Can You Rely on A.I. to Prepare Your Legal Motion or Petition?
It’s becoming increasingly common for self-represented litigants to use A.I. when preparing legal documents. This is an understandable trend, as self-represented litigants are often juggling full-time jobs and families, all while trying to keep up with court-ordered deadlines that can have a serious impact on their lives. A.I., moreover, brings the alluring promise of rapidly bringing together all the legal knowledge of the internet and customizing it to your fact-specific situation.
A.I., however, in its current state, fails to uphold this promise, and more often than not, produces a rote document that is obviously drafted by an algorithm and not the human behind it. Especially in areas of the law like family law, where the judge in each case is already attempting to read through the legalese to understand the motivations and behavioral patterns of the individuals before them, A.I. serves to further mask the human and cause more suspicions instead of alleviating them.
To fully understand the harm that an A.I. produced document can have on your case, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the judge. Everyday, a judge has dozens of cases, each one with opposing parties attempting to convince the judge that their perspective of the case is the right one. This adversarial process, necessarily, includes an element of spin, where each side cherry picks the facts that support their position, and minimizes the facts that support the other side.
An effective attorney can do this in an authentic manner, highlighting the positives of their case while explaining away the negatives. Self-represented litigants are already at a disadvantage, because the courts are inclined to believe the authenticity (a.k.a. credibility) of an attorney, who is not directly impacted by the outcome of the case, over the self-represented individual who has something to lose and more reason to lie. Attorneys often have multiple cases before a single judge and won’t be willing to risk their reputation by deceiving the court on an individual case. The same dynamic does not apply to the self-represented litigant.
This makes the job of the self-represented litigant especially difficult. One slip up could lead the court to turn against you. Again, the court is already wired, given your inherent bias to want to win the case, to believe that you are going to mislead the court regarding the facts of the case. To avoid this fate, it requires incredible care with how you approach the court. You have to be extra respectful and extra careful with how you present the facts favorable to your case, and the facts unfavorable to your case.
While A.I. allows you to save a substantial amount of time producing what might appear, on its face, to be a tailored legal document, it removes you from the equation. In doing so, it removes the thoughtfulness and attention to detail that is ultimately going to be necessary for you to prevail in your case. It is the process of thinking though the individual facts in your case, the timeline and history of what occurred, that allows you to reflect on what occurred, prepare in a deeper way for your upcoming court date, and thereafter find the tone and approach that will most allow you to succeed.
Self-reflection is something that, in its current state, an A.I. algorithm is incapable of performing. It’s really beside the point too, as that self-reflection is going to need to come from you in any case. It’s your prior actions under scrutiny, and your rights on the line.
