My landlord is taking me to court for not paying rent and I'm planning on using AI to prepare for the case. Is that a good idea?
- AI tools can organize your information but don’t rely on them for case citations
- Cases involving NYC rent stabilization rules are too complex for AI chatbots
Chatbots are trained to be agreeable, which could mean an AI model might bake your faulty assumptions about housing law into its responses.
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My landlord is taking me to court for not paying rent and I'm planning on using AI to prepare for the case. Is that a good idea?
Using AI instead of getting legal advice from an actual human is only something you should consider as a last resort.
“Cautiously I say no, it’s not a bad idea,” said attorney Ronald Languedoc, a partner at Himmelstein Gribben and Joseph who specializes in tenant law. He said that if you are representing yourself in housing court, consulting a chatbot is an option if you can’t get a lawyer or want to do some initial research to find out if you have a case, but turning to a real lawyer is always a better bet. (Free legal assistance is available to low-income New Yorkers facing eviction through NYC’s Right to Counsel.)
However, you should understand that the more you rely on AI research, the greater the likelihood that you will be led down the wrong path and served incorrect information, Languedoc said. “It may not be that effective to use if you don’t know how to frame the question.”
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Chatbots are trained to be agreeable, which could mean an AI model might bake your faulty assumptions into its responses. Models can generate fake citations or cases as supporting evidence, so it’s important to double check any information by reading the case law yourself. AI chatbots may also misinterpret what a case says or lack the nuance for understanding which cases are relevant to your legal issue.
Some cases are most likely too complicated for large language model chatbots, especially cases involving NYC’s rent regulation or rent stabilization rules, Languedoc said.
Other pitfalls to watch for
A judge can sanction you for using AI if your filings cite nonexistent cases or laws. A group of NYCHA tenants learned this the hard way in 2025, when a judge said he would deny an injunction to protect their homes from demolition because their AI-generated brief referenced cases that didn’t exist.
“Judges have been getting harder and harder on attorneys and even tenants who submit papers to the court based on AI research that they haven’t checked, and it turns out to be inaccurate,” Languedoc said.
Tenant attorney Altagracia Pierre-Outerbridge, founder of Outerbridge Law and a Brick sponsor, said that AI often misses when it instructs a tenant on how to address a court. That could lead to you inadvertently irritating the judge responsible for your case.
Pierre-Outerbridge said that practiced attorneys know the housing court judges as individuals, including what arguments won’t convince them. “AI doesn’t know the humans,” she said. The false confidence you get from your AI research may make you appear arrogant, which won’t endear you to lawyers or court officials.
Using AI to prepare for your meeting with a lawyer
Sometimes tenants arrive at attorney consults armed with pages of AI-generated responses, but those take time for your lawyer to go through, which could end up costing you money.
“If the information is correct, then we already know it. If it's incorrect then it's going to waste my time,” Outerbridge-Pierre said.
Languedoc said it can be frustrating for attorneys, who sometimes feel like AI is acting as an unhelpful third party in his discussions with a client. “You wonder if the client is really being better served or not,” he said.
However, these tools can be useful for parsing your own records or summarizing them, Pierre-Outerbridge said. AI can allow you to quickly combine data points into a digestible format such as a timeline.
“It’s good if you don’t want to look at your email for three years worth of messages about leaks,” she said. “It’s good if you have a lot of information and you want to tie it up.”
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