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It was clear that things had gone off the rails when a run-of-the-mill dispute with a homeowner\u2019s association spiraled so far that the plaintiff started invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act \u2014 a 1970 federal law meant for prosecuting organized crime groups.<\/p>\n
The drama started back in early 2025. A married couple in Florida was late on HOA fees totaling a few hundred dollars. Rather than dispute the fees directly, they\u00a0took the unusual step of filing a lawsuit against the association, arguing that a state statute rendered the collection of the fees illegal. They opted to represent themselves as they took their fight to the court \u2014 \u201cpro se,\u201d in attorney lingo \u2014\u00a0with the help of generative AI, which they used to draft and file an increasingly bizarre barrage of legal paperwork.<\/p>\n
The couple were \u201cjust swinging a sword at anything [they] could possibly hit,\u201d a lawyer involved with the case told Futurism. \u201cInitially, nobody realized how unhinged things would get.\u201d<\/p>\n
The husband-and-wife duo was using AI to churn out virtually unlimited new accusations and legalese, resulting in a dizzying flood of AI-generated court documents. And as hundreds of pages of AI-generated material piled up, the attorney we spoke to recalled, the plaintiffs\u2019 claims grew increasingly wild. Within weeks of filing the suit, what had started as a minor dispute devolved into bombastic claims that read less like housing law and more like a screenplay: the HOA and the lawyers were, together, involved in a sprawling RICO conspiracy to defraud homeowners, the plaintiffs alleged, and needed to be held to account by federal investigators.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just draining,\u201d recalled the lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she didn\u2019t want to risk provoking the couple further. \u201cWe were just getting hammered. Every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, the couple started filing AI-generated bar complaints against individual lawyers involved with the case, and claiming to have alerted the FBI to their supposed crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt evolved into this thing where everyday it\u2019d be five, ten, 12 different filings, all sort of doing the same thing, everyday, saying, \u2018I want my judgment today. I want sanctions against all the lawyers. All the lawyers should be disbarred. All of them are committing fraud. There are RICO violations,’\u201d said the lawyer.<\/p>\n
Eventually,\u00a0one of the firms involved with the suit requested that the plaintiffs share their AI prompts with the court. They refused, responding that they were in the process of building a \u201cproprietary\u201d AI framework designed to interpret and analyze Florida law, which they planned to turn into a business.<\/p>\n
The allegations were eventually dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the plaintiffs are forbidden from appealing the court\u2019s decision \u2014\u00a0a sanction handed down to cases judges find to be frivolous or abusive of the court system. The fees the couple failed to pay in the first place, meanwhile, totaled roughly about what they paid to file the initial complaint.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Chaotic provocateurs who pepper courts with frivolous legal actions, often motivated by animus or a poor understanding of the law, are nothing new.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the use \u2014\u00a0and misuse \u2014\u00a0of AI chatbots like OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT and Google\u2019s Gemini by litigants, particularly non-lawyers who choose to represent themselves in legal fights, can pour gas on the flames of this old problem. Easy-to-access chatbots offer a powerful new way to generate a firehose of legal paperwork that looks, at least on a first glance, legitimate \u2014 and it\u2019s falling on judges, clerks, and attorneys to sort out the resulting deluge, in work that lawyers say is intensely time-consuming and expensive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt triples the amount of paperwork that I have to go through,\u201d said Sophia Ficarrotta, an attorney in Washington state who represents victims of intimate partner violence and often encounters defendants who are using AI to make their way through the court system. \u201cIt\u2019s really tedious. And then when I go through all those filings, I have to bill my clients for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really difficult,\u201d she added, \u201cto spend time looking through something that I know that my clients shouldn\u2019t have to pay for.\u201d<\/p>\n
