Recently, there’s been much discussion in legal circles about clients and self represented parties using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to do research or prepare pleadings for court. The legal profession has been forming rules and case law around the abuses of these technologies who frequently will produce what’s called hallucinations — hallucinations are when AI simply makes up stuff. It takes incorrect data it collects from the Internet or other sources and produces confidently the completely wrong answer that sounds really right. Unfortunately, a few lawyers nation wide have been caught up in controversy when submitting these hallucinations to the Court and being caught cheating, basically.
Example:
California Issues Historic Fine Over Lawyer’s ChatGPT Fabrications
If you are representing yourself in court and you use AI without independent and proper verification you can also face significant problems with your case and the undermining of your credibility.
As a client, you have a right to know if your lawyer is using AI if you ask, but at this point a lawyer doesn’t have an affirmative obligation to inform you without being asked. Our policy is to use AI as a jumping off point upon occasion, but all AI generated data is independently verified the old fashioned way, and any writing produced by our firm will be written by humans. The ONE exception is that sometimes marketing materials are crafted by AI (not this article I am sitting here writing this myself!).
Another issue that arises is when clients produce AI documents to respond to their matters and expect we lawyers to use them as is to save them money. No, we can’t do that. We have to independently verify and do our own work in order to protect you. Although you have every right to do your own research any way you like, you may actually be adding to your bill presenting data that’s incorrect that your lawyer then has to research and explain to you why it can’t be used. Best to let your lawyer do the work that they went to school to do!
AI is an evolving technology, as are the ethics around it. As times change, we will change with them. But we will continue to present the highest quality work possible for you using technology appropriately!