Academic Research
Legal AI Research Series
Six peer-reviewed papers on artificial intelligence in legal practice — published on SSRN by Austin, Morris & Das.
The Legal AI Research Series examines the professional responsibility, liability, and regulatory implications of artificial intelligence in legal practice. Each paper is available in full on SSRN.
The Agentic Law Firm
Examines the structural, ethical, and regulatory implications of autonomous AI agent deployment in law firms. Analyzes how agentic systems challenge the Model Rules of Professional Conduct and proposes a framework for attorney obligations in agentic environments. Read on SSRN →
The Regulatory Architecture of Legal AI
Maps the current regulatory landscape governing legal AI and identifies structural gaps. Proposes the Legal AI Regulatory Stack — a unified analytical framework organizing obligations by tool, deployment, and practice layers. Read on SSRN →
When the Tool Breaks: AI Liability in Legal Practice
Examines the liability landscape when AI tools fail in legal practice. Analyzes attorney malpractice exposure, vendor liability disclaimers, and product liability theories. Proposes a tiered liability framework based on nature of failure and reasonableness of reliance. Read on SSRN →
The Hallucination Problem: AI Accuracy and Legal Ethics
Examines AI hallucination through the lens of legal ethics. Analyzes how duties of competence, candor, and supervision interact with the probabilistic nature of LLM outputs. Proposes a framework of AI output verification obligations. Read on SSRN →
Candor and the Algorithm: Truthfulness Obligations in the Age of AI
Examines how AI-generated content interacts with attorney candor obligations under Model Rules 3.3 and 4.1. Analyzes attribution, accuracy, and transparency problems. Proposes a framework for mandatory AI disclosure obligations. Read on SSRN →
The AI Legal Reference Model (ALRM)
Introduces the ALRM, a structured framework for evaluating and deploying AI tools in legal practice across five domains: Capability Assessment, Risk Identification, Compliance Mapping, Governance Design, and Performance Monitoring. Read on SSRN →