While some people are reportedly finding success<\/a> in legal standoffs with the help of AI, lawyers like Ficarrotta told us that chatbots are also facilitating chaotic and burdensome legal conflicts across the US as pro se parties like the Florida couple use them to file oceans of documents in support of flawed or groundless claims, supercharging the impact of flimsy cases and wreaking havoc on already slow-moving courts.<\/p>\n We spoke to lawyers and paralegals \u2014 most of whom opted not to be identified by name, citing concern over client privacy or fear of inciting further legal action from eager litigants \u2014 who work in a broad selection of specialties. We also reviewed large numbers of AI-generated court documents they pointed us to, filed by self-represented plaintiffs in local, state, and federal court.<\/p>\n The AI cases were all over the map. Some dealt with payment, collections, and foreclosures. Others were family law matters including custody disagreements and divorce settlements. There were disputes between individuals and small local businesses, as well as individuals against one another. Some of the more immediately fantastical allegations were brought against the government, large corporations, and public figures like billionaires.<\/p>\n The phenomenon is even exasperating institutions. In a lawsuit filed earlier this month<\/a> against OpenAI, the insurance company Nippon Life Insurance alleged that ChatGPT\u2019s legal counsel led a woman to fire her human lawyer and, opting to instead represent herself, launch a dubious new lawsuit against the insurer over a settled disability claim that had originally been dismissed.<\/p>\n In the complaint, which accuses ChatGPT of acting as an unlicensed lawyer, Nippon claims that it incurred a staggering $300,000 in legal fees as it defended against the wave of frivolous AI-generated content being filed by the woman. By stoking groundless legal theories, the complaint argues, ChatGPT \u201caided and abetted\u201d the woman\u2019s \u201cabuse of the judicial process.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In response to Reuters<\/a>, OpenAI said that Nippon\u2019s lawsuit \u201clacks any merit whatsoever\u201d and pointed to its terms of service, which forbid using ChatGPT-generated output \u201cfor any purpose that could have a legal or material impact\u201d on another person. (We reached out to a legal representative for Nippon, but didn\u2019t hear back.)<\/p>\n The phenomenon is the latest illustration of AI\u2019s narrative gap. While optimists say it can help amateurs take on intimidating institutions without the help of expensive subject matter experts like attorneys, that\u2019s not always a good thing. It can also embolden cranks and agitators \u2014\u00a0or, lawyers we spoke to suggested, people dealing with mental health or substance abuse issues \u2014 to embark on quixotic legal quests that waste time and money, or unnecessarily cause what should be standard proceedings to drag on for weeks or even months as people leaning on the tech churn out a flood of bad arguments.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing to scheme about the law with a sycophantic chatbot; it\u2019s another to craft and present a sound argument. And a good human lawyer\u2019s job, legal professionals we spoke to emphasized, isn\u2019t just to spam the court with documents on your behalf. It\u2019s also to tell you when you\u2019re wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of what you pay the lawyer for is lawyers\u2019 judgment,\u201d said the lawyer from the HOA case. \u201cKnowing when to push, when not to push, what\u2019s going to work with the judge, what\u2019s not going to work with the judge, what\u2019s a feasible argument, what\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re just mindlessly firing all these things that are AI-generated,\u201d she added, \u201csomehow that judgment just goes out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Legal professionals we spoke to emphasized sheer volume as the most frustrating new element of chatbot-era pro se cases. Whereas self-represented litigants pre-AI might\u2019ve submitted initial complaints\u00a0as brief as one or two pages, these filings sometimes now total hundreds of pages, which is unusual in conventional practice.<\/p>\n \u201cThese filings that are coming from the generative AI, are long, very long,\u201d said one lawyer. Another said one self-represented plaintiff she encountered filed a nearly 600-page complaint.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t stop there. Once a complaint is filed, attorneys told us, litigants using AI often proceed to file a steady drip of new motions and other documents, prompting the professionals on the other side of the case to pour a huge number of hours into reading and responding to the outflow of material.<\/p>\n \u201cSome file as many as four [motions] a week, and all need to be responded to,\u201d lamented another lawyer. \u201cIt takes countless hours each week just to respond to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Compounding that volume, legal workers say, is a disorienting veneer of legibility that AI can bring to flawed or baseless arguments. AI-generated court documents we reviewed showed self-represented litigants filing complex-looking theories packed with confident legal jargon. But often, these documents are the product of a process that could be referred to as cogency-washing: chatbots taking incomplete, biased, or even delusional claims and organizing them into authoritative nonsense.<\/p>\n \u201cThe burden shifts over to who you\u2019re suing to have to rebut everything, and actually litigate against you, and do an enormous amount of work,\u201d observed another attorney, who works for a local government on the west coast. His office, he told us, has been struggling to keep up with a wave of AI-generated legal actions and correspondence from locals.