Wade Ballou pointed to a scarred wooden table in his office.

“Let me give you a warning about this table. Apparently the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 was written about this. I had my legs raised a little, but it’s still a little low. Watch your knees and all that.

His tenure doesn’t go back that far, but for more than 40 years, Ballou worked for the House Office of the Legislative Counsel, which helps draft bills for members of Congress.

“This is all legal work. We maintain attorney-client privilege and are nonpartisan, so we work for everyone,” he said.

Handling bills large and small, he has seen the drafting process evolve over the decades. He progressed from intern to tax expert to office manager, a role he assumed in 2016.

Now he’s heading towards retirementand Ballou spoke with Roll Call in October, after making the announcement. He said he was ready to spend more time with his grandchildren and had some thoughts about the future, including the promise and dangers of AI.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Q: Can you describe what the office does?

A: We receive requests from MPs regarding bills, resolutions, amendments and, in our discussions with them, we seek to understand what they really want to do. What is the problem they are trying to solve and what is their political solution?

Then we give them advice on how their solution will relate to the law, what we find in our research, raise additional questions, provide a draft, and essentially come to an agreement with them on the question of know whether or not the project reflects their policy.

Q: How did you get your first job here?

A: I studied law at UVA, was engaged, and my current wife lived here in Northern Virginia. So I was just signing up for interviews with everyone, and one day I got a note in my mailbox saying, “You have an interview with the legislative counsel.” And I said, “Who?”

Basically, I went into the interview blind and was intrigued. It’s a different way of doing law. I was signing up for companies, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was a wildland firefighter in college, and my father was a judge and had been in the Navy, so we were a public service-oriented family. And I was intrigued by the possibility of blending law and public service in a way I had never imagined before.

Q: What topics have you worked on over the years?

A: I was fortunate to be involved in almost every tax bill from 1996 until about 2017, and then a number of major health care bills even before that.

One of the things we say in tax, when something finally comes together and we send it out, we look at each other and say, “I hope this works.” This does not need to become law. It’s not our responsibility. So it may not pass, it may be vetoed, but the fact that we put together what the members wanted and it works as well as we can make it work in the time allotted, that’s is for me a real feeling of accomplishment.

Q: How have you seen the office evolve over time?

A: Probably the biggest one is computers. When I arrived, there was a central computer and terminals available to our clerks. I would write by hand what I wanted, or I would dictate, and the process was slower, more thoughtful. The high cost of changes meant that the changes were more deliberate.

Q: There’s now talk about AI potentially changing the way Congress writes laws. What do you think?

A: I’m the wet blanket at the party. How do you use something like this responsibly? Because as lawyers we have an ethical obligation to actually know what we are working on and to advise our clients, the members, accordingly.

That said, AI is a tool and, like any other tool, we can use it responsibly. In fact, we already have it in the House with the Comparative Print Suite.

Stepping back a bit, the Standing Orders require that whenever a committee introduces a bill, it must include in its report a statement showing how the bill changes current law. This requirement is known as Ramseyer in the House, after Congressman Ramseyer, who got it passed into law in 1929.

Fast forward to (several years ago), and there was a change in the House rules that began to expand this requirement. We had already developed a tool that allowed us to prepare Ramseyers electronically, and it was actually quite good at the time, getting about 70-80% accuracy, but then required an expert to review and add what ‘he was missing. So we transformed this tool and had to completely redo it (using natural language processing).

Today, the tool is in the 90s in terms of accuracy. It shows how a bill would change current law, how an amendment would change a bill, and a more robust bill-to-bill comparison than you’d get just using Microsoft Word. And it’s a kind of AI that doesn’t hallucinate.

Q: So it seems that you are comfortable using AI to compare legislation. But what about its writing?

A: We had a conference a few weeks ago with the Organization of American States. It was all about AI in the legislation, and (in one exercise, we) just inserted some prompts and said, “Hey, give me a bill that does this.” And I immediately went to the end, and it was providing regulations, and it was pretty good, except it didn’t address recent Supreme Court cases. So it’s interesting, but from a legal point of view, it’s really insufficient, right? There is a long way to go.