This episode of Off the Record with Gerstner Adam Law, hosted by Paul Adam with co-host Colin Gerstner, explores how AI is impacting the legal industry, particularly in personal injury law. They discuss how tools like ChatGPT can be useful for providing general information, estimating settlement values, and helping users better understand their situations, but emphasize that AI has significant limitations. Its effectiveness depends on the quality of the questions asked, and it cannot fully grasp complex legal nuances, negotiate with insurance companies, or take legal action. Paul and Colin highlight that attorneys bring essential value through their ability to litigate, leverage relationships, manage claims, and uncover additional insurance coverage that clients may not know exists. Ultimately, they conclude that while AI is a helpful tool for education and initial research, it cannot replace the expertise, strategy, and advocacy that an experienced lawyer provides.

Paul Adam 0:08 Welcome back to Off the Record Gerstner Adam Law Podcast. My name is Paul Adam. This is Colin Gerstner. Today, we’re going to be talking about AI. This has come on all of a sudden for many industries, and the legal industry has certainly been significantly impacted. And so yeah, we just want to talk about what AI can do for you know, prospective clients, folks that are injured out there, but where an attorney steps in and can do things that really AI lacks and can’t get done. So Colin, I want to start us off. I’m going to ask you some questions. What have you seen, maybe just in the last few days, you know, four to six months, in terms of how AI is really affecting the legal industry, but especially personal injury attorneys.

Colin Gerstner 1:10 Sure. I mean, AI, you know, I mean, is everywhere now. I mean, I think every industry is using it. We are our internal processes, you know, we use in a variety of forms, with our use management software. We missed not trying to keep up with the times, I see it, though, and what I want to talk about today is our clients, how are they using it? How can they use it? Should they use it? I think it’s really interesting. I hope, I think we’ve all kind of poked around chat, GPT, or Grok or Copilot, whatever it is. And it’s fun, right? To ask questions, generate images, and ask for information.

Paul Adam 1:54 And I mean, as we prep for this too. I mean, we our discussion was, AI is incredibly useful. I mean, we are certainly not going to be here like, oh, you know, attorneys can do everything. AI is just going to give you misinformation or lead you astray and meet an attorney. You know, we’re the end all be all that that’s not the case. In fact, we styled AI. Yeah, can replace a lot of things that we can do, but not everything.

Colin Gerstner 2:28 Correct. There’s still a need for lawyers, and still recommend. You know, if you’re injured, you need a lawyer on your side and AI. So just as an example, this morning, we’re talking about topics for the pod today. I made up a scenario. Went to chat GPT, and the scenario was, you know, it’s hurting the crash. I had x injuries. These are on medical bills. Tell me it’s settlement value.

Paul Adam 2:56 Yeah

Colin Gerstner 2:57 And ChatGPT did. And between us girls, it wasn’t totally unreasonable.

Paul Adam 3:03 It was pretty thorough.

Colin Gerstner 3:04 It was thorough. And then I typed in, should I get a lawyer on this, or can I just rely on you talking to chat GPT? And it told me you should get a lawyer.

Paul Adam 3:15 Yeah. And I think, what the if I remember, correct me, if I’m wrong? But the response was, you know, some of these, you know, more simple cases. A lot of the times, prospective clients are injured folks, maybe not. They don’t have any reference point. And what’s is, this a simple case? Is there complexities that, you know, I need help with? I mean, a lot of times you don’t know. And I think that’s really where the attorney comes in, is like, you don’t know what you don’t know. And so if you’re not prompting AI with the right questions, you’re not going to get the results.

Colin Gerstner 3:53 Yeah. I mean, I’ve been to seminars on how to use AI in our industry, you know, as lawyers. And one thing that’s always hammered home is that depends on the prompts, right? Ai, doesn’t know the universe unless you tell it what’s going on. And if you’re not asking the right questions, it’s not going to be so helpful.

Paul Adam 4:11 Yeah. And so you know some real examples that I’ve had, you know, I would say, in the past few months, where you know a prospective client will call in and say, Hey, I have a settlement offer on the table. I’ve been through all the treatments, and they’re very well-informed. They know their case. They’re a great historian of their medical history and but they’re like but the adjuster, they won’t budge. They’re lowballing my offer, and I know I have a better case, and they’re right, but they don’t have the leverage.

