Can Your AI Conversation Affect Your Truck Accident Case?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly becoming a part of our everyday lives. People are increasingly using AI tools to research issues, gather information, summarize materials, and ask questions as if they were having a conversation with a human. However, as AI use becomes more common, it can also lead to new legal challenges.

For instance, an AI conversation could affect your truck accident case, and not in a good way. Insurance companies and their defense attorneys may try to uncover your conversations with chatbots and use them against you. For instance, an insurer may argue that your disclosures about your medical condition show you deserve less compensation.

To protect your right to pursue full and fair compensation and receive knowledgeable legal counsel that is tailored to the specific facts of your case, you should save your questions for consultation with an experienced Virginia truck accident lawyer.

Are Conversations Between You and AI Considered Private?

Conversations with ChatGPT and other chatbots may not be private. For instance, a federal court in New York recently held that attorney-client privilege did not protect a criminal defendant’s conversations with Anthropic’s Claude AI model. The court based its ruling on the fact that Claude is not a licensed lawyer, and the defendant was not the chatbot’s legal client.

Insurance companies have taken notice. Because of this ruling, the defense lawyers in your truck accident case may demand to see your chat logs during discovery and use anything they find in those conversations against you.

What Is Attorney-Client Privilege?

Attorney-client privilege is the bedrock of our legal system. With few exceptions, this privilege can be invoked to keep anything you say to your lawyer confidential. Attorney-client privilege allows clients to be “full and frank” when communicating with their attorneys.

Because of privilege, your lawyer does not have to disclose the content of any of your conversations together unless you consent to the disclosure. The privilege extends beyond speech to include emails, text messages, and other digital forms of communication.

What Kinds of AI Conversations Could Hurt Your Truck Accident Case?

Anything you say to a chatbot about a pending legal case could come back to bite you. Some topics are especially risky, including:

• Asking about your case’s value – Defense attorneys might spin this conversation to mean your primary concern is getting a big payout.
• Disclosing negative facts about the wreck – You might ask the chatbot, “Can I still get compensation if I was partially at fault?” The defense may argue that the question shows your awareness that you are to blame for the accident and not entitled to the compensation you are seeking.
• Disclosing your health history – The defense might argue that your condition stems more from past injuries or ailments than the truck crash.
• Discussing gaps in your medical treatment – The defense might point to your delay in seeking medical care as evidence that your injuries are not that serious or that they have a source other than the truck accident.
• Disclosing privileged information from your attorney – Your conversations with your attorney are privileged and confidential for as long as you keep them between you and your attorney. Since chatbots are not licensed attorneys, your conversations with them are not privileged – even if you’re telling them about conversations that were.

What Can Happen If You Research Your Truck Accident or Injuries on AI?

By researching your case through AI, you create a record of your interactions that the defense can use against you during settlement negotiations or at trial. The same is true of your Google search history. A defense lawyer might argue that even questions like “how much is my case worth?” suggest that you’re exaggerating your injuries to get a bigger payday.

How Can Defense Lawyers and Insurance Company Lawyers Find Out What I Chatted with AI About?

Defense and insurance company lawyers could find out if you chatted with AI about your truck accident case during the discovery process. Discovery is a critical part of any civil action. It allows both sides of a dispute to gather information ahead of trial. Attorneys can take depositions in which they question witnesses under oath, and those witnesses must tell the truth or face serious consequences.

The defense team in your case might depose you. They might ask you under oath if you interacted with an AI about your case and demand that you furnish those conversations for their review. The defense might even demand that you hand over the transcripts of your conversations.

As the American Bar Association (ABA) reports, federal courts in New York, Michigan, and Colorado recently ruled on this issue. In one case, the court ruled that a defendant’s use of the Claude AI program to generate documents about his legal situation and potential legal strategy, even if he later shared them with his lawyers, was not protected by either attorney-client privilege or rules that allow an attorney to keep their work product confidential. The main reason for the ruling is that AI chatbots are not attorneys.

On the other hand, two other judges have found that a party’s use of AI may be protected from disclosure as “work product.” In one of those cases, the judge amended a protective order, barring the parties from uploading any confidential information to an AI platform unless a contract barred them from using the information for training or disclosing it to third parties, and it allowed a person to request deletion of the material.

Can You Use ChatGPT to Draft an Email to Your Attorney?

Are you someone who finds ChatGPT and other chatbots helpful in drafting emails? If so, proceed with extreme caution. As the above cases underscore, any privileged information you share with an AI chatbot could lose its confidentiality protection depending on the circumstances. It’s better to spend some extra time writing the email yourself.

Should I Advise My Lawyer If I Have Used AI to Research My Case?

You should tell your lawyer if you used AI to research your case. They can better protect your rights when they fully understand the situation and can anticipate what the defense might do with this knowledge. Your lawyer can also present your chat logs in the best light should your case go to trial.

How Can a Virginia Truck Accident Attorney Help Me?

After a truck accident in Virginia, you may think that the right place to address the many questions you may have about your legal rights and options is to turn to an AI platform. However, instead of operating in uncertainty, the best thing to do is to consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer. At Lichtenstein Law Group, we can help you by:

• Answering your questions during a free initial consultation, which attorney-client privilege protects
• Investigating the accident to identify at-fault parties, available sources of compensation, and potential strategies
• Protecting you from attempts to use your chat logs and search history against you
• Advising you on how to respond during depositions so as not to put your rights at risk
• Negotiating aggressively for a fair settlement
• Taking your case to trial if that’s what it takes to maximize your compensation

Visit Our Virginia Truck Accident Law Offices

Were you hurt in a truck accident in Virginia? Don’t put your rights at risk by discussing the matter with a chatbot. Instead, get actual legal guidance and the protections of attorney-client privilege by working with a real, knowledgeable, and experienced truck accident lawyer in Virginia. Contact Lichtenstein Law Group today for your free consultation.