Survive and Thrive | Generative AI and You [ONLINE]

This Survive & Thrive session will explore the subject of generative AI in barristers' practices:

• What is generative AI?
• Why should lawyers care?
• How can lawyers benefit from it?

We are delighted to welcome as our speakers two Middle Temple Masters of the Bench: Professor David Ormerod CBE KC and The Rt Hon Lord Justice Colin Birss. Please see below for their biographies.

We will host a reception with drinks and nibbles after the session.

Members and students from all four Inns of Court and guests are welcome to attend the event.

Non-Middle Temple members can book by calling the Treasury Office at 020 7427 4800 (line is open weekdays 10:00 – 16:00). Middle Temple members can book through the website. Tickets for this event cost £16 (£11 for students). 

We look forward to seeing you there!

Professor David Ormerod is currently the Law Commissioner for Criminal Law and Evidence.  Prior to his appointment in 2012 he was Professor of Criminal Justice at Queen Mary, University of London and a barrister practising from 18 Red Lion Court, specialising in fraud. He is the editor of the Criminal Law Review.  His publications include Smith and Hogan’s Criminal Law, Smith’s Law of Theft, Blackstone’s Criminal Practice (joint editor with Sir Anthony Hooper), Fraud: Criminal Law and Practice (joint editor).  He lectures and writes regularly for the Judicial College. 

He has written on AI for Counsel magazine, and has addressed the subject of using AI to sift documents while giving oral evidence to a parliamentary select committee.

Lord Justice Colin Birss was standing counsel to the Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks from 2003 to 2008 and took Silk in 2008.  In October 2010 he was appointed as both the Specialist Circuit Judge of the Patents County Court and the Chairman of the Copyright Tribunal. In 2013 he was appointed to the High Court, Chancery Division. He served as Supervising Judge for the Business and Property Courts on the Midlands, Western and Wales Circuits from 2017-2019 and in 2019 became Judge in Charge of the Patents Court. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal on 25 January 2021 and Deputy Head of Civil Justice from 11 January 2021.

He has spoken publicly on the potential benefits of generative AI, noting his own use of it as a professional tool; it was the first known use of ChatGPT by a British judge to write part of a judgment.

Members of all four Inns and their guests

Qualifying Session Details

Further details of the QS Requirements and how to be credited with the QS for this session

Learning Aims

After this session, students should be able to:

•  Assess the merits of generative AI.
•  Distinguish between good and bad use of generative AI.
• Apply the principles discussed during the session to their own use of generative AI.

Links to the Professional Statement, wider workings of the Bar, administration of justice or a public interest matter

2.6 / 4.4

View the BSB's Professional Statement

QS Feedback

If you have any feedback on a QS you have attended or have any suggestions for future sessions, please contact the education department on education@middletemple.org.uk

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