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DWC announced that its 2026
initiatives include online medical fee dispute submissions, remote interpreters
for CCHs, a pilot program to explore the use of AI-based interpretation tools,
and use of AI for a customer service knowledge base.
If you haven’t spotted the trend yet, the watchword here is “AI,” the use of
which is gradually encroaching on the practice of law, as it is in so many
other fields. For all AI’s benefits, there is reason to worry about his
increasing presence.
AI has the capacity to invent facts and create information that does not exist
to support its response and/or to appease the perceived bias of the user. One
well-known example is of a lawyer who sued Colombian airline Avianca several
years ago, alleging that a food and beverage cart injured his client’s knee
while he was onboard a flight. The lawyer submitted a brief using ChatGPT to do
his legal research, but the AI tool invented case law entitled Martinez v Delta
Air Lines, Zicherman v Korean Air Lines, and Varghese v China Southern
Airlines. When Avianca’s attorneys informed the judge that they could not
locate the cases cited, the plaintiff’s lawyer had to ‘fess up and admit he had
used ChatGPT. He said he asked ChatGPT to cite its sources and AI responded
that the cases could be located in the Westlaw and LexisNexis databases. The
judge ultimately sanctioned the lawyer and his law firm.
Likewise, our firm has received communications from opposing attorneys who have
relied extensively on AI programs to generate their correspondence, a great
deal of which proved to be incorrect. Citations to the Texas Labor Code
and Texas Administrative Code are often out-of-date, or otherwise
non-existent. Case law and Appeals Panel Decisions have similarly been
misinterpreted and misquoted. It has been our experience that checking
and correcting AI-generated documents often offsets the supposed time saved in
relying on it in the first place.
AI as a tool for collating data remains in its infancy, and as with any infant,
it requires constant supervision. While there are benefits to its use,
there are substantial risks, too, and for that reason it is the policy of this
firm not to rely on it in any capacity.
Copyright 2026, Stone Loughlin & Swanson, LLP