Using Artificial Intelligence During Your Estate Planning Matter

Dear Client:

Artificial intelligence tools are becoming part of everyday life. Many clients use AI to draft emails, summarize articles, organize documents, prepare checklists, and ask questions. We also use AI and technology-assisted tools in many aspects of our practice, and we expect those tools to become more capable over time. When used properly, AI can improve organization, efficiency, and communication. It can help us spend more time on judgment, counseling, and planning rather than mechanical tasks.

We support thoughtful use of AI. We do not believe a blanket instruction to avoid AI is practical or helpful. But AI must be used carefully, especially in an estate planning matter where personal, family, financial, tax, health, disability, and business information may be involved.

Please Do Not Put Confidential Information Into Public AI Tools

Please do not enter confidential personal, financial, family, tax, medical, business, or estate planning information into any public or free AI tool. Public AI systems may not provide the confidentiality protections that apply to communications with counsel. Depending on the platform and settings, entering confidential information may risk disclosure, loss of confidentiality, or loss of attorney-client privilege. Courts have already addressed situations in which use of a public AI platform did not preserve privilege or work-product protection.

If you want to use an AI system with sensitive information, you should confirm that your subscription, settings, and terms of use provide appropriate confidentiality safeguards and that your information is not used to train the model or shared outside the protected environment. This is a platform-specific technology and security question. You may wish to consult an IT or cybersecurity professional to confirm how your AI platform handles your information.

AI Can Be Useful, But It Is Not Your Estate Planning Attorney

AI may help you organize information, prepare questions, locate documents, create a family timeline, develop an asset inventory, or draft nonlegal letters of instruction to trustees, guardians and others. Those uses can make our work together more effective. For example, AI can help you create a checklist of old estate planning documents to find, summarize a list of assets, or prepare questions for a meeting.

AI is much less reliable when asked to review your draft legal documents, recommend planning techniques, or decide whether your plan is right for you. Estate planning requires facts, goals, family context, tax analysis, asset titling, beneficiary designations, fiduciary selection, and professional judgment. If AI is not given the full context, it may give an answer that is incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, even if parts of the answer are technically correct. Consider the detailed Questionnaire, family information, balance sheet, existing documents and other information we request you provide so that we can guide you on your estate planning journey. If you ask AI questions about your planning or documents without providing similar background AI won't have the context to properly answer any questions you pose and the AI output, even if it sounds meaningful, may miss nuances critical to your planning or be completely wrong. Also, AI does not have judgement that is the key ingredient all professionals bring to your planning.

Why AI Questions Can Increase Cost

If you ask AI broad questions about your estate plan or ask AI to critique draft documents, the output may generate many comments or questions. Some may be irrelevant. Some may be wrong. Some may be generally correct but not applicable to your plan. If you send those AI comments to us, we may need to review them carefully. We cannot simply ignore a comment that might contain a valid point. That review will increase the time and fees required to complete your matter.

A more efficient approach is to tell us the topic you are trying to understand. For example, instead of asking AI to review an entire trust, you might ask us: "I would like to understand why asset titling and beneficiary designations are handled after the plan is finalized. Can we discuss that?" After that discussion, AI may be useful to help organize a summary or checklist that we can review.

We frequently have clients ask about using a particular sophisticated planning technique with questions they posed to AI: "Can you create an Alaska BDIT?" "Can you create a backdoor SLAT in Pennsylvania?" The list is pretty long. We can and are pleased to explain any technique your AI research suggests but it will take time, and may add confusion and complexity to your planning process. The confusion might be the technical nuances as to why a particular technique is not appropriate for you, or if appropriate why it is not optimal. We believe that a better approach is to start with all your facts and circumstances (family and other personal information, financial status, liability exposure, tax exposure, and more) and your goals then to discuss in a holistic and comprehensive manner, often with your other advisers involved, what makes sense for you. The results of that approach will generally be very different then you asking a question to AI as to what technique to use. Also, there are many variations of every technique. Finally, many aspects of estate planning are nuanced and creative. Those are not fine points AI can yet address.

Better Ways to Use AI During Planning

• Use AI to create a family information worksheet, but avoid names and sensitive details unless your AI environment is confirmed secure.
• Use AI to create an asset inventory template to fill in manually or electronically (we do provide a form we prefer you use).
• Use AI to make a document checklist for prior wills, trusts, powers of attorney, health documents, deeds, beneficiary designations, insurance policies, and tax returns.
• Use AI to organize a personal timeline of major family, business, and financial events.
• Use AI to prepare questions focused on goals and facts, not to select advanced planning techniques.
• Use AI to draft administrative emails to advisers requesting documents or summaries.
• Use AI cautiously, if at all, to review legal documents or planning strategies, and only after discussing the intended use with us.

A Few Sample Prompts

"Create a checklist of information I should gather before my estate planning meeting. Focus on family, assets, fiduciaries, existing documents, taxes, business interests, and special circumstances. Do not recommend legal techniques."

"Create an asset inventory template with columns for institution, account type, approximate value, ownership, beneficiary designation, and where statements are stored."

"Help me organize these planning goals into categories and identify facts my attorney may need. Do not provide legal advice."

"Please explain the following legal term or phrase [insert here]." Bear in mind that asking a question like this without context could get you results that are not applicable to your situation.

Our Use of AI

We may use AI or technology-assisted tools to help draft meeting summaries, organize task lists, prepare first drafts of communications, or improve efficiency. We use AI in almost every aspect of what we do and the uses and applications of AI continue to grow as AI becomes more powerful and as we identify new applications to better serve clients. AI does not replace professional judgment. Attorney review, confidentiality safeguards, and the facts of your matter remain central to our work. We will continue to use technology in ways designed to improve client service and reduce unnecessary friction.

Closing

AI can be a powerful tool when used wisely. The goal is to help you prepare better, communicate more clearly, and make more informed decisions with your adviser team. Please feel free to ask us how to use AI productively in connection with your planning. We welcome thoughtful questions and input. We simply want to avoid unnecessary confusion, cost, and confidentiality risk.