Let’s repeat that headline: AI Is Not A Lawyer. But, at some point in your career or the life of your organization, you’re going to need to meet with an actual employment attorney.
Maybe you own a business and you’re having an issue with an employee. Maybe you were just terminated and you’re curious if you have any viable claims. Maybe you want to see if you can start handling the situation yourself before spending money on an attorney.
We’re at a turning point where you believe you can find legal assistance online. You open the AI platform, log in to your account, and start asking questions and uploading documents. You share an employee’s doctor’s note; you upload their performance improvement plan; you detail the events that led up to this moment, and you ask the bot to generate an attorney brief because you want to prepare your legal team for your meeting. You’re doing what you believe is right.
But here’s the kicker:
By feeding a public AI tool the confidential details of your legal matter, you’ve likely put yourself or your company in the very position you were trying to avoid. You may feel that your conversation with the AI bot is private, but it’s no more private than posting the same information on Instagram.
Revealing company or employee information on a public forum, like ChatGPT or Claude, opens yourself up to the possibility of a lawsuit or may hinder your ability to negotiate.
Moreover, AI-generated documents are convoluted. The analyses are contradictory, and the “viable claims” AI hands you are often flat-out wrong.
And that’s where we come in.
We understand your desire for immediate answers and advice, and it’s our job to provide you with strategy and solutions as effectively and efficiently as possible. It’s also our job to tell you that employment law is complex, ever-changing, and requires a human touch.
Your first point of contact at Savine Employment Law will be our intake team, individuals who will gather the facts, the context, the emotions of your case and organize the information for our attorneys’ review. AI doesn’t know our attorneys or what they need to be successful. Our intake team does.
When you meet with your Savine Employment Law attorney, they will be prepared. They will have read the notes on your matter, evaluated claims, and outlined a preliminary strategy. They will draw on years of education, decades of experience, and the ability to understand the implications of their advice and consequences of your future actions. AI can only see what you’ve fed it. It has no way of truly understanding the volatility of your situation.
AI is not a lawyer. If you choose to act on its “legal advice,” you have no one to hold accountable, no one to consult when your situation inevitably evolves. Every conversation you have with our firm is privileged and confidential. AI is not obligated to keep your secrets, even if you pay for a business account that does not allow data training.
If you’ve already shared the details of your legal matter with AI, don’t panic, simply stop sharing anything else, and talk to your lawyer about it.
So, while you can’t tell “Jeff” what your employee did last summer or how you plan to take over the C-suite, you can tell us everything. And we won’t tell anyone.
*AI was not involved in the creation of this article.