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Hi everyone, I’m Dr. Michael Mantell with another Family Law Matters. Always privileged to be joining Bonnie Rabinovitch-Mantel, the owner and the managing partner of the very famed Primus Family Law Group. Hi Bonnie.
Michael, how are you doing in this lovely San Diego? Beautiful, beautiful day today and thank goodness we’re doing well. So Bonnie, one thing we need to tell our audience is that this is real. This is not AI, right? This is not AI.
You are not a bot and I am not a bot. No, I’m not. We are real people.
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Unfortunately, many people more and more are turning to AI, whether the chat thing or whatever the linear perplexity, there are a million of them out there and they’re using them for everything in the world including, sadly, writing their own legal cases and defense and so forth and so on. What’s your experience with that in family law? You know Michael, I mean it’s a new concept and we’re all kind of dabbling in it because it is, it can be an excellent tool and like every tool you have to properly manage that tool and what we’ve noticed is people who are on, you know, who are representing themselves, they’re taking using these AI tools to draft their pleadings and to draft their points and authorities and for those out there who don’t know what that means, points and authorities is your law and your argument about why you should get what you want in this case and the law is based on codes in family court in California and San Diego and the case law that applies to San Diego and California and what we’re noticing because we’re all playing with it and seeing if it will work or help us is that sometimes when AI can’t find an answer, it will create one and I’m not kidding, Michael, but people are drafting pleadings and not necessarily verifying the sources and submitting documentation that have made up case laws. What happens when they do that? What’s the pushback? The problem is now you’ve got a judicial officer who knows that you did not draft this, you’re perpetrating a little bit of a fraud on the court and it destroys your credibility in court.
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Give us some tips on what people can do if they do want to use AI because I mean, everyone’s using it for something or other. What should they do? Well, you’ve got to read it all the way through and make sure, first of all, it sounds like you would say it. We all speak differently, so it’s really got to come from you.
Second, you have to verify your sources. Remember, if you’re representing yourself, you are treated as if you are an attorney. You are held to the same standard.
You are not given any special grace because you don’t have an attorney, so you better verify your sources. If you don’t have the tools because those always take other tools to verify, it would probably behoove you to at least have an attorney look at it. The cost for having an attorney spend an hour to look at your documents and make sure they’re appropriate is a lot less than losing your credibility with the court.
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How can people verify? I mean, obviously, the initial prompt is write this in my own voice, but then you’re saying people should verify this. Where do they go to verify the points and the law and all that? You can go online. There are many online tools.
The California Family Code, you can Google the code that’s being cited and see if it exists. If it doesn’t exist, it’s not coming up. The same thing with the case law.
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You can Google it and see if it exists. Sometimes Google may not give you the whole case or the accurate holding of the case because that’s another thing, Michael. You may say case A says that you should do X, Y, and Z. Unfortunately, when you read case A, it has nothing to do with X, Y, and Z. You’ve got to make sure that what you’re saying it says is what it actually says.
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Got it. That’s why we attorneys go to school and spend an inordinate amount of sleepless nights reading this stuff. If someone comes to you and says, hey, I did this through the AI.
I want you to go over it for me. You spend an hour or so doing that and tell them, yes, it looks good or no, change this, this, and this. They are billed for your time for that.
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Yes. Obviously, we do work that way. There are many consulting attorneys out there who will be glad to give you an independent review of what you are submitting.
It makes sense to even consider spending that money, whatever it is, to make sure you are credible in court. It would also be a really good idea to read the cases that you put in your pleadings because judges ask questions. They’re entitled to say, what does that case mean? If you don’t know, blah.
You don’t have time to put in chat GPT, what does this mean? Right. Hold on, your honor. You got to really know what you’re doing a little bit.
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Bonnie, if people have questions about this and they want to talk to you about AI and putting together documents, how can they be in touch with you? They can reach me directly at 619-574-8000. You will be put on my calendar for a free 30-minute telephone or Zoom consultation, or you can reach us online at www.PrimusFamilyLaw.com.