent reviewers understand how managed care programs work? I had a dark feeling that they didn’t. Especially after my recent case.

I needed a drink. If there was a saloon, that’s where I would have gone. I would have pushed open the swinging doors and nodded to the bartender. I would have caught the frosty mug sliding down one handed. A casual salute from me as the jazz kicked in. But that’s not real. Likely I ended up at an Applebees or an Outback, maybe a Frickers. And I was probably drinking a coke. Probably through a straw - God help me.

Local lawyers around me. Talking. Shaking their heads. These were smart ladies and gents. Always thinking high level thoughts. Finger on the pulse and all that. I overheard their chatter.

“Have you heard about CHAT GPT?” one of them said.

“Taking over the world” Another one said. “What?”

“It’s an Artificial Intelligence program. It is totally free.”

“Artificial intelligence? You mean like HAL or the Terminator?”

“Well, no, not evil like that.”

“Sure sounds evil.”

“It’s just a program that learns probabilities in language. It’s got no morality either way.”

“You should try it. It will make your life so much easier. Seriously. It’s especially good at writing. Books, songs, short stories.”

“It writes short stories? Seriously?”

“Yeah, and they are good. It’s likely that someday computers will write all the fiction we read. Romance, Mystery, Horror, anything you want, the computer can write it.”

“How does it know how to write?”

“It is learning from us right now. Every time you use it, it studies the pattern of words. It’s getting smarter. You just give it directions and maybe some edits and it will write anything.”

“It writes so much better than my associate.”

“I don’t buy it,” said an older guy. “Good art comes from pain. People write about their lives. They put it to paper. That’s how it has always worked. Computers can’t feel pain, they can’t compete with humans in the pain department. We know that for sure.”

“Okay, but what about legal briefs and legal decisions and all that?”

“Judges won’t even need clerks anymore,” somebody snorts.

“Well, at least not human clerks. They will just feed a thumbs up or down into a computer and it will spit out the rationale for them. This thing is smart. It will be able to track precedent.”

“Totally helpful for the judiciary. Especially within the disability program. All the adjudicators at every level are way too busy. Have you seen all the applications and pending appeals? They need some way to get the cases moved. Better a quick decision assisted by a computer than no decision at all.”

“What are you saying? That’s crazy. They won’t let that happen. People need to still pull the levers and review everything to make sure its correct.”

“Computers are better at making sure things are correct. People make mistakes all the time.”

“Come on, man” says a guy, who looks a little like Joe Biden.

“It’s probably not as bad as you are saying. It will probably just provide us an outline and we can fill it in. The government already uses templates for everything anyway. It helps make things efficient. Just read through the decisions. Templates all the way.”

“It will just self-populate.”

“Geez, we are all going to be replaced.”

“Nah, you won’t be replaced by AI, but you will be replaced by a human who using AI.”

Feeling the headache worsening, I narrowed my eyes, rubbed the stubble on my chin and drank from my straw in a cool sideways way.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “The good guys will always win. Maybe not in this life, but surely in the next. Human beings’ matter. We can help each other. We can solve this.”

Rolling eyes. Something that sounds like a bark or a laugh. A look of disdain.

“Toothpaste doesn’t go back into the tube,” someone says. “You are being naïve.”

Time to go. I finally head home. Thankfully. My house, warm, dry. My wife, my three daughters. Smiles, hugs, comfort from a weary day. We look at each other. Silence, smiles, not too much verbal communication. Maybe not the best time to talk about anything serious. Let’s just sit together. We can eat. We can relax. My headache will subside and my blood pressure will drop. One way or another, it will work out.

“How was your day?” She asks me.

“Within normal limits,” I say.

Later, on the couch.

“Can I play with you cell phone daddy?” my 5-year-old asks, her eyes big.

I feel a pit grow in my stomach.

“Not right now, sweetheart. Maybe we can play outside instead?”

“But its dark Dad, and it’s raining.”

Yes, it is baby, it is dark. And it is raining.

“How about I tell you a story then?” I say.

“Yes! Can you make it scary?” She asks.

“Ok.” I say, trying to get my brain to turn back on. I need to think of a good story. I look up, considering. My laptop is right there, on the side table. It is daring me to reach for it.