Tennessee Injury Law Center
The short answer is “Yes”. You absolutely can use an AI tool to help you handle your claim yourself. But the better question is this: Should you use an AI tool to handle your own personal injury claim? We believe the answer to that question is “No.” Allow us to explain.
Whether you are using Chat GPT, Microsoft CoPilot, Google Gemini, Claude, Grok, Perplexity or some other AI tool, the simple truth is the quality of the advice and any written documents generated are only as good as the information given to the AI tool, both by you and the other sources it relies upon to generate its response to your question.
For example, as I sat down to write this blog post, I typed into ChatGPT: “Can you write a demand letter for a car accident?” ( A “demand letter” is the letter written to the insurance company for the at-fault driver in a car wreck seeking the payment of money to a person injured in the wreck.) The AI-response was as follows:
Absolutely – I can draft that for you. To make it accurate and persuasive, I’ll need a few details first. Could you please tell me:
- Your information – your name, address, and contact info
- The at-fault party’s information – name, insurance company and claim number (if known)
- Accident details – date, location and a short summary of what happened.
- Damages – vehicle damage costs, medical bills, lost wages and any pain and suffering.
- Settlement demand – the total amount you want to request.
Once you share those, I’ll draft a professional demand letter you can send to the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
At first blush, you might say “Wow! Who needs a lawyer?” But here are just a few ways using ChatGPT or another AI tool could go terribly wrong.
- AI tools “hallucinate”. That is the polite industry term when the AI tool simply gets it wrong or makes it up. In fact, the New York Times reported recently about the rise of AI-related problems in the legal industry by non-lawyers and lawyers alike. The problems range from using made-up quotes from real cases to citing cases that are irrelevant to the issue before the court or simply making up fake cases.
- When AI tools first emerged, out of curiosity, we asked Chat GPT some legal questions such as the statute of limitations (that is, the legal deadline for filing a case in court) under Tennessee law. The responses were dead wrong. If you or an inexperienced lawyer had relied on the ChatGPT answer, your case would have been dismissed shortly after it was filed. If the information that the AI tool uses are wrong or out-of-date, the information the AI tool gives you will be wrong and out-of-date.
- As we have said, the AI response is only as good as the information you put into it. For example, if you give the tool the information about your car accident in which someone ran a red light and hit you, it can churn out a demand letter and other materials for a red-light accident. But what may get missed are other claims arising from the same accident. Did the driver run the red light because they were drunk and is there a possible dram shop or liquor liability claim against a bar or restaurant? Or maybe the car was a rental vehicle, and the driver applied the brakes, but they failed because they had not been properly maintained and that was the reason the driver could not stop in time to avoid running the red light? If you don’t know the law for a dram shop claim or a negligent maintenance claim, then you are not going to put that information into ChatGPT and, in turn, Chat GPT is not going to include those as possible claims and you may lose those claims. Likewise, most people are unaware of the law of what medical bills are recoverable after a wreck or how lost wages are calculated. Nor do most people know how pain and suffering are determined. The bottom line is that when you attempt to create your own settlement demand you will either ask for too much (which means a case that could be settled will not be settled) or too little (which means you will settle the case for less than you would have received if you sought legal advice).
- If you hire an experienced lawyer and they heaven-forbid make a mistake, malpractice insurance will protect you (before hiring any lawyer, confirm they have malpractice insurance) from the lawyer’s mistake. If ChatGPT makes a mistake, you will be forced to seek compensation from the company, developer or operator in an emerging and complex legal arena. (Good luck with that.)
To give you an idea of how little confidence our firm has in AI-tools at this time, we do not permit our lawyers to use it for any legal research. We have tested it and found that, at this time, it is not accurate enough that we will rely on it in giving advice to clients or filing papers in court. We continue to monitor developments in the field, and we reserve the right to change our mind, but as of today AI is not sufficiently reliable for determining the answers to legal questions.
In summary, if you have been involved in a serious accident, you need an experienced lawyer, not AI. Remember, at the Law Offices of John Day, we represent injury victims on a contingency basis, so you do not have to pay anything out of pocket to reap the benefits of hiring an experienced lawyer. At the Law Offices of John Day, we rely on our team of seasoned injury lawyers, dedicated paralegals, a full-time nurse and administrative staff to deliver personalized and effective legal help. We encourage you to compare our results and our credentials with an AI tool and other lawyers. We are here to help if you need us.
Nashville: 615-669-3993
Murfreesboro: 615-867-9900
Brentwood: 615-742-4880
Toll-Free: 866-812-8787