Colin Gerstner 4:49 That’s exactly it, and that’s one thing that lawyers can do that AI can’t, and that’s file a lawsuit. We’ve talked about this before on the pod, but one thing that lawyers have, that you know, home lawyers have, is the power of litigation, and that, you know, in a process, and you reach, you know, loggerheads with an insurance adjuster. If you can’t get a fair offer, what you’ve got to do is file a lawsuit. Insurance companies know that if you’re underrepresented, they’ll play hardball. They’ll lowball you in person, call your bluff, and you’re gonna do one of two things without a lawyer, is you’re going to settle show below what your case is worth, or you’ll try to file a lawsuit by yourself, representing yourself. And that’s ill-advised, that’s a bad idea, yeah. And so that’s one thing a lawyer can do. Is, you know, try to sell it. If you can’t, then you litigate it.

Paul Adam 5:45 Yeah, and I would say, what’s unique to about just practicing law in Montana and especially in in the Workers Compensation field, is so much of it is still about relationships. I mean, workers comp in Montana, there’s a pretty small group of people, you know, between the defense side, the plaintiff side, the adjusters. You know, maybe there are 250 of us in the whole state that are in this area of law. And I know that, I’ve worked with them all, and I know how they negotiate, where I know what their sticking points are, where I know their their trial strategies. I know how hard they work. I know if they need me to, you know, sew something up on a silver platter and they’ll just accept whatever I’m asking. Or they’re, you know, obstinate and going to fight about everything, and that’s what AI cannot give you a heads up on. And so I think that’s what makes it fun. That’s what I like most about practicing in Montana: the personal side of it. But for me, that’s the biggest difference in what a lawyer can provide.

Colin Gerstner 6:58 It was another thing too, and something I didn’t really appreciate until, you know, as a year or two in my practice, is that one thing we offer is kind of taking the insurance nonsense off your shoulders. You know, if you’re catastrophically injured, you’ve got a lot going on, you’re not working, you have medical bills, trying to keep all this straight. Your relationships are afraid. You know, it’s just, it’s a lot, and when you hire an injury attorney to represent you, they take all the bureaucracy off your shoulders, right? Also, it’s a lawyer’s job to talk to insurance companies. They’re not allowed to talk to you. So, I mean, I just can’t see this relief when I have a client come in who’s been hurt, and they’ve been trying to keep track of every folder just bursting with all sorts of papers, and tell them, like, you can do that to me, and just focus on yourself, right? Follow your doctor’s advice, do the treatment they recommend, and that’s it. I’ll handle all the paperwork, all the communications, all that stuff.

Paul Adam 7:59 Yeah, I’ll tell you this, Colin, and I don’t think you would, you wouldn’t say this. You’d be too humble to say it, but you are an absolute wizard of finding coverage when nobody else can find it, finding sources of payment where no one else thinks there’s anything available, finding, yeah, just the more complex it is. It seems like the more you dig in and find ways to get things paid, that frankly, we’ve cut a lot of cases that other firms have turned down because nobody thinks that there’s any coverage available. They can’t make any money off of it. Or if they get involved, the injured person isn’t going to get anything. We’ve taken those cases. It just takes some hard work, and it takes reading the fine print and being able to interpret that Colin that that is your knack. You’ve got many of them, but that’s one of them. And so that’s another thing I want to talk about, though, is is the insurance angle. Because really, you know, you can have great facts, you can have clear liability, you can have, you know, the perfect client, but so much of a case and the recovery comes down to the insurance that’s available, right?

Colin Gerstner 9:24 Yeah. And so you said one thing we’re always doing is trying to seek avenues of recovery, and there’s obvious ones and not so obvious ones. And so what we’re going to talk about here is kind of a run of the mill car crash case, and what kind of insurance coverage is what we’re looking at. So we pulled up what we call a deck page. Paul, tell the good people at home what a deck page is?

