Not long ago, I wrote about the rise of the AI-assisted client. These are clients who use generative AI tools to draft contracts, analyze legal issues, develop litigation strategies, and even prepare pleadings before ever speaking with a lawyer. Now we may be witnessing the emergence of a closely related phenomenon: the AI-assisted pro se litigant.

Recent research suggests that generative AI is helping pro se litigants draft more sophisticated pleadings, conduct legal research, and file more cases than ever before. While AI is not a substitute for legal training, it is making legal information more accessible and allowing some litigants to present their claims more effectively than would have been possible just a few years ago.

For lawyers, many of the lessons are remarkably similar to those that apply when dealing with AI-assisted clients.

Sophisticated Does Not Mean Accurate

One of the challenges posed by AI-assisted clients is that the work product they bring to the lawyer often looks polished and persuasive. The same is true of AI-assisted pro se filings.

A complaint generated with the assistance of AI may appear legally sophisticated while containing factual errors, hallucinated authority, unsupported assumptions, or fundamental misunderstandings of the law. Lawyers should resist the temptation to equate polish with accuracy. The quality of the writing may tell you very little about the quality of the underlying analysis.

Understand the Role AI Played

When clients provide AI-generated documents, one of the best responses is curiosity rather than defensiveness. Ask what platform they used. Ask what information they provided. Ask how they arrived at the conclusions reflected in the document.

A similar mindset can be helpful when dealing with AI-assisted pro se litigants. Lawyers may want to understand the extent to which AI influenced the litigant’s claims, legal theories, or strategy. Did the litigant use AI to research the law? Draft pleadings? Analyze evidence? Develop arguments? Those questions may become increasingly relevant as AI becomes more common in civil litigation.

At the same time, lawyers should recognize that there may be limits on what information can be obtained through discovery. Courts are still grappling with how traditional doctrines such as privilege and work-product protection apply to AI-generated content. In many cases, the more productive approach will be to focus not on the prompts entered into an AI system, but on the litigant’s actual knowledge, factual contentions, and evidence.

The critical question is not, “What did the AI tell you?” The more important question is, “What facts support your claim?”

Verify Everything

A recurring theme in discussions about generative AI is that confidence and accuracy are not the same thing. AI-generated legal analysis often sounds authoritative even when it is wrong. Lawyers have been sanctioned for relying on hallucinated cases, and pro se litigants are not immune from the same problem.

Every citation should be verified. Every factual assertion should be tested. Every legal conclusion should be evaluated on its merits rather than accepted because it appears professionally written.

Focus on Evidence

Generative AI is often much better at generating arguments than generating proof. Whether the source is a client-provided memorandum or a pro se complaint, lawyers should remain focused on evidence. The critical questions remain the same: What are the facts? What documents support them? What testimony exists? What evidence will be admissible?

AI may help someone construct a narrative, but it cannot create evidence where none exists. Lawyers who keep the focus on facts and proof will often find that even the most sophisticated AI-generated pleading eventually rises or falls on the same evidentiary requirements that have always governed civil litigation.

Do Not Underestimate the Opponent

Perhaps the greatest danger is assuming that AI-assisted litigants can be dismissed simply because they lack legal training. Many lawyers have learned that AI-assisted clients can arrive with extensive research, proposed strategies, and detailed questions. The same is increasingly true of some self-represented litigants.

That does not mean their positions are correct. It does mean that lawyers should avoid becoming complacent. Cases involving pro se parties still require careful preparation, thorough investigation, and thoughtful advocacy.

In fact, one risk is that lawyers may treat a pro se case as routine and fail to appreciate how much assistance the litigant has received from AI tools. Underestimating the opponent has always been dangerous. AI simply makes that danger more pronounced.

Lawyers are likely to encounter more clients, more adversaries, and more witnesses who have consulted an AI system before ever entering a law office or courtroom. The challenge for lawyers is not to compete with AI-generated content. It is to do what lawyers have always done best: verify facts, exercise judgment, assess credibility, develop strategy, and separate what sounds plausible from what is actually true. As AI becomes more common, those skills will only become more valuable.