Alex Spiro: AI could speed evidence analysis and change the pace of litigation

Alex Spiro, a lawyer and former prosecutor who advises founders and other clients on legal and business matters, said he believes AI will eliminate an intermediate layer of work in many areas, including his day-to-day work. In his view, that could make it faster to establish facts and synthesize information, helping parties decide sooner whether to settle a dispute or take it to trial.

Spiro predicted that some drawn-out litigation in the middle could disappear: some cases would settle quickly, while others would go to trial. He said there might be more trials if analysis makes it easier to identify which cases should be pursued to the end. This was a prediction, not a report that the change has already occurred.

Spiro said he has not changed his approach to trying cases or presenting them to juries in 20 years: human understanding does not change because of AI. In his view, technology may change how many people gather information and how quickly it reaches a lawyer, but not how the lawyer addresses jurors. Noting that he is not an AI expert, he said extracting information from documents seems less susceptible to error than working with case law, where kinks may remain. As an example, he described a police report in which a system could say Detective Lamb appeared three times in a case—January 3, 8 and 12. He believes this kind of factual analysis can speed answers to routine investigative questions. When AI generates case law, his team double-checks it for hallucinations.