Paul Adam 9:48 Yeah. So what Colin and I have here, we have, we have two different declarations pages, okay, and so this is going to be in any of. Your auto policy documents. This is what this is the page that shows the premiums that you pay and the coverages that you get. These things are easy to just pass over. You know, your eyes glaze over when you look at this kind of stuff, but it is probably the most important document in your auto policy, I would say. I’d agree. And so we have here deck sheets from two well known insurers. We have one from USAA and another deck sheet from Progressive Insurance. So many folks that are listening, you might be insured by one of these. And you know, you and I nerd out over this stuff. We find this stuff, you know, we like to read these. We like to find the differences. We like to find coverage here. People don’t necessarily see. So tell me first about this USAA policy deck sheet that you have in frame.

Colin Gerstner 10:35 It’s a real deck page from a client. Obviously, information is redacted, and we’re looking at coverages and the amounts. If we go to the top, we’ll see description of vehicles. And this client has four fuel cars under this policy.

Paul Adam 10:57 Yeah. And that’s, that’s going to be pretty important. Pay attention to how many vehicles you have insured under a single policy. Keep that in mind.

Colin Gerstner 11:25 So then we look down, and under coverage it says “part a liability.” And so this is what we call a third party coverage. And so this is what somebody else can recover against. So in other words, this is where, if you are negligent and cause somebody else harm, this is your insurance coverage. So in this case, see bodily injury, and to see each person says $300,000 and so this person’s limit, liability limit is $300,000 per person, or each accident, 500,000 Okay, Paul, does that mean?

Paul Adam 12:04 Yeah, so let’s just say, you know, you’re, you’re, you know, driving down the street, I run a red light. This happens a lot. I T-bone you, smoke you right in the driver’s side. I have this USAA policy that we’re looking at. A claim gets filed, and the coverage that I have that protects me, okay? And so you have insurance to protect you, right? To protect the person who purchases the insurance price. And so right there, that shows me that I have $300,000 that is going that first $300,000 in damages that you suffered because of me is going to be covered by USAA.

Colin Gerstner 12:46 So that’s each person, and so yes, as an individual. So use your example, Paul, just driving like bat out of hell runs red light crashing into me and my family. The most that each person can recover is $300,000 and down below is each I mean, sometimes you see each accident, some policies say each occurrence or aggregate. But what that $500,000 means that most they will pay for single crash? So use an example. Paul crashes into me and my wife. Let’s say we’re both catastrophically injured. The most they will pay is $500,000 and so even though each person can individually recover 300, the most total, regardless of claimants, regardless of injuries, they’ll pay, is 500,000

Paul Adam 13:36 And I want to move through this quickly, because sometimes this can give dry if we linger on it too long. But what do you I mean this amount of coverage, this is, this is a lot more than we see typically in Montana. Would you agree?

Colin Gerstner 13:54 Yes, so under Montana law, the minimum limit is 25,000 which is insane, but that’s what the law is and it’s unfortunate, we see that a lot. You’d be hard pressed to spit in an emergency room for less than $25,000 but unfortunately, it’s not unusual.to see drivers with that limit.

Paul Adam 14:15 Yeah, and you also see drivers without insurance, right? And so that kind of moves us into the next line item there on the USAA deck sheet, which is uninsured motorists.

Colin Gerstner 14:30 Yes, nope, it is not. We call it uninsured motorist coverage. Interesting that so it applies for uninsured crashers, right? If you question somebody, or if you’re a victim, somebody crashes into you, that is also insurance that covers when they can’t find the person who crashes into you.

Paul Adam 14:50 So a hit & run happens.

Colin Gerstner 14:51 Yep. So let’s consider, you know, an uninsured motor situation. And so we’re going into what we call first-party coverages. So the. These coverages cover you. So, in this one, does this client have a $100,000 per person limit and a $200,000 per accident limit? Yeah, and so this is what we call, person portal. This covers you when you’re in your own car, and if you’re in somebody else’s car or walking down the street and hit that car, as long as it involves a car, this coverage applies.

Paul Adam 15:30 And, boy, that is not common knowledge out there. In fact, we’ve had a lot of adjusters that have told their insureds that they do not have coverage. And they’ll come to us and they’ll tell us, Oh, this is too bad. I don’t have any coverage. This person hit me, they took off, and we’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, you don’t have to be in a vehicle. You don’t have to be in your vehicle to have this coverage apply to you. What’s also interesting about here is, I want to get this before people zone out too much. But we have four vehicles listed on this, and each vehicle you are paying for is paying a separate premium for each coverage. Is that what I’m looking at? That right?

