USING AI PLATFORMS
without understanding the risks
AI tools like ChatGPT have quickly become part of everyday life. People are increasingly using them to summarise documents, draft emails, analyse contracts and seek a second opinion on legal issues. However, if you’re involved in a legal dispute, using AI without understanding the risks could have serious consequences.
Copying legal advice, settlement discussions or confidential documents into a public AI platform may put legal privilege at risk and, in some situations, could make information available to the other party in litigation.
Legal privilege, recognised under the Evidence Act 2006, protects certain communications and documents from disclosure or use in court. It includes legal professional privilege, litigation privilege and settlement privilege. These protections allow people to seek legal advice openly and negotiate disputes without fear their communications will later be used against them.
Usually, conversations with AI are not legally privileged. Legal professional privilege applies to communications with a qualified legal adviser, and an AI platform is not your lawyer. Privilege also depends on confidentiality being maintained. If confidential information is disclosed to a third party, privilege may be lost.
That is the key risk with public AI tools. Depending on the platform, information entered may be stored, reviewed, used to improve the model or processed outside New Zealand. If you are involved in a legal dispute, do not upload legal advice, court documents, settlement correspondence or other litigation material into public AI platforms.
If in doubt, or if you would like to understand more about how AI use could affect your legal position, the litigation team at Smith and Partners is there to advise.
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