Editor’s Note
This article examines the growing body of legislative and analytical work surrounding Generative AI, placing a specific focus on the context and motivations behind a recent report from the French Senate. It highlights the EU’s broader regulatory efforts to address the profound opportunities and risks this technology presents.
Articles are piling up, reports are proliferating, and texts are accumulating in response to the social phenomenon of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), a “machine” capable of generating content (voice, images, text) in response to a query formulated in natural language: document analysis and synthesis, personalized research, drafting of deeds or letters, case management… The European Union, aware of the risks of deploying AI in all spheres, has undertaken to regulate its application. The GDPR is now complemented by the AI Regulation of July 12, 2024 (EU, 2024/1689), which entered into force on August 1, 2024 (with progressive application in 2025 and 2027).
In a more pragmatic approach, the Senate’s Law Commission launched an information mission on April 3, 2024, on “the impact of generative AI on legal professions.” The report published on December 18, 2024 (145 pages), with Christophe-André Frassa and Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie as its two rapporteurs, formulates 20 proposals.
The objective of this report is not sectoral, even though it specifically concerns GAI and focuses on legal professions, including legal professionals (“administrative and judicial magistracy, court staff, regulated professions, or in-house lawyers”) and their collaborators (legal assistants, secretaries, accountants…). The approach is more ambitious, considering that the law, which is extremely permeable to the logic of intelligent algorithms, and the professionals who implement it, are at the heart of economic and social relations. Thinking about the direct and indirect impacts of GAI on legal professions means questioning the function of law and the means of building a just and equitable digital society.
Favoring a certain form of neutrality, the rapporteurs undertook to approach the subject without preconceptions.
The rapporteurs thus intend to encourage its development in the name of the principle of innovation, while channeling its deployment in the name of a principle of precaution. To achieve this, the commission members multiplied hearings (98 people) and written contributions (52) for a global approach to the challenges, uses, and risks. These exchanges made it possible to determine the broad outlines of the necessary collaboration between man and machine.
The report has taken the measure of the challenges of a virtuous deployment of GAI within legal professions.
These challenges are, first of all, material. Unequal access to this costly technology can lead to a digital divide. The rapporteurs thus welcome initiatives taken by certain bodies to pool the cost and collectivize the use of GAI. The courts themselves suffer from insufficient staff and obsolete equipment.
The challenges are then economic and social. Economically, GAI is developing in a dynamic market in which French tech companies and legal publishers must position themselves with state support. Socially, employment is at the heart of discussions. Even though the majority of people heard appear optimistic and downplay the reduction in staff numbers, the rapporteurs insist on the direct impact on support functions requiring upskilling of this personnel.
GAI raises questions about digital sovereignty and data protection. GAI can be a threat to confidentiality and professional secrecy. It tests the great principles of a fair trial (impartiality, publicity, independence). Rapporteurs and consulted persons, however, agree on the need for regulatory sobriety.
The future of a just and equitable digital society, in general, and the future of legal professions, in particular, depend on quality initial and continuing training. Initial training requires prioritizing “know-how.”