Judge Wang’s AI-log preservation order doesn’t just freeze evidence, it manufactures a surveillance archive. That’s the Carpenter Trap: when the State compels dossiers so detailed they demand a warrant. Judges turning civil discovery into government pre-surveillance.
Black Mirror meets Rule 1.6: if ChatGPT is a panopticon, is anything confidential? Podcast on our Orwellian timeline with data security expert Cathy Miron. Rockwell and Orwell had it right in 1984… someone IS watching you!
Nestlé CEO just got crunched in record time. NJ LLCs can do the same. When a partner’s conduct makes it “not reasonably practicable” to keep the company together, New Jersey’s RULLCA allows courts to expel the bad actor while preserving the business. I break down the doctrine, the key cases, and why a well-drafted operating agreement can save owners from a messy exit.
If you practice law in 2025, assume a simple truth about public AI tools: somebody is watching. Or at least, recording. As Rockwell put it, “I always feel like somebody’s watching me.” That is the right inner monologue for Rule 1.6 in the age of ChatGPT.
Remember the episode of Succession where Logan Roy promises Shiv the CEO position, only to pull it away once she’s fully committed? Or when he changes the rules, cutting his children out of distributions while enriching himself through side deals? That’s not just an exciting evening on the couch while enjoying your favorite home cooked meal (steak, always steak), it’s a textbook example of the kind of conduct that makes continued business operation legally “not reasonably practicable” under New York law. Under LLC Law § 702, the test is whether it is “not reasonably practicable to carry on the business in conformity with the articles of organization or operating agreement.” When your business partner starts acting like Logan Roy, LLC Law § 702 becomes your exit strategy.
Winter isn’t coming; it’s already here, and it looks like six elite law schools handing their students dragonglass in the form of Harvey. These new lawyers won’t be cautiously experimenting with AI; they’ll wield it like Valyrian steel.
Meanwhile, too many practicing attorneys are still clutching wooden swords, arguing about whether White Walkers even exist. That’s not just naïve. It’s dangerous. The feast is coming, and the crows are already circling.
“Would you use a tack hammer or a piledriver to build a birdhouse? Yes, both create an impact designed to drive metal through materials. Different AI models are similarly specialized. Using ChatGPT for legal research is like using that piledriver on the birdhouse—wrong tool, predictable disaster, Rule 1.1 violation.”
The brief cites Rick v. Morty Holdings LLC, a perfect case that supports their argument beautifully. One problem: it doesn’t actually exist. ChatGPT invented it because it fit the fact pattern perfectly, and the associate was recently having a conversation with the GPT about that episode where Rick turns himself into a pickle to avoid family therapy—which, ironically, is exactly what this firm needs after the sanctions hearing.
The opinion says lawyers should understand “to a reasonable degree” how AI works. That’s the kind of language that sounds sensible until you’re in a deposition trying to explain what “reasonable” meant. Most attorneys likely understand how Microsoft excel works “to a reasonable degree” but I’d bet lunch at Keens that a substantial majority of attorneys don’t know what a pivot table is, how to make one, or could even explain it to a “reasonable degree.”
Member, Scarinci Hollenbeck, LLC. Partnership and Business Litigation Attorney with Passion for the Nexus between Technology and Ethics in the Legal Profession.