<\/p>\n All this time adds up. One lawyer relayed that a dispute that historically would\u2019ve cost a client about $2,000 wound up costing over $20,000 as the opposing party filed AI-generated motion after AI-generated motion; another said that a similar case pushed what should\u2019ve been about $5,000 in client fees to over $70,000.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no easy or inexpensive way to get a vexatious litigant out of a case,\u201d said one lawyer. \u201cBefore, such a person would need to spend the money on an attorney or find an attorney that is willing to work on an arrangement that does not require money up front (hard to find). That is no longer the case.\u201d<\/p>\n In some cases, lawyers told us, they\u2019ve been able to successfully petition a judge to make AI-happy pro se litigants reimburse their clients for a portion of those fees. But in other instances, state statutes can prevent attorneys from making that kind request, meaning that the financial burden of AI-exacerbated court battles may still fall on their clients.<\/p>\n Several lawyers noted the persistence of hallucinations in these cases, with plaintiffs citing AI-fabricated laws that don\u2019t actually exist, or mangling legal advice so badly that it\u2019s completely misleading the user.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a civil case where the rules of evidence don\u2019t apply, but their AI is telling them that they should be citing criminal cases and using criminal pattern jury instructions,\u201d said Ficarrotta, the Washington lawyer. \u201cBut my case doesn\u2019t have a jury. We\u2019re not going to trial. It\u2019s just a hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Even when an AI-contrived legal argument proves to be unserious on its merits, the consequences can be anything but. In addition to ending up saddled with the opposing council\u2019s attorney fees, many of these AI-focused petitioners have faced court sanctions including expensive fines and harsh dismissals from fed-up judges. Others have wound up being labelled vexatious litigants, which generally means that they now need to request permission to file future lawsuits.<\/p>\n The time and energy these cases eat up go beyond that of individual lawyers. As Ficarrotta noted, the commissioner or the judge hearing the case \u201chas to go and spend time reading all of it, and reviewing all of it, before they even come out and sit on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n In one case she was involved in, Ficarrotta said, that meant the commissioner had to spend her night looking through \u201c500 pages of AI-generated pleadings, none of which were relevant.\u201d And meanwhile, she added, \u201cthere were a bunch of people also on that docket who were waiting to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re preventing other people from accessing the justice that they need,\u201d she continued, \u201cjust by putting themselves on the docket.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe judges in my somewhat rural county are not pleased,\u201d added another lawyer, \u201cwith their dockets being crammed with pleadings that are mostly nonsense generated by AI.\u201d<\/p>\n As one Texas-based paralegal put it, the disruption happens \u201call the way down\u201d the court.<\/p>\n \u201cThe courts take all filings seriously. And all of this sh*t, before it gets in front of a judge, is clogging the system,\u201d said the paralegal. \u201cWe have to respond on the defense side, but also, the clerks have to do stuff at the courts. Staff attorneys are reviewing some filings. They\u2019re having to look up these bullsh*t cases that don\u2019t even exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Have you been involved in a legal situation involving AI? Get in touch with us at\u00a0tips@futurism.com<\/a>. We can keep you anonymous.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n At times, AI use has spilled over into personal harassment<\/a> against legal professionals.<\/p>\n A few years back, one lawyer told us \u2014 before ChatGPT and similar bots were even released \u2014\u00a0he took on a pro bono lawsuit on behalf of a young artist. The case centered on a straightforward payment dispute; the plaintiff he represented won, meaning that the defendant now owed money. Her payments were spotty, the lawyer said, but overall, the case had been open-and-shut.<\/p>\n But in 2025, the defendant suddenly re-emerged. In a torrent of emails, she outlined a new and seemingly AI-generated legal theory, in which she argued that she didn\u2019t have to pay after all \u2014\u00a0and that the lawyer himself had engaged in some kind of grave misconduct.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is blown out into such crazy proportions,\u201d the lawyer said of the emails, which he described as a \u201cfan fiction\u201d narrative of the case.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I\u2019m a lawyer. I\u2019m the opposing counsel here. I\u2019m sort of the bad guy,\u201d he said. But it\u2019d been \u201cpretty vanilla, my representation in this. It wasn\u2019t even that adversarial.