Complete Story
03/10/2026
The ChatGPT Plaintiff: How AI is Transforming Employment Litigation
Source: Fisher Phillips, February 26, 2026
When a pro se plaintiff recently filed a more than 40-page memorandum accompanied by hundreds of pages of evidence, the FP attorney defending the case realized that artificial intelligence was at play. And even though the judge ultimately convinced the plaintiff to accept a settlement that spared the expense of having to draft a reply brief, the settlement amount hardly reflected the norm for a pro se case. AI tools like ChatGPT are emboldening pro se plaintiffs, empowering them to generate professional-looking pleadings and other communications. This is not only driving up defense costs and inflating settlement values but forcing businesses and their lawyers to deploy new litigation strategies. We interviewed several Fisher Phillips attorneys handling these cases to better understand the impact and develop a playbook for what in-house counsel should do in this new era.
The Old Days: Pro Se Plaintiffs Before Generative AI
Pro se plaintiffs in the employment arena have always had unreasonable settlement expectations and often forced defendants to litigate longer than was necessary. But along the way, they had trouble following complex litigation rules, could not generate significant amounts of written discovery, and were not able to engage effectively in motion practice.
Few pro se plaintiffs generated more work for the defendant than an effective plaintiff’s counsel. Courts would often dismiss pro se cases at the early stages of litigation, or defense counsel would be able to convince them to accept nuisance value settlement offers after the plaintiff realized the amount of effort needed to maintain their case.
The Scale of the Problem
AI tools like Chat GPT can help pro se plaintiffs overcome their lack of knowledge and experience to create vastly more work for defense counsel. The rise of the ChatGPT plaintiff has led to three major problems: a surge in the volume of pro se cases; an increase in the speed in which pro se filings are created; and a drastic shift in the quality of pro se materials.
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