An Actual Attorney Had To Keep Telling Lane Kiffin He Knows More About The Law Than ChatGPT During LSU’s Battle With The SEC

Billable hours once again emerged as the real winner in a college football dispute after LSU found itself butting heads with the SEC over its attempt to field players who’d signed with an NFL team. Lane Kiffin was able to turn to a friend who practices law for a living for advice, but that attorney says the coach repeatedly countered his arguments after asking ChatGPT for a second opinion.

College football fans didn’t have to wait for the current season to get underway to be treated to some major drama courtesy of LSU.

In August, the team ruffled more than a few feathers after signaling it was preparing to add tight end Dae’Quan Wright and defensive tackle Zxavian Harris, two guys who had signed contracts with NFL teams before getting cut, to its roster.

It doesn’t seem like the school anticipated the blowback that move would spark, as the SEC swiftly convened to pass new rules banning all of its members from going that route before scheduling a meeting where LSU had the potential to be expelled over a “lack of institutional control.”

The conference also filed a federal lawsuit against LSU before the latter waived the white flag, as the Tigers ultimately solidified their roster without adding Wright and Harris to it before the president of the university asserted the lawsuit was “moot.”

ESPN has provided us with a look at what was going down behind the scenes as the saga unfolded, and it would appear Lane Kiffin has put a bit too much trust in artificial intelligence based on the new report.

Lane Kiffin reportedly trusted ChatGPT over a real, actual attorney as LSU was waging a legal war with the SEC

In recent years, countless people have turned to ChatGPT and similar platforms for guidance on a wide variety of matters. They can undoubtedly be helpful tools in certain situations, but the advice they dole out should usually be taken with a massive grain of salt given their well-documented shortcomings.

That’s especially true when it comes to topics in fields where people devote decades of their lives to mastering the intricacies of their profession; at this point, I feel like the vast majority of doctors and lawyers have at least one story about a patient or client who consulted with A.I. before they had to tell them it had no idea what it was talking about.

That includes Tom Mars, an attorney who graduated at the top of his class at the Arkansas School of Law and has been practicing since the 1980s. According to ESPN, he’s gotten to know Kiffin over the years and agreed to serve as a consultant as the coach was navigating LSU’s fight with the SEC.

Now, you might think Kiffin would have trusted a guy with 40 years of legal expertise under his belt, but Mars says that was not the case while recounting his experience, saying:

“Usually, when I would express an opinion about what LSU was doing, Lane would reply with a screenshot from ChatGPT that supported LSU’s position, which was almost always wrong.

Lane ignored most of my unsolicited advice, but I don’t think he’ll be using ChatGPT anymore for legal advice.

Eventually, I told him that a guy with a $91 million contract ought to have a top-notch lawyer on speed dial and not be using ChatGPT for legal advice.”

Well said.