The Paletz Law Blog

AI Stands for Artificial, Not Attorney Intelligence

March 10th, 2025 | By: Matthew I. Paletz, Esq & John M. Mione, Esq

If you haven’t noticed the artificial intelligence (AI) freight train coming your way, you’ve been in a profound coma. Not unlike the dawning of the internet age in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the emergence of AI at the office, at home and in schools in the past few years has brought about a lot of innovation, yet surrounded by perhaps more questions and trepidation.

First, the good news. AI is definitely making life simpler for some businesses. A few examples:

• AI can analyze data quickly, helping some businesses make fast decisions and work more efficiently, and quickly identify trends that could have been missed.
• Businesses can and have used AI to answer customer questions and general queries. 
• AI can detect hackers and data invasion attempts.

But in the legal world, AI is akin to Web MD, which is worse as they at least have to be accredited. At first glance, it’s a comforting cyber note to a query, but in reality, it’s most likely not accurate and, more often than not, unreliable. You can’t use AI and suddenly serve as your own lawyer to magically solve your legal problems. To do so is to one’s detriment. 

Here’s an example of what we’re discussing. At the eleventh hour, a real estate developer thought they had not complied with specific notification requirements in compliance with a pending sale. Instead of getting guidance from their attorney, they embarked on an AI search. The information AI provided was erroneous as it applied to another state, ultimately costing them precious time as they chased bad law through a rabbit hole.  

If only they had consulted with their attorney, they could have avoided the anxiety and cost to rectify the situation.

The lesson learned? No person should ever exclusively practice law through AI. Ever.   

Likewise, distressed and undermanned law firms are relying on it as a shortcut. Although Paletz Law has been a leader in our field in embracing technology like the Paletz Portal, we believe the jury is still out on AI in the legal field, and it’s only a matter of time before its unbridled utilization will put clients in harm’s way. 

There have also been some very well-publicized issues with attorneys who attempted to short-cut their practice by relying heavily on AI, damaging their clients and their careers in the process.

• A U.S. judge imposed sanctions on two New York lawyers who submitted a legal brief with six fictitious case citations generated by ChatGPT. Judge P. Kevin Castel in Manhattan ordered lawyers Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca and their law firm to pay a total of $5,000 in fines. The U.S. District judge found the lawyers acted in bad faith and made “acts of conscious avoidance and false and misleading statements to the court.”
• In Colorado, attorney Zacharian Crabill had his license suspended for three months while working for a litigation firm in Colorado Springs. His cases had become overwhelming, so he turned to AI. He also worked for a client lacking financial resources and attempted to “save him money.” Unfortunately, his AI research cited legal cases that did not exist, and he lost his job. 

There are other troubling by-products when dealing with cases while leaning heavily on AI technology. These include::

• The internet is generally a bad place to get legal information because often it’s just aggregated from other unofficial sources. AI then takes that aggregation and determines the most common answer, and potentially will come up with the wrong answer.
• From what we have researched, the use of AI also does not account for state-by-state differences.
• AI, most importantly, has NO legal precedent in a court of law.

The Bottom Line: AI might one day be a good start for obtaining general legal information. However, the information generated by AI should never be relied upon without further verification from an attorney. Details and specifics matter in the legal profession. At Paletz Law, we pride ourselves on the human qualities and skill set that have made us the largest landlord-attorney firm in Michigan. We will continue to work tirelessly to advocate and win for our clients.