When you retain an attorney, you want their legal expertise. You likely also want to try to keep your legal fees and costs to a reasonable amount. With the availability of AI, many clients are now turning to AI to try to “help” their lawyer to try to keep their attorney fees down. Unfortunately for the client, this self-help AI is actually creating more in attorney fees in many divorce and family law cases.
AI Communications with Your Attorney
In a divorce or custody case, the attorney is likely to communicate with the client via e-mail. This may include sharing copies of court documents or status updates about the case. It might also include requests for certain information or for clarification.
When reviewing and responding to your attorney, AI is fine to use as a first draft to acknowledge the communication or to help create a response. However, AI isn’t a substitute for your true response. Your attorney doesn’t want to know AI’s thoughts or preferences. Your attorney isn’t checking to make sure AI understands the process and the next steps. The attorney wants your real answers and real understanding. The attorney wants to know what you want for your case and for you to respond with any questions that you may have. Sometimes clients rely too much on AI in reviewing and responding to messages. It can create a false impression as to the client’s understanding and the client’s wants. Especially if the AI response is longer or more detailed than the client’s true response, the attorney may also have to spend more time reading through and trying to interpret and respond further to the client, when it is really just the AI’s response. Especially if the AI’s statements are not accurate in some way or go off topic (which is not uncommon), the attorney might feel the need to address things or clarify things that are not really relevant to the case or really a true question of the client.
If you want to keep costs down, you can use AI but make sure it is truly you reading and writing your responses.
Discovery
Especially in a divorce case, the discovery process can be one of the most annoying and time-consuming parts of the case for the client. Part of the discovery process may require each party to provide their financial information and documentation and also answer questions asked by the other party. The client may be requested by their attorney to provide statements from all the financials accounts, including bank accounts, retirement accounts, and credit card statements. The client is also often asked to answer certain questions related to their employment, earnings, or the children.
Most of the questions will need to be answered. However, at times there are questions that do not need to be answered or not need to be answered fully. Sometimes you can object to answering certain questions.
Sometimes a client does not want to answer a question or provide documents that their own attorney is asking them to provide. Clients have taken to AI to help generate their own objections and refuse to provide information that the attorney is requesting and that the Court is likely to compel the client to provide.
For example, a client is requested by the other party to provide their last twelve months of paystubs at their employment. The client does not want to provide these, knowing that their pay information shows a substantial increase in earnings likely to lead to the Court increasing the child support. The client asks AI to create an objection to providing the paystubs instead of providing the paystubs that their attorneys asked the client to provide. The AI generates a response refusing to provide the paystubs and instead suggests that the other party has to obtain the pay information from an alternative manner, such as from tax documents or direct employment verification.
Now the attorney gets the client’s AI response and knows that the Judge will require the paystubs to be provided. It is not a close call, the Judge will require the last 12 months of paystubs to help determine the child support and that is why the attorney told the client to provide them. Although what AI said sounds good on paper, if the attorney actually makes this objection, it is not likely to turn out well for the client. Instead, it is likely to result in a request to compel from the other party, the judge being annoyed for having to hear a compel request that the Judge will so obviously grant, and attorney fees being awarded to be paid by the client that refused since the objection had no real merit in the eyes of the Judge. The whole process would also be delayed and the attorney would also have to spend time preparing and defending against an objection that would ultimately be found to be frivolous. As the attorney is trying to protect the client, the attorney has to now spend the time explaining to the client why the objection is not really a valid objection in their case and that the greater likelihood of the potential consequences outweighs trying to make some objection that the Court is likely to overrule as frivolous. While the client thought AI was helping their attorney really fight for them, instead it just created a delay and more in legal fees.
Also, clients disclose information to AI programs that can put the client’s security at risk. Public AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, can store and log your information and could use the information, such as for training purposes. You should never share your personal data, financial details, medical records, or other sensitive information and documents with these platforms. If you are going to share specifics with an AI program you need to first invest in a platform that has security guarantees and prevents your information from being seeing by others.
While AI can be a helpful tool in helping you work on discovery responses, do not share information with unsecure platforms and do not ask AI to generate legal responses. You can use it as a first draft of your factual response, but don’t try to have it create novel legal arguments for you.
AI is Trying to Find the Answer to YOUR Question, not THE Answer
Keep in mind that most AI programs are searching the internet or databases to try to find the answer to the question you asked. Most systems are designed to try to find the answer that you are looking for. Thus, the response you get from an AI program can depend heavily on how you asked your question. You may get a very different response to something that actually has a factual answer depending on how you asked the question to AI. There are many comical examples online of AI answering nonsense due to how the question was asked, even to factual questions.
Also, keep in mind that some AI programs pull their responses from highly unreliable sources, especially for legal matters. If you ask AI a legal question, you could get a response that was generated from a bunch of random people on Reddit that discussed the topic in detail, even though they were completely wrong in their understanding of the legal issue.
AI-Drafting Legal Documents
If you saw something while online or using AI and you want to present the idea to your attorney, you should do so. Your attorney can discuss with you whether it is a plausible argument or another option for you to consider. However, don’t go overboard with this. Attorneys are now starting to receive many pages of documents to review from the client that the client created with AI and presents as a suggested draft for a motion or argument. Rarely is this useful. It is very common for AI to generate drafts in formats that might work in another Court but are wholly inappropriate under your court’s procedural rules. Further, often AI generates answers that apply only to a different area of the law or under another state’s jurisdiction. Even worse, it frequently starts combining the rules of different areas of the law and different jurisdictions. Often, in short, it creates a document or argument that is not really useful and is just a mess. The attorney now has to spend time reviewing documents that have no real use and spending time and attorney fees educating the client on how the laws cited do not really have anything to do with their case or their circumstances.
Judges are also now increasingly seeing motions and hearing arguments that are essentially nonsense that those without attorneys (called being pro se) are creating with AI. The Court has the authority to sanction those who waste the Court’s time with frivolous motions, including financial penalties like attorney fees being awarded to the other party. The pro se person also loses credibility with the Judge and hurts their odds in their case. While the pro se person may think their motion or argument created with AI looks great and will help their case, they are actually hurting their odds when Judge is struggling to find the real merits of their case hidden under the AI slop.
While AI is a useful tool for first drafts and ideas, it is not there at this time to be a substitute for real legal representation. Be careful with your use of AI so that you do not hurt your case or increase your costs through overreliance on it.
Law Office of Julie Fowler, PC, LLO
Trusted Family Law Attorney in Omaha, Nebraska
Facing a divorce, child custody dispute, or child support matter in Omaha? You don’t have to navigate family law alone. Whether you need an Omaha divorce attorney, an Omaha child custody attorney, or comprehensive family law representation, our experienced team is here to protect your rights and your family’s future.