Risks of using AI for legal help

Using AI to understand legal issues, know court deadlines, and draft court documents can be risky and do more harm than good. The 2 main risks of using AI are: 

• AI can be wrong, but over-confident.
• AI is not confidential.

AI can be wrong, but over-confident.

AI tools often sound confident, persuasive, and emotionally understanding of your legal issue. However, AI programs often make up facts or case citations, mistake court deadlines and other rules, and mix up fake quotes with real ones. These fake answers are called “hallucinations.”

Many AI responses will agree with you or flatter you, rather than give you a true statement about the law or how a judge is likely to rule in your case.

Everything AI says must be fact checked to confirm that the case, law, or regulation it cites really says what AI says it does. 

If you file a document with a court that has incorrect facts or case citations, the judge will hold you, not AI, responsible and it could harm your case. Filing a document with a court that has incorrect facts or cases could lead the judge to not believe you or even sanction you.

AI is not confidential

Most AI programs are operated by private companies that may save any information you type into the chatbot. The private information you give it could be seen by the company’s employees, or used to train other AI programs.

Even though AI programs may feel private and like a one-to-one conversation, any information you give them could be saved, and shared, even if you delete it on your computer.

Some AI tools also interact with other software on your computer, like a web browser, which is another way your private information can be leaked.

Unlike talking with a lawyer, counselor, or other advocate, AI companies do not have an ethical duty of confidentiality with you. Any very personal information about your case or identifying information (names, addresses, personal data) should not be shared with AI as you would with a lawyer or counselor. If you wouldn’t share it with a stranger or in public, you shouldn’t share it with AI.

Be careful using AI to look up deadlines, forms, laws, and court rules.

Washington’s court system is not unified, which means the rules, deadlines, and forms vary from county to county. And Washington’s statutes, case law, and court rules will vary widely from any other state. 

Sometimes AI will properly cite a law, give you a form, or say the correct deadline. However, sometimes it will confidently state an incorrect, outdated, or misinterpreted fact.

Example: You live in a mobile home park and rent a mobile home and lot space from the park owner. The park owner gives you an eviction notice. You ask AI how to respond. The AI program incorrectly tells you about your rights under the Manufactured / Mobile Home Landlord-Tenant Act, but that law only applies to people who own their mobile home in a park and do not rent it. You rely on the AI advice, and end up getting evicted.

Be especially careful using AI to look up deadlines. AI may not recognize an emergency deadline in an urgent case like eviction or foreclosure, protection orders, child custody emergencies, or immediate hearing dates. The court system runs on very tight deadlines to file, respond, show up, or appeal, and in many cases if you miss the deadline by even one day, your case can be lost. Rules often change too. AI may not know the latest deadline in your local court but state an incorrect deadline. 

Always check a primary source (like the county superior court’s website) to confirm deadlines, forms, and rules in your case. And if you can, try to get legal help.

Be careful using AI to draft declarations and other court documents.

Sometimes people use AI to make a first draft, organize their thoughts, or improve the tone of their writing. In some cases, AI can help make your writing shorter, or more organized and easy to read. 

However, sometimes AI will include harmful admissions that may be used against you. For example, AI may draft a sentence like “I agree I owed the money at some point, but…” which a debt collector may use against you as a statement admitting you owed the debt.

AI may also leave out key facts that support your argument, because it does not recognize how important they are.

Example: You are served with a Complaint and Summons starting a lawsuit against you. You ask an AI program how to respond. The AI program gives you a document that looks professional and sounds confident, but leaves out important defenses you could have raised and makes up some court case citations. You submit it to the court and lose the case and have to pay money to the person suing you.

Looks can be deceiving. AI documents may look professionally written and formatted, but they can sometimes ask for relief the court cannot grant, use the wrong legal standard, or fail to include facts or supporting evidence.

In all cases, you should carefully read anything you submit to a court and make sure everything is true, accurate, complete, and does not accidentally harm your case.

AI cannot give you legal advice.

A lawyer is required to use legal reasoning and apply the specific facts in your case to tell you legal options and advise you about how to meet your goals.

AI cannot think in this same way about your unique situation. AI can only give you information, not advice. And sometimes AI will give you misinformation.

AI cannot interview you to understand all the facts, identify risks and weaknesses in your argument, explain different strategies and their pros and cons, or tell you when not to file something like a lawyer in a confidential relationship with you can.

If you have an urgent deadline or emergency legal issue, try to get legal help.