Black’s Law Dictionary reports that “headnote lawyer” means
A lawyer who relies on the headnotes of judicial opinions rather than taking the time to read the opinions themselves.
“He’s a chatbot lawyer” would mean that he’s a lawyer who relies on ChatGPT-4 etc. summaries of court opinions (or of legal questions more broadly) rather than taking the time to read the relevant cases, statutes, regulations, and the like. On the other hand, one downside is “chatbot lawyer” is already coming to mean chatbots that are actually acting, or trying to act, or being planned to be acting, as lawyers ….
