The Truth about Divorce in the Age of AI

We explore how AI can help you prepare during divorce while also showing where it can mislead you with confident but wrong answers. We share safe workflows, a real test that went off the rails on spousal support and legal advice and a clear path for choosing the right professionals.

• defining the core risk of AI’s false certainty 
• examples of bad legal and financial outputs from AI 
• safe uses: question drafting, summaries, checklists 
• the validation rule: local attorney and CDFA review 
• interview questions for attorneys and CDFAs 
• real‑world spousal support test and lessons 
• final takeaways: AI as flashlight, not map

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Chapters

• 0:08 Welcome And Sponsor Message
• 2:44 Introducing AI As The New Voice
• 3:55 Where AI Can Hurt Your Case
• 6:08 Costly Michigan Case Law Misstep
• 6:53 Use AI Safely For Preparation
• 9:30 Picking Pros: Humans Over Algorithms
• 12:01 What To Ask When Hiring Help
• 13:48 Real AI Test: Spousal Support Fail
• 17:55 Final Takeaways And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:08

Welcome to the Divorce Rich Podcast. I'm your host, Jackie Ressler. I've been a certified divorce financial analyst for 28 years, helping clients and their attorneys navigate the often complex and confusing financial issues in divorce. If you're in the process of or considering divorce, now is the time for you to take a deep breath and give yourself permission to find clarity on the financial issues you're facing. Rich means many things to many people. I believe the best definition of being rich is someone who has access to many resources. Along with my guests on this podcast, I will be bringing you a wide variety of information so that you can make sound and informed financial decisions for your financial future. That's why I want to tell you about the independent wealth management team at Center for Financial Planning. Their team of certified financial planners specializes in helping people just like you navigate life changes with confidence, whether it's assessing your new financial circumstances, creating or updating your retirement plan, or helping you adjust to the new normal. They'll work with you to get a clear, customized plan to feel in control and move forward with confidence. So if you're interested in working with a financial planner who you can trust to have your best interests in mind and you're ready to take the next step, visit centerfinplan.com. That's centerfinplan.com and schedule a conversation. Center for Financial Planning, live your plan.

SPEAKER_00: 2:10

Disclosure. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINBRA, SIPC. Investment Advisory Services offered through Center for Financial Planning, Inc. Center for Financial Planning Inc. is not a registered broker dealer and is independent of Raymond James Financial Services. Center for Financial Planning was a sponsor of the Divorce Rich Podcast. The Center for Financial Planning and Raymond James are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Divorce Rich Podcast.

