Lawyers waste hours checking AI documents produced by clients

Lawyers are facing hours of extra work dealing with AI documents produced by both their clients and opposing legal teams, the Financieele Dagblad reported on Monday.

Some clients think they are helping their lawyers or keeping costs down by drawing up their own documents, but the AI documents are often woolly, riddled with errors and full of irrelevant information, lawyers told the paper.

“You become a bullshit checker, next to the complex legal work,” employment law expert Laura Smit from NexxtGen Legal said.

The FD consulted dozens of law firms to find out how AI is affecting their work and found it is a growing phenomenon.

Lawyers told the paper that chatbots are easily manipulated and that means clients can get the results they want. Sometimes clients become convinced that something can be done, but good legal advice also involves saying when something cannot happen, DAS labour lawyer Pascal Besselink said.

“Sometimes clients send me complete files they have put together with AI, hoping to save costs, and they expect us just to send them in as is,” Glenda Raap from a family law foundation said.

In December, a court in Brabant accused one side in a court case of misusing the legal system by submitting “poor, AI-produced legal documents” without checking to make sure they were both relevant and correct.