They say that there are only two things that are inevitable:  death and taxes.  There is a third:  Lawyers are expensive.  That is just a fact of life and because of that, there is a temptation to represent yourself in court.

The truth is that you have an absolute right to represent yourself in court; it is called being “pro se”.  There are times when acting pro se makes a lot of sense, especially when it is a relatively simple matter, with no opposing sides, that is transactional in nature, and that is largely forms driven.  The court system has always allowed people to represent themselves, usually providing free law libraries for legal research and generous waivers of some deadlines or fees.

Now AI has entered the scene.  Instead of wading through dozens of law books for hours at the library, now you can ask your favorite AI to generate a legal brief for you in a matter of seconds.  I am a Bankruptcy lawyer, so at this point, you might be thinking I'm writing this because I'm worried about being put out of work.  Lawyers will definitely have to adjust how they do business with AI, but this is more of a warning for those who want to use AI to represent themselves but don't understand how it really works or how it will be applied in the court system.

Let's say that you filed for Bankruptcy without an attorney and the Chapter 7 Trustee has decided to object to how you exempted your property, and if you don't respond she might try to sell your house.   This sounds like a perfect job for AI.  You put in all the prompts and ask it to generate a response that favors you.  In a few moments, you get a smartly worded brief that looks and sounds professional.  It even has loads of case law that show that the Trustee's position is wrong.  Let's even say that you go the extra mile and search for that case law on Google…and guess what?  The case exists.

So, you submit your brief and think that everything is going to be fine.  Then you go to court.  The Judge asks you, did you use AI to generate this legal brief?  You are in a tough spot.  The way the question is asked is accusatory, and you might be tempted to say “no”. 

First bit of advice.  When a Judge asks you a direct question:  Never lie.  If you lie and say “no, your Honor, I drafted this myself” and it turns out that there are things in your brief that are wrong, you have nobody to blame but yourself.  So, if you get asked whether you used AI, be honest and say “yes” …at a minimum, if there are errors, you can blame it on the AI.

And here is where the problem comes in.  AI is very powerful but all the models have been programmed to satisfy the end user (you)…even if that means it needs to fake information, or downright lie.  In fact, these days, nearly every Bar Association magazine has an article about a lazy attorney that got caught using AI and the case citations or quotes were fake.  They didn't do this on purpose, and I'm not saying that you would to this on purpose, but AI generates such high-quality material that most people never take the time to check its work.

Because AI was designed to please you, and you gave it a problem (fix my Bankruptcy Court issue with the Trustee), it will do that, even if it means that it has to fake the result.  We are still getting used to this, but the term “AI generated hallucinations” is being used for case law and quotations that are invented by AI to fit your circumstances.  Oftentimes, AI will do the research, but when it doesn't find anything that works for you, it looks for real cases (that don't have anything to do with your case), then it invents quotes from those cases (that don't exist) that miraculously resolve your issue.  It looks professional but it is a total lie.

Bankruptcy law and divorce law are two areas where a lot of people want to proceed pro se because they can't afford an attorney.  There is nothing wrong with that.  But if you use AI, and it generates something that looks very slick, you need to verify that everything it is saying is true, because it is well known that AI will fake results if it thinks that is what you want to hear.

Finally, let's discuss the worst part of all of this.  Many frustrated Judges have resorted to telling people to hire and attorney, or at least pay an attorney to review your pleadings before they are filed with the court.  This is a dirty little secret; even if you are willing to pay, most attorneys do not want to take on a case that already has credibility problems with the Judge, so not only did AI screw up your credibility with the Judge, it also makes it highly probable that an attorney won't take your case, even you are willing to pay them at this point.

AI isn't going anywhere.  It will be a fact of our lives.  I am not even saying not to use it, but remember that AI doesn't care about facts or the truth; it wants to please you, so you need to verify everything before submitting it to a court.  If AI submits a quote from a case, unless you read that exact same quote from that case generated by an independent and trustworthy source, I wouldn't rely upon it. 

As Cervantes said, being forewarned is being forearmed.