Is AI just hype, or is it the key to transforming how attorneys handle mountains of case data?
For years, I said: “AI is just scaled-up plagiarism.” I couldn’t have been more wrong.
When my company (Casefriend) started building its AI interface (Caisey) in early 2025, my perspective on what AI can offer to work comp defense firms changed, really fast. Our goal was not to build yet another GenAI tool. Rather, we wanted to solve a real problem for our customers: eliminate wasted time & repetitive tasks during case intake so workers’ comp rainmakers could bring in more new cases. Challenge accepted. That goal couldn’t be met with “scaled-up plagiarism” or GenAI alone. We needed something more.
The problem is GenAI gets all the headlines, and it’s easy to become fearful of “AI” with its fake citations, weird images, and hallucinated briefs. Recently, Vince Gilligan the brilliant mind behind Breaking Bad said:
“I hate AI. It’s the world’s most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine. I think there’s a very high possibility that this is all a bunch of horseshit. It’s basically a bunch of centibillionaires whose greatest life goal is to become the world’s first trillionaires. I think they’re selling a bag of vapor.” Source: ‘Pluribus’ Creator Vince Gilligan Is a Loud and Proud AI Hater
But like me, Vince Gilligan is wrong. GenAI just one branch of the AI tree.
Case in point, on November 24, As I was writing this article President Trump announced project Genesis to harness the massive processing power of the supercomputers at our nuclear labs for AI purposes (Launching the Genesis Mission – The White House). One of these supercomputers is housed at Lawrence Livermore National Lab and is called El Capitan. “El Capitan has a peak performance of 2.79 quintillion (10∧18) calculations per second.” (El Capitan High Performance Computing | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). Connecting these machines together for AI-powered research isn’t about writing papers, drafting scripts, or making silly videos, it’s about finding a strategic piece of dust buried under a mountain of data.
More than just finding a needle in a haystack, like standard desktop tech aspires to do, it’s this processing power architecture that delivers strategic equity and true revenue boosting potential. But how does this relate to the legal world Casefriend plays in? This processing power provides LegalTech product developers with a toolset that can level the playing field for attorneys. Simply put, those lawyers who equate AI only with GenAI, miss real opportunities and hand efficiency to their competitors.
“Powered by AI” is the Differentiator
At Casefriend, we discovered AI’s real power: processing massive amounts of information instantly. For me it clicked when I asked Copilot a question about some Microsoft products. Rather than a fictional guess, Copilot gave me an answer that was clearly pulled from decades of Microsoft documentation, and it did so easily, reducing the time I spent on a task tremendously. It was then I realized “we can do this for our customers!”
When using AI’s processing power, the user experience matters most. So instead of trying to replicate the practice of law, we used AI processing power to extract pebbles of information from a lake of legal data, delivering instant insight to our work comp defense attorneys right into their workflow. That is a system “Powered by AI”. For work comp defense attorneys who take advantage, it’s a game-changer.
How AI empowers Work Comp Defense attorneys
Historically, attorneys buried their opposition in truckloads of discovery, millions of pages, with the most relevant facts buried somewhere in the pile. The idea behind this tactic was simple: overwhelm the other side. With AI-powered tools, that tactic becomes obsolete. Why? Because by processing and organizing massive amounts of data instantly, AI levels the playing field. AI empowered attorneys and their staffs are no longer overwhelmed.
For workers’ comp defense attorneys, a typical file referral includes thousands of pages of medical records, bills, employment files, and investigations. It could take days or weeks to extract, organize and summarize each document. And let’s face it, without an AI tool on your side, the summarization likely will not happen.
Enter Caisey: trained to identify and output exactly what work comp defense attorneys need. She can process thousands of documents in minutes, delivering case-critical details immediately. No more digging when that file referral comes in. No more delays because your staff is overwhelmed with new cases. Just intake the documents, let Caisey do her thing, and when the attorney opens the case the attorney can instantly browse all summaries and know what’s important. That’s instant insight.
In short, Caisey doesn’t invent. She extracts facts from thousands of pages and presents them without distraction. So you, the attorney, or the paralegal, can apply your knowledge, experience and skill to deliver killer work product, fast.
AI Is So Much More Than Generative Text
Critiques of GenAI are valid. Hallucinations and AI slop are unavoidable yet manageable. AI’s true processing power, however, exists in a different realm. When driven by customer needs an integrated AI solution can eliminate inefficiency, amplify expertise, and keep attorneys in control.
The GenAI Hype Is Distracting Us from the Real AI Revolution
Don’t miss out on the efficiency gains AI can deliver. For work comp defense attorneys, AI isn’t just generative text, it’s an engine behind Caisey that delivers instant insight, strategic equity, and true revenue-boosting potential. Ignore these tools at your peril.
