AI on Trial: How AI is transforming the way legal work is done

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. (KESQ) - They say a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.

But -- perhaps not, if you’ve got the knowledge of the entire internet and artificial intelligence on your side.

"What AI did is it gave me a perspective that I never had before," said Melissa Corona, who is using AI in a current legal case.

Corona is currently in the middle of a family law case. It's intricate and involves international laws. She has hired the services of a lawyer in Palm Desert, but Corona is saving her attorney time for more complicated issues and in the meantime, using AI to handle the more minor tasks, like writing briefs.

"When I began to self-represent part-time, I realized how efficient and how I was prevailing in certain areas because of this tool that, you know, within 10 seconds, it gives you a response," Corona said.

And she’s actually won on those motions. She estimates that it’s saved her thousands of dollars so far. 

"It's like a game of chess, almost, and I felt stumped at times where I thought, 'Oh, this is going to cost me a lot to figure out,'" Corona said.

In a world in which law firms can charge up to $4,000 per hour, according to a Reuters report, every second matters. As AI becomes normalized, more people are using it to help in their legal cases. Some are even using AI to replace lawyers entirely.

"AI can be an excellent tool, and that's what it is. It's a tool, and it's only as good as the person using it," said Andrew Montez, an attorney at Roemer & Harnik LLP, a law firm based in Indian Wells.

Montez says he has seen more people in the past year using AI to self-represent, often referred to as pro-pers or pro se litigants.

"Absolutely, in my practice, we see pro PERS, those without attorneys, using AI constantly. It's easily recognizable, because you get excellent work product that isn't always correct," Montez said.

And that's because AI has been known to hallucinate — to make up fake evidence to support a case.

French attorney and data scientist Damien Charlotin has created a public database of worldwide cases in which people were caught using AI that faked evidence. As of early March, 65 of those cases happened in California, with many of those documented in Southern California.

The punishment for using AI that makes up nonsense citations and wasting the court’s time can be harsh, including thousands of dollars in penalties. In 2025, one attorney was fined $10,000 for submitting AI-hallucinated evidence in a state court appeal, reportedly the highest penalty ever over AI issues by a California court.

Charlotin says AI has also led to more complications in court, because AI can overproduce when it come to writing legal documents, with pro-pers often submitting more voluminous work than necessary.

"This kind of applications used to be five pages max, written by the people themselves, badly spelled, barely a legal case. And now, suddenly they've got 120 pages, perfectly formatted. Maybe full of hallucinations, who knows. But still, they not only is the number of cases increasing, but also the number of the materials that comes with it," Charlotin said.

The ease of AI has also led to a flood of filings.

When asked if he believes courts are seeing more lawsuits because of AI, Charlotin answered, "Oh yes, definitely that we've seen not only in the US, but across most jurisdictions, and especially courts and tribunals that accept self-represented litigants."

And it’s not just plaintiffs using AI. Lawyers themselves are using AI – and sometimes – disastrously.

Montez says he recently went up against opposing counsel, who seemed to have an airtight case against him.

"The opposition was fantastic. It was well written. It was convincing. It had authority that I had never seen before...and at first glance, I was flummoxed that I had missed these cases, which were on point that were in exact opposition to what I had made...because if what the opposition said was accurate, I had no basis for my motion," Montez said. "And as I'm looking deeper into these cases, I'm realizing they don't exist. There's entire quotes which are entirely fabricated. As I'm reviewing this, I'm realizing this is ChatGPT."

Montez said the AI that opposing counsel used had hallucinated. It had made up evidence against him.

"So the court sanctioned that attorney. He was sanctioned, had to pay money to the court clerk, and he was ordered to write letters of apology," Montez said.

Attorneys all over the world have been fined or fired for using AI to fabricate cases. Montez says as an attorney, if you're not competent at using AI, you shouldn't be using it.

"There are ways to use AI ethically, morally, legally, in practice of law, that's no question. But when you use AI without those safeguards, it can go very wrong," Montez said.

With the advent of AI, Montez says to always ask if your attorney uses AI.

"California guidelines are very clear: an attorney cannot charge you for the amount of time they saved when using AI," Montez said.

"My point has always been that, as a lawyer, there's so many things that a robot will be doing better than you, and you should let as a computer do this kind of very stupid and tedious stuff," Charlotin said.

For lawyers, AI can become a gift of time back, speeding up tedious, drudging work in a matter of minutes. For everyone else, AI can mean empowerment and a fighting chance where there was none before. 

"If it wasn't for AI, I don't see how I could have prevailed in this case," Corona said.

Late last month, the California Senate passed legislation, SB 574, that would change guidance on AI by the bar to enforceable statutory requirements. It reflects a heightened awareness of the risks of AI in the legal system.

The bill now goes to the state assembly for further review.