Colin Gerstner 16:26 Correct.

Paul Adam 16:27 Why is that important?

Colin Gerstner 16:29 So it’s important because we live in what I believe is the greatest state and the greatest country, and part of that reason is that Montana allows stacking first-party coverage.

Paul Adam 16:39 Stacking.

Colin Gerstner 16:40 And so if you looked, this client paid a separate premium for you on coverage on each vehicle. And so what that means is that he bought $100,000 in coverage for each of the four vehicles he owns.

Paul Adam 16:55 Yeah, right.

Colin Gerstner 16:55 And so that means that you take that limit and you multiply that by the number of premiums that you pay. So in this case, the client has $400,000 per person in EOM coverage.

Paul Adam 16:56 Wait, so you’re telling me if this is my policy and you hit me in the crosswalk, okay? And I am catastrophically injured. You know, I’ve got a broken femur, and I lose a limb, and I rack up, you know, easy a couple $100,000 of er bills, and, you know, post op rehab, things like that. You’re telling me there’d be $400,000 available to me?

Colin Gerstner 17:37 No cap, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. Oh, no, sorry for all the kids out there. Yeah. No, exactly. That sucks. And again, going back to the AI conversation, is that not every state allows stack and so, you know, could be asking AI this. You might even upload your deck page and ask you to analyze it, yeah, but unless it knows that this took place in Montana. It may not tell you, hey, you know, you got four separate policies you can stack here.

Paul Adam 18:08 Adjusters too. I mean, you know, folks are talking to adjusters that are adjusting claims on the cracks in multiple states. And every state has different laws on stacking. Montana is unique. Do you know how many states allow stacking? Is it like seven or eight?

Colin Gerstner 18:09 I’d have to do some research.

Paul Adam 18:30 We’ll report back on that, but it’s certainly the minority states that allow stacking. But some adjusters won’t mention that you actually have $400,000 in coverage. They’ll maybe let you, unless you know 100,000 or none.

Colin Gerstner 18:45 I mean, if I had a nickel for every time an insurance adjuster only mentioned one pop, one coverage before the client came to speak with me, I’d have a whole lot of nickels.

Paul Adam 18:55 A lot of nickels. Yeah. Okay, so let’s, let’s look at this. Let’s contrast this USAA policy with the next one we have from Progressive Insurance. What do you see? I guess, first off, when you’re looking at his deck sheet, what’s the first thing that stands out to you about this progressive deck sheet, as opposed to USAA?

Colin Gerstner 19:19 So under UM coverage has one limit there for one premium. So that indicates that that’s the limit. There’s no stacking, so a single premium is paid for that one policy. So if you look at page two. Benji, scroll, you’ll see several vehicles listed, but you’ll notice that they have liability coverage, but there’s no mention of UM, or UIM. I am underinsured motor coverage. This is what we call a single premium UM policy. So there’s a single premium paid, and there’s no stacking. That’s the limit.

Paul Adam 19:55 Yeah. And so, boy, I mean, I think that’s something that everybody should, honestly, anyone listening to this, take five minutes, you know, log into your online auto insurance portal, look at your deck sheet and see if you’re paying a single combined premium for all your vehicles on the first party coverages, or if you’re paying separately. I mean, I don’t think people are looking at that stuff. I don’t think people are considering that when they’re buying auto insurance.

Colin Gerstner 20:26 No, no. And I will point out because I can just hear everybody yelling through their screens at home, but Colin, look, there are separate premiums paid for these liability coverages. Shouldn’t those stack?

Paul Adam 20:38 Yeah. What about that?

Colin Gerstner 20:39 It makes perfect sense. And I made that argument to the Montana Supreme Court, and I lost. You cannot stack liability coverages, unfortunately.

Paul Adam 20:48 See, this is what I’m talking about. Man, you just can’t get enough of insurance coverage. You’re creative, you’re trying things you lost, but you know, at least we know. This one also this, this progressive insured. Had 12345678, 8 vehicles underinsured under this policy. Had this been a USAA policy? You know, I’m not promoting USAA over Progressive. I’m not making a plug for any insurance company out there, but I will say just how you pay your premiums makes a massive difference. This viewer wants to know why they have to go through a third-party agent to purchase insurance. What is a what is a third party good for when purchasing insurance? Yeah, I got some opinions about this. You want to hear them?

