Using AI for divorce? Attorney warns of costly mistakes

All right, we are going to completely switch gears and talk about something that's pretty, pretty interesting. If you've thought about, you know, reaching out to a divorce attorney, some people are first turning to artificial intelligence, but could trying to save money end up actually costing you more in the long run. So Atlanta family law attorney Randy Kessler, a very frequent guest with us here at Fox 5 Atlanta, is joining us live. He also teaches Emory at Emory Law School. I didn't know that about you. We learn something new every day. Learn something new. He's also former chair of the American Bar Association's family law section. So this is a man who knows his stuff. Gary Kessler joining us now. Randy, it's so good to see you. Nice to see you, Elise. Good to be back. All right, let's dive into this. How on earth are your clients using AI? Is it, is it. What are they doing? What are they searching for? They're doing everything. You know, the first thing is sometimes people come in and they think they know everything about divorce. And so instead of teaching them about divorce and what's going to happen, we have to unteach some of the things they've learned. But there are all sorts of ways. I surveyed my audience, my office before we came in today. And I said, anybody have any really unique stories? I have one lawyer in my office who said our client was accused of cheating with a girlfriend overseas and there was a picture of him and his girlfriend on vacation, but the girlfriend wasn't there. There was no such thing as a girlfriend. The wife had generated an artificial mistress. It's unbelievable. Really? Okay. You can't do that. No, you can't. You can't. Yeah. That's, that's not one of the things you can do. No. More often what people do is they do, they sort of fact check us, right? They say, my lawyer told me this. And here's what it really comes down to is, is our job is to tell people, no, right. You shouldn't do this. You should act straight and normal. You shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that. And then they go to AI and say, is it okay if I do this? And AI wants to please, right? It wants to tell you, yes. AI wants to say yes. And we want to say no. So sometimes Sometimes we're undoing the damage that AI does. That's so interesting. So that's kind of probably more, more of what you're seeing there. Let's talk about other big problems you get from, from folks who are trying to use AI, you know, in something as complicated as family law. Like this is one of those things I can imagine, Randy, you need the experts. That's true. You know, a lot of people say, are we AI proof? I don't think any industry is AI proof, but you know, in corporate law and contract law, there are rules Rules in family law, There's so many moving parts. There's who is the other lawyer? What's he or she like? Who's the judge? What's the spouse like? What's the psychiatrist? So, you know, it's a human thing. And we've got to give human answers, not just the law says X, Y, and Z. You know, this judge particularly doesn't like... To do this or that judge likes this. So it's hard to replace us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something. So I had never heard of this. This AI can sometimes make up information. There's a hallucination. Hallucinations. So have you had, is that something you've seen? Absolutely. So, you know, AI likes to please. So sometimes lawyers will say, I want AI's help in writing a brief and arguing that this is the right jurisdiction, the right state to do it in. And AI is so desperate to please that it will make up cases and say, in the case of Jones versus state. We actually had that. We represented a football player who makes a lot of money. We caught the other lawyer. We said, please admit that you did this. Don't show up in court. We're going to, you're going to look bad. We showed up in court and the judge said, they're going to pay our rich client all the fees he had to pay us. To explain that that case didn't exist. No way. There was a fake case. The AI. Incredible. And it's happened in the Supreme Court before. That's crazy that you're seeing that. Are there ever instances where things that you do recommend that people check with AI first? Like, can it be helpful in any way when it comes to divorce? Yeah. Well, first of all, it can help me. I mean, I'm not perfect. There are things that I learn. And sometimes I see what clients research on AI and I say, I got to look that up and make sure that it's either right or that I'm. Correcting something that's wrong, but yeah, it's okay to say, I want to make sure that my lawyer is telling me right. But the bottom line is if you feel like you're really having to ask AI, if you trust your lawyer, if your lawyer is giving you good advice, maybe you don't have the right lawyer. Sure. You know, AI's answers should synchronize with my answers. And I'll tell you something, after I got ready for today's presentation here, I went on AI, I said, what would you talk about? And everything it said. It was the stuff I'd already thought of, you know, so it made me feel good. Yeah, kind of reaffirmed what you said. One more question for you. When it comes to privacy, could those conversations that you're having with the chatbot end up being used somehow, you know, in proceeding? That's a really good point. You know, Google searches and AI searches can be discoverable. You talk to me, lawyer, client, nobody can find out about it. But you go on the computer and you put in a Google search or you prompt AI, somebody really cleverly could go in and say, I want to see all your searches. Oh, boy. I want to see what you search for. First, how do I lie about my affair, or how do I lie about my drug use? That comes out. Yeah. You see all the criminal cases where they Google how to hide a body or how to commit a crime. And you hear about it coming up all the time. Yep, absolutely. You really do. Okay, so we're out of time. Any final thoughts for us? Maybe how can we find you? Yeah, I can help. Like any tools, trust your lawyer. If you don't trust your lawyer, get another lawyer. Use AI to supplement, but not to replace your lawyer. There you have it. How can we find you? What did you do? DivorceProtect.com or RandyKessler.com. You'll find me online. Randy, thank you so much as always. Always good to be here. Interesting conversation. Yeah, there's more to come. Yeah, of that we can be sure. Randy Kessler with us. All right, we are going to take a quick break. We're back with more of Fox 5 News Live for you in two minutes. Let's see.