Last week, a Washington Post investigation found at least a dozen criminal and civil cases in which supposedly private conversations with AI chatbots wound up in court. One college student essentially documented his own vandalism to ChatGPT. A defendant in a civil case asked whether deleted emails could still be recovered by subpoena and managed, in the process, to create what the judge called “compelling evidence” that he was withholding information. A fifteen-year-old involved in litigation against social-media companies had deeply personal conversations with ChatGPT pulled into the public record.
ChatGPT Is Not Your Lawyer
We’ve written about this more than a few times in the last year. Our conclusion is as simple as it is consistent: if there is any realistic chance something could wind up in litigation, don’t discuss it with an AI chatbot. ChatGPT is not your lawyer, your conversations are not privileged.
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Lane Kiffin, LSU, and Two Players Fresh Off NFL Rosters
Kiffin, now the head coach at LSU after leaving Ole Miss immediately before its College Football Playoff run last year, spent part of August trying to add two of his former Ole Miss players to LSU’s roster. Slight problem: Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris were still on NFL training camp rosters. When they were both waived, they tried to return to college and plug up a few holes in Kiffin’s roster. A Louisiana judge who definitely had no ties to LSU or its law school ruled ‘play ball.’
In a time of something new popping up in the NIL college sports era, this was stunning. There was zero precedent covering whether an NFL player could play in an exhibition game one day, get cut the next and immediately go back to college. The NCAA, SEC, NFL, state courts and federal courts were suddenly operating in territory that barely existed a few weeks earlier.
Legal Advice From a Chatbot
This is precisely the kind of legal question where you want somebody who understands the law, the governing rules, the procedural posture and what happens if your clever theory loses.
None of the above describes Lane Kiffin. Lane, however, discovered ChatGPT.
Attorney Tom Mars, a longtime friend of Kiffin and someone with considerable experience fighting the NCAA over eligibility issues, told ESPN that he repeatedly advised Kiffin that LSU needed to back down. Kiffin responded by sending screenshots from ChatGPT supporting LSU’s position. According to Mars, those answers were “almost always wrong.” Eventually Mars told his friend that a man with a reported $91 million contract probably ought to have a first-rate lawyer on speed dial rather than getting legal advice from a chatbot.
LSU Runs With It, and the SEC Responds
This was not just Kiffin arguing about the rules on his couch. LSU apparently ran with Kiffin’s ChatGPT, either overlooking the fact they have a law school on the main campus or in recognition that a state that uses the Napoleonic Codes might need to bow to AI. The writing wasn’t dry on the Louisiana judge’s ruling when the SEC threatened penalties equal to half the football program’s annual operating budget and a half-season suspension for Kiffin, then sued LSU in federal court and scheduled a meeting at which SEC presidents could consider throwing LSU out of the conference. LSU eventually backed down and has not rostered the players.
Your Chatbot Conversations Are Discoverable
Kiffin’s problem isn’t unique to college football. Business owners do the same thing every day: an employee threatens to quit and take the customer list with her, a partner stops returning calls, a customer won’t pay, and before calling anyone the owner opens a chatbot and types out the whole story. Who did what, what they meant by it, what can be done about it – sometimes what the owner would like to do about it.
Every word of that is a record. Under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, electronic data is discoverable like any other document (Rule 196.4 addresses it specifically), and nothing about a conversation with ChatGPT makes it privileged. A conversation with your lawyer generally is. A conversation with a chatbot about what you should tell your lawyer is not, and the other side’s lawyers will be incredibly happy to read it.
College athletics is its own version of the same problem. The rules are changing faster than anyone can write them down – we’ve called it Calvinball more than once – and that is exactly when the temptation to ask a machine is strongest and its answers are least reliable. Tom Mars’ advice to his friend holds for an athletic director, a collective, or a family business: get a first-rate lawyer on speed dial before your clever theory gets tested.
The Karma Bowl
It seems inevitable that Kiffin will be sitting in a courtroom fairly soon (yes, for fans of Alabama, the Raiders, Florida Atlantic, Tennessee, USC and Ole Miss it can’t be soon enough). It seems just as inevitable that, thanks to his good friend Tom, his ChatGPT transcripts will be used as evidence.
Four days after Mars’ ESPN conversation, Kiffin returned to Oxford for the first time as LSU’s coach and lost the Karma Bowl 32-24.
Talk to Hopkins Centrich
Whether it’s NIL, eligibility, or a business dispute that hasn’t become a lawsuit yet, call Hopkins Centrich at 281-978-4225 before you ask a chatbot. We’ll give you the answer a $91 million coach should have gotten from his lawyer. Time is not your ally.