Colin Gerstner 21:53 Not sure. I do.

Paul Adam 21:54 You do. So here’s the thing, and this is kind of my pet peeve. You know, the law in Montana is the same, regardless of what insurance you have, what insurance company you’re insured with, right? Or you’re insured with, you know, an insurance agent, they’re a salesperson, you know, they’re going to make their commission based on what they’re going to sell you. But in the end, you know, $100,000 in coverage through this insurance company grants you exactly the same rights as it does from this current insurance company or this insurance company. And if you’re charged separate premiums for those, why? Why would you be charged more? Like, is there a higher level? Is it customer service? What is it?

Colin Gerstner 22:49 Yeah, you know, I think there’s value in discussing what’s a good limit for you. I mean, otherwise, you know, you may not know, right, what’s an adequate amount of coverage for your situation.

Paul Adam 23:01 Okay.

Colin Gerstner 23:02 And that’s gonna vary. There are, like, independent agents that can shop around across multiple, so, like, there’s captive, and they’re called independent agents. So captive agents, you know, do like one company, so like farmers, for example.

Paul Adam 23:15 Yeah.

Colin Gerstner 23:15 And that’s where they’re getting the quotes from. I express no opinion. What’s better? I have friends who do both, so I don’t want my phone to blow up. My friends are angry.

Paul Adam 23:28 All right.

Colin Gerstner 23:29 I think they do offer a service, you know? I use one.

Paul Adam 23:32 Okay.

Paul Adam 23:33 Well, I don’t really care. What if I just want to punch into chat? GPT, hey, you know I’m a 41-year-old male. I haven’t been in any wrecks. I don’t get any speeding tickets. I drive a 2009 Ford F150. You know, I own my house, but I have modest assets. What coverage should I get? What I mean is that it seems like a pretty good prompt, so I should probably get a pretty good result.

Colin Gerstner 24:04 I don’t know.

Paul Adam 24:04 Gotcha. I got him speechless. That’s exactly my goal. That’s exactly my goal. There needs to be somebody in our firm who is just going to stay silent on the topic and help us save face, but I’m just going to boldly go out there and be like, I don’t know. I think I could probably get this figured out with some AI help. You’ve got leverage and being able to file a lawsuit, litigate that lawsuit, when you run up against. You know the hurdles from an adjuster who the adjusters know the law. Maybe they certainly know that, whether you have an attorney or not, and what they can get away with or not. And that’s the benefit that when you need some leverage, when you need some teeth behind, you know what you’re. Negotiating that is where we provide an invaluable, you know, service well.

Colin Gerstner 25:07 So I was, I’m not sure you can trust the AI or something like that. So as an example, I was just talking to a really good friend who reads works by this Christian author named Nancy Guthrie. And he heard through the grape vine, I don’t know if it’s on the radio or what. But heard somebody say something about Nancy Guthrie kidnapping, and I was so worried that, you know, his favorite author plugs it in, and the Google AI right away says Nancy Guthrie, Christian author, has been kidnapped, and it kind of sent me to a panic. Adores this author.

Paul Adam 25:38 Yeah.

Colin Gerstner 25:39 He pokes around the interweb some more and finds out that it’s not this author. It’s an equally sad situation, obviously, Savannah Guthrie’s mom, but wasn’t who he thought it was, so it was wrong.

Paul Adam 25:50 Yeah, all right, all right. No, I do. Sometimes I maybe give it more credit than it’s worth. Yeah, there’s some utility to it. But yeah, no, it’s, it’s not without its errors. You know that’s worth considering. All right.

Colin Gerstner 26:07 All you insurance agents, send your hate mail. care of Paul Adam, at what’s your home address? My home address at the firm, don’t send it to the firm.

Paul Adam 26:19 Send it to the firm, Gerstner Adam law, Sarah will be happy to open it and immediately shred it. So thank you for the question. Really appreciate the quick response and asking, you know, asking, what’s the purpose of agents? What’s the purpose of maybe seeking a third-party intermediary to determine your coverage? Yeah, you know, do your research. Listen to me. Listen to Colin. You can’t go wrong either way. Yep. Well, do you have any hot takes? Do you have any burning, burning things on your mind? I mean, you got, you’re coming off a vacation. You did take some time off, which you needed. You’ve been working hard, and some much needed respite in Puerto Vallarta

Colin Gerstner 26:21 And I want to clarify the record. I had nothing to do with the cartel killing.

