People have been blaming the increasing divorce rate on technology since unhappily married people looked forward to coming home from work, scrambling their phone lines as their modems connected a boxy desktop computer to the Internet, and hearing a stentorian voice announce, “Welcome! You’ve got mail!” at such volumes that everyone in the house could hear it. Since then, personal electronic devices have only gotten better at facilitating jealousy, extramarital affairs, financial infidelity, and an insatiable need to keep up with the Joneses, coupled with an inflated estimation of what the Joneses supposedly possess. It is undeniable that the ubiquity of personal computers and Internet-enabled smartphones has changed marriage and divorce, but it has also changed how family law attorneys do their jobs. By effectively using legal tech tools and by understanding the technologies and apps that their clients use, family law attorneys can make their own jobs easier and help clients get a favorable outcome in their divorce and parenting plan cases.
Legal Tech Tools Like Co-Parenting Apps are Useful for Both Parents and Lawyers
In high-conflict divorces, judges sometimes order parents to communicate with each other through co-parenting apps such as Our Family Wizard instead of talking to each other on the phone or even sending each other text messages through their phones’ ordinary text messaging systems. These apps use artificial intelligence to compose sample messages about routine co-parenting interactions, such as notifying your ex-spouse that you will be late picking up the children today, and the parents can modify the messages accordingly. Some parents find this less stressful than composing a text message from scratch. These apps also notify you when the tone in your message sounds too hostile and suggest ways to rephrase it.
For lawyers, the advantage of co-parenting apps is that they automatically archive messages. This way, if your client wants to prove that she always responds promptly to co-parenting communications, contrary to what her ex-spouse says, the app can easily supply this evidence, which you can present at trial.
Social Media Posts as Evidence in Family Law Cases
Today’s parents and children express their most powerful emotions on social media, for better or worse. You can use the social media activity of your client and his or her ex-spouse as evidence of the parties’ compliance, or lack thereof, with court orders. Social media has ratted out many a divorced parent whom the court had ordered to abstain from drinking alcohol during his or her parenting time when that parent posted pictures of a drinking party that took place when, according to the parenting plan, the children must have been pleasant. A parent’s belligerent behavior online does not, by itself, constitute evidence of domestic violence, but it can help corroborate your client’s statements about his ex’s aggressive or impulsive temperament.
Furthermore, social media use by children and teens can be a point of contention in co-parenting cases. Your client might petition the court to order his ex-spouse not to post pictures of the children on public social media accounts. Parents might also disagree about children’s participation in a variety of online activities.
Artificial Intelligence Tools for Family Lawyers
Artificial intelligence does not replace the intelligence of lawyers, just as it does not replace the intelligence of students. AI tools such as Chat GPT can, however, help you save time. For example, it can summarize court decisions so that you can decide which ones to read word for word when you are trying to find precedent in the case law for situations such as the one your clients are experiencing. AI can also compose drafts of messages to send to your clients when you are trying to explain complex concepts to them. You should not send the messages exactly as the chatbots compose them. Instead, you should review them, corroborate them with your own knowledge, and modify them as appropriate.
Chatbots write more quickly than paralegals do. By instructing paralegals to input prompts into AI tools, having the chatbots write, and then having the paralegals revise the bots’ compositions before you review the near-final product before disseminating it, you are saving time and, therefore, money. This enables you to provide your services to clients at competitive prices. You should be transparent with your clients about the respective roles played by chatbots, paralegals, and lawyers in the composition of a particular document. Your clients know that, by now, AI is a fact of life, and they will appreciate your honesty as you embrace these new legal tech tools.
Sources
https://ailawyer.pro/blog/the-role-of-legal-ai-in-family-law
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