\u201d<\/p>\n As of January 2026, he said, the defendant had sent him over 300 accusatory emails, all of which appeared to be AI-generated. And like the plaintiffs in the HOA case, she escalated her qualms to the state, urging in AI-spun complaints to the state bar that the lawyer should lose his license to practice.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever version of events that she fed into it,\u201d said the lawyer, \u201cthe AI somehow compounded it.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n To be sure, people filing their own lawsuits certainly aren\u2019t the only ones who\u2019ve been caught misusing AI in a courtroom. Many trained lawyers have been caught<\/a> submitting drafts with nonexistent, AI-hallucinated case law, drawing ire and sanctions<\/a> from judges. As judges have noted in searing condemnations<\/a>, this kind of lazy error is an issue of negligence: legal professionals who should know better are leaning on cheap-and-easy tech to do sloppy work.<\/p>\n In contrast, much of the problematic AI use by self-represented litigants, as described by lawyers we spoke with and outlined in AI-generated court filings we reviewed, would be poorly understood as straightforward negligence. The laypeople bringing the suits think they have a case, and instead of explaining why they don\u2019t \u2014\u00a0like a responsible lawyer would \u2014\u00a0chatbots designed to be agreeable to users are helping to craft spurious legal theories that send everyone involved into an unnecessary legal quagmire.<\/p>\n \u201cAI will absolutely tell you what you want to hear,\u201d said the local government attorney. \u201cAnd right now it will do that and hallucinate case law. But even if it starts getting law correct, that doesn\u2019t mean it can really make independent heuristic judgment on whether the case is still worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n Lawyers we spoke to emphasized that their value is, in large part, discernment: identifying strong arguments, understanding the processes and nuances of the court, and steering potential litigants toward a best course of action \u2014\u00a0or, at times, a lack thereof.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone says to me, \u2018Do you think I have a strong case?\u2019 I\u2019m always going to be real with them. Because, one, we can never guarantee anything, but two, we have to set realistic expectations,\u201d Ficarrotta said. \u201cThere is no sounding board with AI. There is no setting realistic expectations. Which is why it\u2019s so surprising to pro se litigants when they come in and things aren\u2019t the way that they thought they were going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, a sycophantic lawyer is a bad lawyer. And when ingratiating chatbots collide with consequential legal choices, they can steer users down self-destructive paths.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a lot of serious consequences once you start engaging the judicial system, and if you\u2019re not doing it in good faith, or if you start screwing up a lot, you can get in quite a bit of trouble,\u201d the local government attorney warned, pointing to consequences like sanctions, as well as the reputational damage someone could suffer once a case goes into the public record. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just on the civil side.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think people underestimate,\u201d he added, \u201chow litigation impacts their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond sanctions, some courts that have encountered this issue have taken some limited steps to curb unwieldy AI lawsuits, for example requiring that all parties disclose when documents are AI-generated.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the phenomenon sits at a complicated crossroads, and even lawyers who say AI has burdened courts were hesitant to dissuade self-represented people from using the tech entirely.<\/p>\n The legal system is riddled with serious access problems that prevent a massive number of people \u2014\u00a0particularly poor and marginalized ones \u2014\u00a0from obtaining justice, regardless of whether their claims have merit. The vast majority of those who turn to self-representation do so purely out of need; that a new technology could serve as a democratizing force within the legal world, legal access advocates urge, is essential terrain to explore.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an access to justice crisis in our country,\u201d said Lou Rulli, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania who has written extensively on legal access. \u201cSo many Americans just don\u2019t have the ability to obtain counsel, even in the most important things affecting their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re still at an early stage of AI,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut this represents an opportunity to democratize our legal system, to demystify our complex court procedures, and to help to give folks who don\u2019t have access to counsel an opportunity to understand complex things in more simple language \u2014\u00a0and to have the support, at least in limited ways, to protect their most vital interests.\u201d<\/p>\n