Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Jones said her office will not use generative AI for legal work, calling the practice unprofessional and an ethical violation. The declaration places her among a growing number of legal officials wrestling with how to adapt rules written before the technology's rapid expansion.
"There's no substitute for legal thought and legal analysis," Jones said in an interview. "That's what we go to law school for, and that's why we take the bar exam. I think that (using generative AI) is cheating."
Jones does not have an office-wide AI policy yet but said she would be "upset" if she learned an attorney used generative AI to write a legal brief. The debate extends well beyond Chatham County. District attorney offices, courts, and bar regulators across the country face the same challenge of governing a technology evolving faster than the rules that apply to it.
Real cases reveal the risks
In April, a Georgia assistant district attorney was suspended for six months from practicing before the state Supreme Court after admitting she used AI to generate legal filings containing at least five citations to court cases that did not exist. The incident is not isolated.
Locally, attorney John Connell, representing horse carriage companies in an ongoing dispute, used generative AI to prepare a legal brief, according to court records. The filing stated: "This document was generated with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence tools, specifically Claude (Anthropic) Westlaw AI-Assisted Research… I have independently reviewed this document to confirm accuracy, legitimacy, and use of good and applicable law."
Jones said she appreciates Connell's transparency but holds herself and her attorneys to a "very high professional standard." She said using AI is "a lack of professionalism, and it's an ethical problem. If it didn't come from your brain, that's not acceptable. I think it's lazy, and I would not allow it."
What Georgia's bar says about AI
The State Bar of Georgia says AI is influencing legal work and professional standards. Ethical obligations on confidentiality, diligence, and transparency cannot be diminished by using AI, the bar states. "AI is a tool. It cannot apply legal reasoning, understand justice or assume ethical responsibility. That remains the role of the lawyer," the bar's website explains.
Jones distinguishes between generative AI for legal analysis and extractive AI for administrative tasks. She supports using AI to manage an attorney's schedule, identify ways to improve efficiency, and track pending cases. The State Bar of Georgia refers to this as AI Learning Path for Paralegals territory: tools that find and summarize existing information without creating new content.
As generative AI becomes more capable of creating realistic images and videos, Jones worries AI-generated content could enter courtrooms. The burden falls on prosecutors to verify that photos or videos marked as evidence are not AI-generated. "That can be hard to do because lawyers are not computer scientists," she said.
Why this matters for legal and government professionals
Jones' policy leaves lawyers and government employees with a clear distinction: AI can help organize your inbox but cannot replace legal reasoning that requires passing a bar exam. For professionals in legal and government roles, the central question from Chatham County's approach is not whether to use AI, but where the boundary between administrative assistance and professional responsibility should hold. Jones's final position is clear: no one in her office will be allowed to say that part of their brief was generated by AI.
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