Paul Adam 27:05 And I’m not so sure about that. Okay, the timing is suspicious. Okay. I mean you got back on, you got back last week, probably enough time to, you know, just do a little bit of reconnaissance and report back and get out before it gets hot. That’s what it seems like.

Colin Gerstner 27:40 You know, I think the greatest evidence that it wasn’t me is the fact that I didn’t want to come back. I mean, to be, you know, the flights canceled, the airport closed, people spending some unplanned days at the resorts. That sounds kind of nice, not gonna lie, you know, I didn’t really want to come

Paul Adam 27:59 Yeah, but you couldn’t help yourself. You gotta, had to come back. Had to come back and interpret coverages for the injured and disabled folks in Montana. Good for you.

Colin Gerstner 28:08 So another thing that’s been on my mind is, I think this pod will air Benji, shake your head if I’m wrong, but will air March or April, he’s saying yes, yeah, my favorite sport, baseball. It’ll be starting up then, and so I’m a big Rockies fan, glutton for punishment, and they have sucked past few years. But they people don’t want to hear me ramble at the Rockies. I’m going to make a pledge to the people, and that is, I guess more background, they have lost over 100 games the past couple seasons.

Paul Adam 28:42 In a row, they’ve lost at least 100 games each season?

Colin Gerstner 28:43 Yeah, they’re on track to accept the record. They pulled a miracle and won some games in a row, so they’re not they didn’t have the worst record in baseball history last year, but they were closed, okay, knocking the door of infamy, all right, but if the Rockies win the World Series this year, I will get a Rockies tattoo for the people.

Paul Adam 29:06 Oh, you got to up the stakes, man, a big deal. They win the World Series it’s got to be a face tattoo. It’s got to be a throat tattoo. It’s got to be, like, a full like, CR.

Colin Gerstner 29:21 Yeah, I won’t go that far.

Paul Adam 29:23 Okay.

Colin Gerstner 29:23 But I will do it and I will video it and upload it to the pod.

Paul Adam 29:28 That’s good content. I love that. I love that. For you, that’s not gonna happen.

Colin Gerstner 29:32 No, no, I, I’m I feel safe. How about you got any baseball opinions or anything else you want to share?

Paul Adam 29:40 Oh, man. You know, most of my baseball revolves around Little League, the lower levels. You know, some call it the minor leagues, yeah, but yeah, no, that’s, you know, we got a bunch of great little leagues and Billings. Love them all. Obviously, my favorite is Big Sky and, yeah, we’re looking pretty stout this year. I think we’re gonna give the rest of the district to run for their money at all divisions, mind you.

Colin Gerstner 30:11 If Big Sky goes to San Bernardino.

Paul Adam 30:13 Yes.

Colin Gerstner 30:14 You get a big sky tattoo?

Paul Adam 30:16 Maybe I already have one.

Colin Gerstner 30:17 Oh, there you go. Prove It,

Paul Adam 30:22 Yeah, I don’t know. I think that’s about all we have for today. What do you I mean, we’ve gone through some pretty hot topics. I think folks are pretty well-informed now. Obviously, if they have insurance questions, Colin loves to talk insurance. He will not charge you. These are, you know, these are free consultations. If you’ve got questions about your policy, you want to know what type of coverage you have. Call Colin. You know, this will be a this. This is what he came back from Puerto Vallarta to do. And he needs, he needs to talk to you.

Colin Gerstner 31:00 And for you podcast listeners, we’re fishing for ideas. So there are other topics for the pod that you want us to discuss. Go ahead and give us a comment on the podcast on the Facebook page somehow; we know how you would do that. But do it.

Paul Adam 31:19 Yeah. We’re, you know, that’s up to Benny. Oh, he just mentioned, send us a link? Oh, send us a letter? He wants you to mail a letter. All right, mail a letter. We’d love to read your mail. We’ll open it on camera on the next podcast. That’s all we got for today. Thanks for listening. It’s been Off The Record with Gerstner Adam Law.

Colin Gerstner 31:43 Peace.