AI companies claim their chatbots will help you with your professional and personal tasks but relying on these systems for something as sensitive as legal advice can have disastrous consequences. That’s because the features that make AI chatbots useful are what can make them dangerous in a legal context. They are also far from perfect and rely heavily on the competence of the user to provide accurate results.
If you’re considering using an AI Lawyer in place of a human personal injury attorney, read this article for the pitfalls to be aware of when using AI chatbots for legal help
When AI Legal Help Steers You Wrong, A Real-Life Example
In January 2024, Graciela Dela Torre and her human attorneys settled her long-term disability claim against Nippon Life. As part of the settlement process, she signed a release that waived her right to submit further claims against Nippon Life. But a year later, Dela Torre felt unsatisfied by her settlement and reached out to her attorneys to see if there was anything they could do. The human attorneys responded that nothing had been omitted nor had any errors been made in her previous claim, and that her settlement agreement prohibited her from pursuing any further claims from Nippon Life.
Dela Torre then uploaded her correspondence with her human attorneys to ChatGPT and asked if she’d been “gaslighted”. ChatGPT responded by affirming her assumption and proceeded to help her draft motions to reopen her original case and file a new one, all of which were quashed in court. In total, Nippon Life alleges she filed at least 44 motions with the help of ChatGPT, one of which included a case that had been completely made up. This ordeal prompted Nippon Life to sue OpenAI.1
The Mistakes Dela Torre Made in Using AI Legal Help
Dela Torre was unhappy with her situation and wanted help understanding if there was anything she could do about it. It’s understandable why she turned to ChatGPT for a second opinion. But here are the mistakes she made in doing so:
- The original prompt she used told ChatGPT how she wanted the chatbot to respond. Research shows that AI chatbots are programmed to tell you what you want to hear, not the truth.2 By asking ChatGPT whether she was “gaslighted” in her prompt, she told the chatbot that’s what she wanted affirmed.
- She either didn’t check for ChatGPT’s accuracy, or she ignored its errors. AI chatbots are still known to hallucinate information,3 meaning they can make up facts, dates, and in the instance, case law. You must check the accuracy of the information they give you before you can rely on it.
- She fired her human attorneys and represented herself while relying completely on AI for legal help.
This is only one of many examples of claimants misusing AI chatbots for sensitive legal advice and help and putting themselves in dire legal straights because of it.
Where AI Legal Help Consistently Falls Short
One major drawback to using an AI tool to help you with your legal case is that AI is only as good as the information it’s been given (i.e. its training), and the prompts you enter. There are also privacy concerns (which can negatively affect your legal case), and perhaps the biggest drawback to an AI lawyer is that it can’t represent you in court. In this section we’ll walk you through AI’s limitations when it comes to helping you with your legal case.
How Chaffin Luhana Can Help
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An AI Lawyer Doesn’t Know What It Doesn’t Know
Every personal injury case has nuances that can affect the compensation you’re able to recover, who can be held responsible, and how the case is tried. These are often nuances that are understood only after years of experience and are easy for the average person to miss. For example, you might not know that your medical history prior to the accident is relevant to your case, so you don’t add it to the AI tool. The AI tool thinks it has the whole picture of the legal case, but in reality, it has incomplete information.
“Unfortunately, we frequently see AI chatbots tell clients they can get settlements that are 10 times higher than what the law allows. This can lead clients to make decisions that ultimately hurt their claim,” said Patrick Booth, a Partner at Chaffin Luhana.
A personal injury attorney with years of experience will know what follow-up questions to ask you to ensure they have the complete picture of your case. This allows them to give you sound legal advice you can rely on.
AI Chatbots Are Untrained in Providing Legal Help
General purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT are untrained in researching, reading and interpreting case law. Because of this lack of training, they can pull case law that doesn’t apply to your case or interpret it in a way that isn’t legally sound. It can also hallucinate case law like in the case of Dela Torre which can result in fines or worse, dismissal of your case.
An AI Lawyer Can’t Negotiate with Insurance Companies or Appear in Court
Insurance companies have teams of adjusters and lawyers whose job is to pay out as little as possible. Negotiating with them takes experience, leverage, and knowing which cases they’ve handled before. A chatbot doesn’t have access to the necessary information or experience.
Most personal injury cases are settled before they go to court. But sometimes it’s necessary to file a case. If that happens, you’ll either need to hire legal representation, or you’ll have to represent yourself because an AI chatbot can’t represent you in court.
AI Tools Can’t Guarantee the Accuracy of Their Answers
If you look at the bottom of the AI-generated answers, you’ll see a disclaimer that alerts you to possible errors. AI tools are known to get things wrong like mixing up the rules between states or citing outdated case law. They can even fabricate case law with dire consequences. Without experience, it can be difficult for the average person to spot the errors that AI makes. These errors can lead you to make costly mistakes in your case.
An AI Lawyer Doesn’t Have Good Judgment That’s Been Built on Experience
A skilled personal injury attorney has seen hundreds of cases like yours. They know how a specific insurance company tends to respond, what a case is realistically worth, and when to hold firm versus when to settle. That judgment comes from years of real experience and can’t be found in a database of internet text.
AI Tools Don’t Protect Your Privacy
When you hire an attorney, any information you give them is protected by attorney-client privilege. Information submitted through AI tools generally doesn’t have the same privacy protections. In some cases, this information could potentially become discoverable. For example, cases involving serious injuries require reviewing sensitive medical information. But if you upload this information to an AI tool, you might not have control over who can access it. This can have negative consequences for your case.
Why You Need a Real Personal Injury Attorney
When you’ve been seriously injured, your life is turned upside down. But AI can’t sit with you and listen to what that’s been like. It can’t feel the weight of a diagnosis, a lost job, or a family struggling to adjust, and factor that into how to frame your claim. A real personal injury attorney can.
In addition to providing emotional support, a real personal injury attorney and their team support you by doing the legwork to ensure evidence and other documentation is preserved so that you have the strongest case possible. Tasks that a legal team like Chaffin Luhana perform that AI can’t include:
- Working directly with your doctors to collect documentation on your injuries, symptoms, and needed medical treatment both presently and in the future.
- Gathering physical evidence from the scene of car crashes, workplace injuries, and more.
- Negotiating with insurance companies on your behalf so you can focus on healing.
- Representing you in mediation or court proceedings.
- Connecting you with community resources that help you navigate this time.
When to Contact an Experienced Personal Injury Attorney
If you or a loved one experienced a serious injury or abuse or received a diagnosis after exposure to a chemical or a dangerous product, you should reach out to a personal injury attorney as soon as possible. You want to make sure you meet important deadlines and preserve crucial evidence.
Only an experienced personal injury attorney can do the research to get an accurate picture of your situation and give you the best legal advice.
You don’t have to figure this out alone, and you shouldn’t have to base a decision this important on a chatbot’s best guess. At Chaffin Luhana, we’ll listen to what happened, answer your questions honestly, and help you understand your options in plain language.