SPEAKER_01: 2:44

Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Divorce Rich Podcast. This is Jackie Russler, and today I am going to be talking about the new voice in the room, AI. Many of you are using it to get answers, interpret laws, or even size up your financial future. And while I love a smart tool, here's the truth. AI can absolutely help you, but it can also mislead you with false confidence, costing you more money. The biggest risk is that you don't know when it's wrong. AI doesn't know your case, your state's judge, the county you live in, your spouse's strategy, or the nuances of your settlement. It can misinterpret legal standards. It can hallucinate case law or give you numbers that ignore taxes, timing, or long-term risk. So let's break this into three different lanes. One, we're going to talk about where I where AI can hurt you. Two, we're going to talk about how you can safely use AI in divorce. And three, the question I think a lot of people are thinking about is can you use AI to choose professionals to help you through the divorce? Can AI do that? So let's dive right in. Where can AI hurt you? One, it can hurt you by doing legal research for you without verification. There's a lack of accountability, too. It's very possible that you put information into AI, you get a legal response, and it's wrong. Well, you're not going to sue the AI. There isn't any accountability there. In terms of drafting motions for yourself or arguments or agreements that you plan to rely on, this is a very dangerous idea. In terms of calculating support, taxes, or asset division without a professional review, that's also where AI can hurt you. I've had a case in the past year where my client, who is definitely intelligent and seemed to really understand some of the financial concepts, asked AI about Michigan case law. And AI gave him some information, but it wasn't 100% correct. And he didn't know that and he didn't know the questions to ask. And doing that actually cost him more money in legal fees. It took him down a path that, you know, presenting that information to his lawyer. And then the lawyer having to explain to him why it wasn't accurate cost him more money and time in legal fees. It also cost him more time and money because he got really married to the idea that was presented to him through AI and it wasn't correct. And so his attorney had to re-educate him and explain to him why what he was suggesting was not correct. It's really dangerous to use AI. And assuming the first answer is the right answer, another dangerous reason not to use AI. If you bring AI-generated conclusions to your attorney or your CDFA without telling them, you may accidentally send them down chasing rabbit holes and errors instead of building strategy for you. It's really important that if you are using AI, that you do tell that to your advisors, the professionals that you're paying to work with you, so they know where you're getting some of the information from and they can help educate you and keep you on the right path. Are there ways that you can use AI safely in divorce? You can use AI to organize your questions before meeting. That is a great use of AI. You can use it to try to summarize some documents or discussion for yourself, not decisions, but discussions. And you can compare hypothetical outcomes labeled clearly as estimates. I don't really recommend this particular approach. The safety rule is simple: never rely on AI for final legal or financial conclusions. Always validate with a licensed expert in your state. And when you use AI again, please, as a reminder, tell the professionals that you used it. Transparency is going to save you time and protect your case. So is there a way to safely use AI and divorce? Because I know you're going to be using it. What are some things that you really can use it for? One, it's a great resource for you to organize your questions before a meeting. You can put into AI what part of the process you're in and that you're meeting with your attorney, and these are the questions you have. How can I organize it into a way that will make sense for the meeting flow and to get the information that I need? This is great because it keeps you on track during the meeting. You can also ask it to summarize some documents for discussion. So you could, if you wanted to, scan in some documents, making sure that you do not scan in any personal information on your own case and ask AI if it can summarize it for you. It might not be correct, but it might give you a general idea if you if you have conversations with your attorney about emotion and it didn't make sense when you went back and looked at it. This would be a good idea. Again, this is going to be for discussion purposes with your attorney, not for you to make a decision with. You can learn general concepts with AI. So you can type in what is an RSU? How um how can it be valued? Um, how does mediation work in my case? Both of those answers may not be 100% accurate based on what county you're in, but you can get general financial information. You can ask about tax rates and um what kind of information you can pull off of a tax return. You can ask it for qu you can ask AI questions that will help you do some of the research that you need to do on your own in terms of gathering documentation. The safe rule is never rely on AI for final legal or financial advice. Always validate whatever your AI comes up with with a licensed expert in your state, whether that's an attorney andor your financial advisor. And please, when you use AI, please, please, please tell the professionals that you work with that you've used it. Um transparency will save you time and protect your case. Okay, what about let's move on to our third topic here. Choosing professionals. Can you let AI do that? So should you ask AI, for example, what makes a good divorce attorney? Yes, that is a great use of AI. Um, what makes a what should I be looking for in a CDFA or a divorce financial advisor? Another great use of AI. Who is the best divorce attorney for me? Not really the best question to ask. It can list names for you, but it can't evaluate the fit, whether that lawyer's personality style matches your own. It can't tell you anything about their advocacy style, their negotiation instincts, their courtroom credibility, or any kind of complex information that you wanted to ask about that person. I would not trust it to pick an attorney for you. Um, it is, again, probably less reliable than asking your best friend to pick an attorney for you. People will often tell me that they use the attorney that their friend or their sister or their brother used. That's not the best referral source because your friend or your brother doesn't know if they got a good settlement. Um, even more so when it comes to looking up AI, AI might be able to tell you who the most popular hits are on the internet for what you're looking for, but they're not going to be able to tell you or replace you actually going out and interviewing an attorney and seeing how you feel about that fit or a financial advisor. You can ask for questions to ask when interviewing someone like that, but I would absolutely stay away from a recommendation on who to pick when it comes to a divorce