Happy New Year
Happy New Year from the LMICK Board and Staff. We hope you, our loyal and valued insureds, had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season. We are so grateful for the trust you place in us to protect your practices. We look forward to continuing our service to you and all the attorneys of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 2025 and beyond. Please let us know how we can be of assistance to you and your practice.
News & Updates
New Chairman of LMICK’s Board of Directors Elected
Glenn Denton has been elected as the new Chairman of LMICK’s Board of Directors. He is committed to both LMICK and his community of Paducah, Kentucky and western Kentucky. Mr. Denton has served as a member on the LMICK Board of Directors since 2006 and has previously served as Treasurer and Audit and Finance Committee Chairman. Mr. Denton is a past Chairman of the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce and current Chairman of the Paducah Convention and Visitors Board serving for a second time. Mr. Denton also currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Paducah Bank & Trust Company and Paducah Bank Shares, Inc. He additionally serves on the Bon Secours Mercy Health - Lourdes Board and is past Chair of the Mercy Health Foundation-Lourdes Board. Mr. Denton is a Partner at the Denton Law Firm located in Paducah, Kentucky. Glenn has developed a high profile and respected reputation to handle all types of legal matters in western Kentucky and Southern Illinois. Congratulations, Mr. Denton!
New LMICK Treasurer and Chairman of Audit & Finance Committee Elected
Charles E. “Buzz” English, Jr. has been elected as LMICK’s new Treasurer and Chairman of the Audit and Finance Committee. Mr. English is dedicated to LMICK, his local community of Bowling Green, as well as the entire Commonwealth. Mr. English, like his father, is a past President of the Kentucky Bar Association. Beyond his extensive involvement in the Kentucky Bar Association, Mr. English contributes to the profession on the national level. He recently completed a term on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary as the Sixth Circuit Representative. Mr. English also served on the ABA’s Board of Governors and chaired the Finance Committee for the Association. He has also served on the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee for Bar Activities and is currently serving in the ABA House of Delegates. Mr. English is a Partner at English Lucas Priest & Owsley, LLP in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Mr. English’s practice areas include Appellate Practice, Business Litigation, Litigation, Product Liability, and Professional Liability. Congratulations, Mr. English!
LMICK Welcomes New Staff Member
Jared W. Burke, Esq. has joined LMICK as its Risk Manager. Initially, Jared will serve in both engagement and claims roles, but will eventually transition into primarily handling claims with LMICK’s in-house claims team. Jared comes to LMICK with many years of claims handling experience as a former Claims Specialist with a Kentucky-based real estate E&O insurance company. However, he most recently served as Deputy Bar Counsel at the Office of Bar Counsel with the Kentucky Bar Association. Jared has also served as a Prosecutor in St. Croix, USVI with the Virgin Island’s Department of Justice-Office of the Attorney General, as well as in the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office. He also practiced insurance defense with a Louisville-based civil law firm. Jared has also served as a Public Defender in both Jefferson and Fayette Counties. Jared looks forward to this new role at LMICK and is eager to assist LMICK’s insureds. Jared may be reached at
Practice Management
Give Generative AI a Try-What are Prompts and How to Create Them
So, what exactly are “prompts” in the context of using AI? The MIT Sloan School of Management who partners with Sloan Technology Services, describes prompts as “conversation starters: what and how you tell something to the AI for it to respond in a way that generates useful responses for you.” Once you have a response from AI, you can then build upon that response with another prompt. Essentially, it’s like having a conversation with another person, only in this case the conversation is text-based, and your converser is AI.[1] However, for prompts to be most effective and produce helpful and relevant responses, there are ways in which prompts must be written (and not written) to yield the most effective results.
Here are 5 Pitfalls to Avoid When Writing Prompts:
1. The Vagueness Trap – Using clear specific prompts are crucial for accurate and useful outputs from AI. You might think vague prompts may yield more results, but the responses AI provides will take you longer to evaluate for relevance and end up costing you more time.
2. Information Overload – Break your requests into a series of focused, manageable prompts. As stated above, be specific in your initial prompt. Once you have a useful response, you can then build upon that response with another prompt.
3. Context Vacuum – Craft a prompt that includes critical details and relevant information. Again, be specific in your prompts. If your initial prompt doesn’t return a helpful response, then simply try again! But the more relevant information you initially input, the more likely the response will be helpful to your request and help you with your task.
4. Creativity Crunch – Use AI as a brainstorming partner, or as a starting point. If you are having difficulty getting started on drafting a document or starting a task, or not sure how or where to begin, prompt AI. But understand that AI is a tool to enhance creativity, but not to replace it.
5. Privacy Pitfall – NEVER put anything into public AI you can’t “write in the sky” or declare on the courthouse steps. It is important to understand that whatever information you input into “generative AI”, such as “Chat GPT” or “Perplexity” for example, goes into the “collective.” Both the information input and output are now part of the AI’s program and can be used by the program to enhance the program itself. Thus, never put any identifying client or privileged information into AI that would expose you to violations of any Rules of Professional Conduct.
As an example of a “good” versus “bad” prompt, a “bad” prompt may be an input into AI that simply says, “write about a dog.” Versus a “good” prompt which might say, “Write a short story about a golden retriever that gets lost in the woods, focusing on how it finds its way home.” The difference being the “good” prompt specifies the type of content (short story) and describes the subject (a golden retriever lost in the woods) which produced a more useful response.
Another example would be a “bad” prompt of, “Write about the history of space exploration, including all major milestones, key astronauts, scientific discoveries, and how it has impacted society.” Versus a “good” prompt which might say, “Write about the Apollo 11 mission and its impact on space exploration and society.” The difference between the two prompts is that the latter prompt avoids information overload, and narrows the scope to one specific event, making the request clear and manageable for AI.
