This article was originally posted on Virginia Lawyers Weekly by Charles Hatley, CEO of Melone Hatley, P.C. VLW has provided permission to fully repost the commentary provided by Charles on this page.
Not too long ago, clients would walk into an initial consultation with a family law attorney with a few questions, maybe a printout from a legal website or news article they had read, or at most some knowledge gained from Google. They relied on us to listen and offer recommendations that best fit their situation and jurisdictional constraints.
Today, that dynamic has shifted.
Clients now show up with their own fully formed legal strategies. They bring custody proposals, asset division agreements and well-drafted arguments to support their perspective. And often, these have been generated from a simple one- or two-sentence prompt in ChatGPT, Claude or some other AI tool.
For us, the challenge isn’t just that the information is incorrect or incomplete. It’s that AI is designed to respond in such a way that it validates the client’s perspective. The client is fully confident that their AI-generated information is authoritative and correct. When we suggest that what they’ve provided doesn’t quite fit their scenario (or the general guidelines), they naturally become upset, especially when the attorney gets defensive about the use of AI.
While most practitioners are used to dealing with advice from Google, Facebook or even a client’s friends, AI changes the dynamic at a fundamental level. The AI has replaced the very beginning of the relationship with the client from the first moment. They arrive already having mapped out the outcome out in their heads. Now, any advice we offer is going to be filtered through that lens.
What is the client bringing you?
Clients aren’t trying to circumvent knowledgeable, experienced legal counsel. Most don’t have a lot of experience working with attorneys. They’re simply trying to make sense of their emotional overload and vulnerability by regaining a spot of control in the process. When people feel out of control, they look for any information to gain some sense of footing, even if that information is wrong.
Unfortunately, AI tools offer immediate, confident, professional-sounding responses to their most complex situations. Never mind the lack of jurisdictional precision or that the client has an outcome in mind and has given the chatbot complete facts. There’s no comprehensive factual context and no accountability.
Clients are counting their finds. They’re coming in with information without the need for outside validation, with AI pseudo-advice. They’re bringing in something that feels credible. What we’re dealing with is a vulnerability fueled by technology — and we are the first attorneys to meet them in with information and advice they want to hear. When this happens, we as practitioners must be mindful of what our clients are going through.
Plausible but wrong
AI-generated legal information is rarely obviously incorrect, even to attorneys. More often, it’s just close enough to create problems and provide citations that look legitimate. In other words, it’s plausible but wrong.
Take a simple example: jurisdiction. One attorney says Virginia, while the other says Florida. The AI-generated strategy will likely be a combination of both jurisdictions’ rules and sound credible but flawed.
From the client’s perspective, our advice isn’t aligning with what they were expecting — or hoping for. That disconnect can quickly turn into distrust. And when doubt sets in, it’s harder to unwind than getting the correct legal advice in the first place.
The real challenge isn’t correcting the information. It’s doing so without damaging the relationship or insulting the client. If we immediately dismiss what the client brings to us, we risk shutting down the conversation entirely.
Role of client-driven strategy
The first and easiest step is to take the time to review the prompts the client used to get their information. This will go a long way in helping establish your reputation and promote clients’ confidence in understanding what their AI brings differs.
It’s important to acknowledge a client’s efforts and understand their process. This will go a long way toward building trust and authority. From here, we can address the limits of the tool itself. We never want to dismiss their preparation. We want to correct that incorrect information without minimizing it.
Just as importantly, we’re establishing early that legal outcomes aren’t formulaic. They’re jurisdiction- and fact-specific, and far more nuanced than generalized AI answers can capture.
Practical strategies for practitioners
Ask what the client has already reviewed upfront. Address it early instead of waiting for incorrect information to surface. Understanding what the client has read or generated via AI helps identify misconceptions before they affect the entire conversation.
Use the client’s strategy as a teaching tool. Walk through their proposed approach step by step. Show where it aligns with applicable law and where it falls short. This reinforces our role as the one doing the law, not just validating or correcting a machine.
Be clear about jurisdictional specificity. This is where AI often falls short. Explain how state statutes and case law apply to their matter, so the client understands what actually governs their situation.
Document your client-AI policy. Create a client-centered best practices policy that will be shared with your clients that outline the risks and shortfalls of using AI. If you need to correct significant misunderstandings, it’s worth documenting the guidance you’ve provided, especially if the client initially held a strong belief in an alternative approach.
Taken together, these approaches are less about managing the technology and more about reinforcing what we already know to be true — that real value of attorneys isn’t just about dispensing accurate legal information. It’s applying the law in ways that truly protect our client’s rights and future.
Litigation implications
AI’s impact doesn’t stop at the consultation.
We are already seeing the successful discovery of AI prompts from both clients and attorneys on the basis that the AI platform is a third party, based on Asana v. Asana, a client who relies heavily on output from ChatGPT. While that case involved the attorney’s use of AI rather than a client’s use, the takeaway is that AI-generated legal content can be treated without without privilege.
It’s not difficult to imagine similar issues arising when clients provide their attorneys with AI-generated research or proposed arguments. These materials should be treated no differently than any other unverified source.
Shift in attorney-client dynamic
As AI continues to evolve, so will the way we interact with clients. Our goal isn’t to reject it, but to create the proper context, steering clients when necessary, and helping them better understand the limits of the information they’ve been given. Because, at the end of the day, AI can generate answers. It can organize information and even mirror legal reasoning. But it can’t sit across from a client, understand what really matters to them and apply the law in a way that accounts for both their legal and human realities. That’s still our role. And today, it’s never been more important.
Charles D. Hatley is CEO of family law firm Melone Hatley, where he focuses on building systems-driven, client-centered family law and estate planning practices. Melone Hatley has offices in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida and Texas.
