I’m noticing that my AI curated newsfeed is feeding me more and more articles produced by Artificial Intelligence. This is occurring at a time when people are deciding to go it alone in the legal world and to rely on their technology to guide their legal decisions.
That’s a trap which can do you much harm. Artificial intelligence comes to us from ever expanding oceans of “compiled” data. Your drafted legal inquiry may be spot on but there is no human checking what AI has pulled from the “deep” when it gave you an answer. Even news articles drafted by or with AI need to be viewed with skepticism. The reason? There is not a lot of uniform family law in the United States. In divorce, some states divide assets 50/50 (community property). Other states use an equitable distribution model. In some states, an embryo is a citizen with constitutional protections. In others, it isn’t. Efforts have been made to systematize and make support and custody laws uniform. Pennsylvania favors prenuptial agreements. Connecticut takes a very different approach.
Realize that even lawyers licensed in Pennsylvania don’t always agree on the law. Last week brought us a precedential custody case addressing what pleadings need to be filed where there is a dispute over what state has jurisdiction to decide custody. The central dispute in S.G. v. A.A. 2026 Pa. Super. 206 turned on whether a dispute required a “petition” or could be decided on a “motion.” The procedures are different and the Superior Court found the Chester County judge got it wrong when treating a transfer request as a motion.
By all means, there is nothing wrong with trying your layman’s hand at legal research. Your friendly lawyer is using it as well. But the lawyer should know that AI is the beginning of legal research-not an end. You are putting your legal well-being at real risk if you do not verify what you have read before making an agreement or signing a document for use in court.