USING “AI” FOR YOUR LEGAL CLAIMS Please No!

Our office has been consulted too often about court cases that people try to handle by themselves using AI or “Google” directions and documents. The results we must warn you about have been sometimes devastating. There is a reason this is so, and frankly it is the fault of the companies and the media who oversell these programs so ordinary folk have no reason to avoid the sink-holes and traps. True stories:

Story I:

Consider the older lady, supporting a spouse after a stroke and working in a poorly paying career, who is struck by a driver who ran a stoplight. A simple motor vehicle accident. But they had just changed insurance companies, and the new one claimed her policy didn’t take effect until the next day. A claim against the bad driver policy was denied because.... well because that is what insurance companies do to unrepresented claimants. But, on his own, the bad driver brought a suit in the Associate Court. Without talking to an attorney, this lady believed the hype and went to Google and their “AI” to advise her and draft her legal documents. Frankly, “AI” got parts of this right, but the parts it got wrong resulted in a verdict for a large sum of money against her. She appeared pro-se (on her own) in Court for a trial, and because of the online advice, she had no idea that she could or should object to completely false and improper evidence that was submitted. Among other things, the bad driver gave the court a police report which was drawn up later by an officer who was not there, and it had a glaring mistake- suggesting it was the victim’s fault for not paying attention. With no legal objection, the court had no choice but to rule against her. Shocked, she went to the police station immediately, and the officer promptly recognized his mistake and issued a corrected report blaming the bad driver. But then, “AI” told her to file an appeal. Google told her how. The “AI” program wrote her appeal papers. They were wrong. AI wrote them wrong again. The appeal was rejected and she is left alone with huge debt to the very person that wrecked her car. For NO good reason.

Any attorney would have known how to handle hearsay report and un-supported evidence. Almost any attorney would have spotted the false information. Almost any attorney would have known that she needed to file a post-trial motion within 30 days, and that filing an appeal instantly deprived the trial judge from being able to do anything. But AI and “Google” did not know this. BUT THESE PROGRAMS ACTED LIKE THEY KNEW WHAT TO DO. This is a trap. You only avoid a trap by not walking into it.

I am begging people to know the limits of computer programs. You can use them to research and learn about the law or many technical things. You should not use them to tell you how to handle your own legal matters in court, like you should not use them to tell you how to perform your own appendectomy. Seriously, try this: Ask your chosen “AI” program to give you step by step instructions to take out your own appendix. Almost all of them will give you a response that they cannot do so, because this could cause life-threatening injury. But ask the same program for step by step instructions to handle your legal case or even an appeal, and they shoot out ideas like it is nothing at all, even though this can cause ruin to you. Some things cannot be undone.

More real stories to come...