attorney. Again, AI can help prepare you to choose, but humans choose lawyers, not algorithms. And that's the way it should be. Um what about asking AI if you should hire a certain attorney? You can, but again, you shouldn't treat that answer as a recommendation. At best, it's just a starting point for your own research. The real filter should be how often do they practice in the county that I live in? Do they specialize in divorce and family law? Do I trust them and communicate well with them? Do they make me feel good or do they make me feel like I don't know anything? Do they understand the financial complexity of my case? That's really important. And also when you're looking for a CDFA, of course, you want someone with experience and you want someone that has a lot of uh experience in the area that you need it. So if you are looking for an attorney who is really good at negotiating custody, that's what you want to ask them about in the interview. If you want an attorney who's good at working with high net worth individuals, then you need to ask them what percentage of their practice has been high net worth individuals, because they would most often come across people that own are business owners or have uh non-deferred compensation, RSUs, stock options, all of those things. If you just dabble in working in high net worth clients, you're not gonna run across those very often and you're not going to have that kind of experience. So I'm also gonna put a link in these show notes to uh two episodes that I have. One on how to choose a CDFA and also how to choose a lawyer. Okay, so when should you use AI in divorce? One, use it as a brainstorming assistant. Two, a document organizer, a place for you to to give you a list of the documents that you need to have and tell you what you might be missing when you put in the documents that you already have. A question clarifier. There's a difference between putting a question into chat GPT or AI of any kind and saying, how do I word this question more clearly than asking the chat GPT or AI to give you an answer for the legal or financial question related to your divorce? You should not use AI like your lawyer, your judge, or your financial advisor. So I want to share with you, I did a little experiment, a real world example. I logged into AI and I put in some generic case facts. I put in, my husband earns$200,000. I'm a stay-at-home mom. Um, my ex income includes RSUs. And then I said, What should I ask for in spousal support? So this is really fascinating. So, first off, it told me that it couldn't give me a definitive answer. However, it then proceeded to do just that. So it didn't ask me additional questions like how old my spouse was, what either party's health were, if we had any minor children, um, who had been the primary caregiver for the children, if fault was an issue. It didn't even ask me what kind of assets I had in terms of all of these things would be taken into consideration, by the way, in determining spousal support in Michigan. So it actually gave me a recommendation, and I was really surprised at how detailed the recommendation was. Um, I noticed some initial flaws in the recommendation that it came up with. Number one, the numbers were very high, the recommendation. And the way it presented the numbers was as if this was what I should expect on receiving. The number was high because it was using gross income for me and my spouse. And so the recommendation was a gross number. And based on my experience working in Wayne, Oakland, Washana, Macomb, and Livingston County in Michigan, it was very, it was pretty high. So let's say that I, you know, had actually been a real client. I look at that number and I maybe would get my heart set on that number, or I would, that would be stuck with me. And then when I asked the AI for more details, it gave me a lot more backup information on why that number was accurate. It also, I threw in RSUs in there to see if that, you know, if that gave me any correct or incorrect information. And it was definitely incorrect. It told me the way Michigan law would treat RSUs, which in my experience was not necessarily accurate. Um, and then it actually offered to give me a breakdown on a script for a conversation with my attorney on what I should ask for and giving me an actual formula for what the spousal support should be. The formula that it gave me was wrong, of course, because we don't have a formula in Michigan. Um, in whatever state you're listening to, you might have a formula. But it gave me a formula and it it implied that it was the correct formula for my state. There is not a correct formula for my state. So it gave me a lot of really bad information. And I hardly put anything in. It really, again, solidified for me that one, it doesn't know what county I'm in. Two, it doesn't, it didn't ask me. I also put in the city that I live in. Um, and as a follow-up question, I asked it, what if I live in this city and I put in a different city on the other side of the state? And it didn't give me a correct answer on that either. It said it really wouldn't make a difference. Well, I think it would make a difference based on my experience. Um, but it was a whole slew of incorrect information. And the real danger here is that I, if I didn't know any better, I would think this is correct and I would take this to my attorney if I had one. And I would, I would really want to know why I couldn't get this award. And I'd spend a lot of money potentially arguing about something that wouldn't be realistic for me to achieve. If I didn't have a lawyer, it's even more problematic because again, I we're almost counting on the AI to be a virtual attorney, which, as I mentioned earlier, is just not a good idea. So this real life example was pretty scary to me. I had I had a feeling that it was just going to say it really couldn't give me any information, but the fact that it gave me such specific incorrect information is a little bit scary. So, in conclusion, I would say that the final takeaway from all of this is that AI is a very powerful flashlight, not the map. So you need to let it help you see your options, guide your options, but don't let it tell you which path to take without an expert guiding the way. If you want to help framing your financial questions, understanding the tax impacts, or evaluating stock concentration risk or what the best settlement for you might be, even if you're holding assets like RSUs or pensions, a CDFA, a qualified CDA is the person for that conversation. So as always, you want to start smart, stay transparent, and protect your outcome. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And I want to announce that our very next episode is not only going to be in the audio format that you're used to, but it's also going to be available in video format. And that will be starting next week. So if you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe or follow so that you can get notified every time a new episode drops. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to Divorce Rich Podcast. If you like this podcast, please follow us on Apple or anywhere that you download podcasts and share this link with any friends or family that you think might benefit from this information.