Thinking About Asking ChatGPT About Your Injury Case? Don't.

If you've been hurt by a medical error and you're trying to figure out what to do next, it's natural to do what people do with everything else now: open up ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or whatever AI tool is on your phone, and start typing. Do I have a case? How much is it worth? What should I say when they ask me questions? How do I come across as believable?

I understand the instinct. But I'm going to be direct with you, because that's how I am with everyone who calls my office: typing questions about your case into an AI chatbot is one of the riskiest things you can do, and it can come back to hurt you in your own lawsuit.

Here's why.

Your AI conversations are not private — and a court has now said so

A lot of people assume that talking to an AI tool is like talking to yourself, or like a private search. It isn't. When you type something into a public AI chatbot, you are handing that information to an outside company that stores it. And courts are now treating those conversations as fair game in litigation.

In United States v. Heppner, a federal judge in New York ruled in February 2026 that a man's communications with an AI chatbot — including documents he created with the AI's help and later shared with his own lawyers — were not protected by attorney-client privilege or by the work-product rule that normally shields trial preparation. The court's reasoning was simple: an AI chatbot is not your attorney. It owes you no duty of confidentiality. So the privacy protections you'd expect when you talk to a lawyer simply don't apply.

That case was a criminal matter, and it's one trial court's decision, so the law in this area is still developing. But it is not an outlier. In other recent cases, courts have ordered companies to turn over millions of AI chat logs, reasoning that anything you voluntarily type into a public tool is information you've given away to a third party — and that you have little expectation of privacy in it.

The practical takeaway for anyone involved in a lawsuit is this: assume that everything you type into an AI tool about your case could end up in the hands of the other side's lawyers.

How this plays out in a real injury case

In any medical malpractice or injury case, the defense — usually the hospital's or doctor's insurance company and their defense firm — gets to conduct discovery. That means they can demand documents, records, and information from you. Increasingly, defense lawyers are specifically asking whether plaintiffs used AI tools, and demanding that those conversations be produced.

Now think about what those conversations might contain. People type things into AI chatbots that they would never say out loud, because it feels private and anonymous. Things like:

• "How much is a case like mine really worth?"
• "Was the doctor actually at fault, or was it partly my own fault?"
• "Should I mention that I missed some follow-up appointments?"
• "How do I make my pain sound more serious than it is?"
• "What's the best way to answer questions so the jury believes me?"
• "How should I act in my deposition?"

Every one of those questions can be twisted into a weapon against you. A defense attorney who gets hold of a chat log where you asked how to "make your pain sound worse" or how to "convince a jury" doesn't see you working through a stressful situation. They see a script. They will stand up in front of the jury and argue that you coached yourself, exaggerated your injuries, and aren't credible. The most honest, deserving client in the world can be made to look calculating with a single screenshot.

"How do I act in my deposition?" is exactly the question to never ask an AI

I want to single this one out, because it's so common and so damaging.

A deposition is sworn testimony. The whole point is for you to tell the truth in your own words. If the other side can show that you went to an AI tool beforehand and asked how to phrase your answers, how to dodge certain questions, or how to seem more sympathetic, they will use that to attack the most valuable thing you have in a lawsuit: your credibility. Once a jury starts to wonder whether your testimony was rehearsed or strategized with a machine, the damage is very hard to undo.

The irony is that you don't need to do any of this. Preparing you for your deposition is your attorney's job. That preparation, done with your actual lawyer, is protected. The version you do alone with a chatbot is not — and it can blow up in your face.

What AI can't do for you anyway

Even setting aside the discovery problem, AI tools are a poor substitute for real legal advice in a malpractice case:

• They don't know your records. Medical malpractice cases turn on the specific details in thousands of pages of medical records, the applicable standard of care, and expert testimony. An AI tool guessing from a few sentences you typed has none of that.
• They don't know Missouri and Illinois law. Both states have their own rules, deadlines, and damage limitations that dramatically affect a case. Generic AI answers routinely get this wrong.
• They can't tell you the truth about your case. I tell people honestly when a case won't work — when causation can't be proven, or the damages aren't there. An AI tool has no stake in giving you a straight answer and will often tell you what sounds reassuring rather than what's true.

The right way to get answers about your case

The protection you're looking for already exists. It's called the attorney-client privilege, and it's one of the strongest protections in our legal system — but it only applies when you're actually talking to a lawyer. Conversations with a chatbot don't qualify. Conversations with me do.

So here's my advice, plainly stated:

• Don't research the strategy of your case with an AI tool. Not your settlement value, not how to testify, not how to "convince a jury," not how to handle your deposition.
• Don't paste your medical records or case details into a chatbot.
• Bring your questions to a lawyer instead. That's what the privilege is for, and that's what I'm here for.

Talk to someone who will actually handle your case

I've spent more than 35 years handling medical malpractice cases in Missouri, and I personally handle every case I take from start to finish — your questions go to me, not to a chatbot and not to a junior associate you'll never meet. If you have questions about a possible medical malpractice claim, the safest and smartest place to ask them is in a confidential, privileged conversation with an attorney.

Hendrickson Law St. Louis, Missouri 📞 (314) 721-8833 🌐 hendricksonlaw.com

Your first conversation is confidential. Let's talk before you type anything into a machine.