When Clients Turn to AI and Their Cases Go Sideways
These days, I
often meet clients who tried handling their own lawsuits without a lawyer, ran
into trouble, and only then found my blog and reached out. Against that
backdrop, a recent article in the Chosun Ilbo's “Seocho-dong 25 Si” column
caught my attention, because it captured exactly what I've been seeing
firsthand. Here's a summary of what the article reported.
According to
the report, a district court judge recently found the phrase “according to
Gemini” left in a loan-repayment complaint — a stray trace of the AI tool used
to draft it. Judges say this is becoming routine, and one presiding judge
described the experience as feeling like a case between plaintiff “ChatGPT” and
defendant “Gemini.” Untangling what a party actually meant, then rewriting the
record, can eat up days of a court's time.
— Yang
Eun-kyung, “Plaintiff ChatGPT, Defendant Gemini? Judges Struggle With
AI-Written Filings,” Chosun Ilbo, Seocho-dong 25 Si, August 14, 2026.
The Moment AI Authorship Shows, Credibility Collapses
Once it
becomes clear that a filing was written by generative AI, the court's trust in
that filing tends to drop fast. And the problem doesn't stop there. To save on
legal fees, more and more parties will likely be tempted to use AI to produce
sprawling filings that run dozens of pages. But Korean courts don't respond
well to filings that are overly long or that simply repeat the same argument in
different words — if anything, that kind of filing just wears the court down.
Experienced lawyers know this, which is why they pick out only the points that
matter and argue them concisely.
Self-represented
parties, in particular, are turning to AI to produce filings that run dozens of
pages — partly to save on legal fees, and partly because it's tempting to keep
repeating the argument they want to make in different words. Even when the court
specifically asks them to clarify a point, many respond by restating their own
position rather than actually answering the question. That approach can end up
hurting their case rather than helping it.
Witness Examination Is About to Matter More Than Ever
I expect that
in higher-stakes cases, witness examination will increasingly become a required
step. As AI makes it easier to fabricate not just written arguments but
evidence itself in convincing ways, courts will find it harder to rely on
filings and documentary evidence alone to establish the facts.
But catching a
key statement in real time during witness examination, spotting a contradiction
in the other side's answer, and following up on the spot — that's a skill built
from years of courtroom experience. It's not something an ordinary person can pick
up quickly, and you obviously can't pause mid-examination to ask an AI what to
say next. So the more a case turns on disputed facts, the more real value a
lawyer brings to it.
Fines for AI Misuse Should Apply to Parties, Not Just
Lawyers
At this point,
I think we genuinely need some way to flag whether a filing was drafted by
ChatGPT or another generative AI tool. Courts need at least a basic mechanism
for judging which filings can be trusted — otherwise the burden on judges keeps
growing, and the reliability of the whole process suffers.
The plan
recently announced by the National Court Administration would let courts fine
parties who cite fabricated case law, and refer lawyers who do the same to the
Korean Bar Association for discipline. But as a practical matter, that kind of
sanction is hard to enforce against self-represented litigants who never hired
a lawyer in the first place. For the system to actually be balanced, ordinary
parties who flood the court with AI-generated filings need to face the same
kind of fines. I'll be honest — I find it hard to understand why courts would
fine only the lawyers, who tend to behave professionally, while letting the
parties themselves, who can sometimes become genuinely difficult litigants, off
the hook. As it stands, it feels like the system in Korea penalizes the very
people who follow courtroom norms, which is a strange, self-defeating way to
run a court. If parties who overuse AI while representing themselves actually
faced fines, they'd start taking the decision to hire a lawyer more seriously —
and that, in turn, would naturally help restore order to the litigation
process.
A Culture of Hiring Lawyers Is What Keeps Courts
Orderly
Whenever I make this argument, I get pushback along the lines of, “Isn't that just good for business if you're a lawyer?” But I genuinely believe that a culture where people hire lawyers matters for keeping the courts running smoothly. Under the current setup, where self-represented parties can freely submit sprawling, unorganized filings, judges end up with a much heavier workload, and legally unrefined arguments pile up in a way that can throw off the order of the whole proceeding. And the time that gets wasted doesn't just affect that one case — it ripples out to every other litigant waiting for their turn before the same court. Building a stronger culture of hiring lawyers isn't about protecting any one profession's interests. It's about using judicial resources efficiently and protecting the integrity of the litigation process as a whole.
Closing Thoughts
Generative AI
is now an irreversible part of how litigation works in practice. My hope is
simply that this trend doesn't end up eroding trust in the judicial process —
which means we need both institutional safeguards and a clearer understanding
of what lawyers actually bring to the table.