There are multiple free AI sites and apps (ChatGPT, Perplexity, etc.) for you to try out and practice your prompting skills. LMICK will continue to have more useful AI information, tips and tricks in our AI series in future Issues of the LMICK Minute. So, stay tuned!
Finally, when using AI technology, please also be aware and cautious that AI can produce “hallucinations” which are incorrect or misleading results that the AI model has generated. The results may seem legitimate and make the user and others believe the information is true or real, when in fact, the information is false or made up. Accordingly, you must always double check the information contained in a result or response from AI. A good rule of thumb is to supervise AI’s results like you’d supervise an associate or paralegal.
Questions? Contact
New Rates for Court Bonds
Effective January 1, 2025, The Bar Plan’s Court Bond Program offered through LMICK has made the following rate/rule changes:
- Notary bond rate will increase from $35.00 for the term to $50.00.
- Minimum premium for all bonds except Notary Bonds will be increasing from $100.00 to $150.00.
- All bonds will be renewed for a premium except bonds at the $1,000 level and term bonds, such as Notary bonds and Small Estate Bonds.
- The Bar Plan has shortened the grace period from 60 days to 15 days. This grace period applies to paying the renewal premium before it is considered past due. In addition, the estate must be closed within 15 days of the renewal date for The Bar Plan to waive the renewal premium.
- With regards to Civil Court Bonds (Appeal, Replevin, etc.), The Bar Plan will be increasing the amount of extra collateral that it collects to cover unexpected costs such as litigation costs, unpaid premiums, etc.
- The Bar Plan has made some minor revisions with their applications. The Bar Plan has deleted some fields that were never used and added a statement that The Bar Plan has a right to send the principal/applicant to a collection agency if payment for the bond is not received.
If you have any questions about the new changes, please email
As a reminder you can apply for Bonds via the site Lawyers Mutual Insurance Agency, LLC | Bond Page.
New Year’s Resolution-Make Time for Your 30-Minute Checkup!
Start the new year off right by doing your 30-Minute Malpractice Checkup. By using this tool and taking the test, you will gain a better understanding of some of the pitfalls that attorneys can fall into and discover what actions may need to be taken for a healthier practice for the new year and beyond. LMICK also offers an On-Demand CLE, “It’s Time for Your Annual Check-Up”, for its policyholders. This session discusses issues related to communication (SCR 3.130(1.4)), fees (SCR 3.130(1.5, 1.15)), supervision (SCR 3.130(5.1-5.3)), and conflicts (SCR 3.30(1.7-1.11, 1.13). Remember to keep both yourself and your firm healthy!
Questions? Contact
Lawyer Well-Being
Can AI Improve Attorney Well-Being?
Yes! Using AI to enhance attorney well-being can offer a variety of benefits, to include reducing stress, improving work-life balance, and increasing overall job satisfaction. According to the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism’s November 1, 2024 online article, Poor Lawyer Well-being May Cost Firms Up to $33M, Survey Says, “The Survey found that almost one in five lawyers said work harms their mental health, and almost 19% of their time at work is negatively affected by poor mental health.”[2] The article provides that “These challenges can lead to law firms losing $33,336,720 annually, or just over 10% of staffing costs – an increase of about 0.5% from 2023.”
Here are five ideas for integrating AI into a legal practice to benefit attorney well-being:
1. Automating Routine Tasks
Document Drafting & Review: AI tools can help attorneys automate the drafting of standard contracts, agreements, and other documents. This saves time and can reduce the repetitive nature of legal work and help prevent burnout.
2. Time Management Assistance
Task Prioritization: AI can help lawyers prioritize tasks by deadlines, complexity, or importance, reducing the mental load of juggling multiple deadlines and commitments.
3. Mental Health Support
AI-Powered Wellness Apps: AI can support mental health through apps that guide mindfulness, meditation, or stress reduction techniques, which can be personalized based on personal information input into the app, like workload or mood.
4. Client Communication and Interaction
Client Relationship Management (CRM): CRM software uses AI technology and can help manage client relationships by tracking interactions, reminding attorneys of follow-ups, and keeping communication organized, allowing for smoother interactions and reducing anxiety about missing important client needs.
5. Work-Life Balance
AI for Scheduling: AI-powered scheduling assistants can help attorneys maintain a healthier work-life balance by automatically scheduling and optimizing meetings and deadlines around personal time.
By leveraging AI in these areas (as well as others), law firms and individual attorneys can improve efficiency, reduce stress, enhance their mental well-being, and foster a better work-life balance.
Questions? Contact
Know That Help is Always Available
If you are struggling with grief, sadness, anxiety, or any other emotion or stressor that is negatively impacting your daily life, please reach out for help. All Kentucky lawyers are eligible for four free visits with a mental health professional through the Kentucky Lawyers Assistance Program. For more information about the variety of confidential resources KYLAP offers, please visit www.KYLAP.org.
Upcoming Events
We look forward to seeing you!
We are proud to support the organizations that support you and your work! We will be out and about this spring, leading CLEs and sponsoring events. We hope you can join us at one of these currently scheduled events (and make sure to come say hello)!
Jan 24: New Lawyer Program, Louisville
Feb. 6: KBF Dinner, Bowling Green
Feb. 22: Polar Bear Plunge, Louisville
Feb. 28: Barren Co. Bar Association, Glasgow
We want to hear from you! Have a CLE topic you would like to see? Send suggestions to
Need a CLE Speaker? We would love to speak to your group! You can check out our updated list of available topics and request to schedule, here.