Is AI Becoming A Real Advantage In Court? Ask The Lawyer Who Just Beat Meta

AI helped trial lawyer Mark Lanier cut trial preparation time before a $6 million social media addiction verdict against Meta and Google.

AI Trial

Lanier, a Texas trial lawyer, told Business Insider that AI played a central role in his five-week trial against Meta and Google in March.

He said the tools helped him turn 30 hours of work into 10 and gave his team the equivalent of “10 additional workers who are incredibly well-trained, who know the file inside and out, who work 24 hours a day.”

The case was the first U.S. social media addiction lawsuit to reach a jury verdict. Jurors found the companies negligent, called their platforms “dangerous” and awarded $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.

Meta was assigned 70% of the responsibility, while YouTube was assigned 30%. The verdict is a bellwether for more than 1,500 similar lawsuits consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation.

Lanier used Boodlebox, a multi-model workspace that gives users access to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini in one collaborative platform. He worked with Boodlebox on a custom license that costs six figures annually and was designed to include his 42 years of trial experience.

At the end of each trial day, his team fed transcripts into AI models for review. He also used the tools to sharpen arguments and assess jury questions during deliberations.

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Lanier Warning

Still, Lanier drew a line between assistance and delegation. He said he does not let AI write briefs or conduct legal research without close human review, the areas that have caused trouble in courts.

Legal analyst Damien Charlotin has tracked more than 1,300 cases worldwide involving AI-generated filings with fabricated citations.

Lanier said AI made one incorrect claim from the record during the case, but he caught it.

“It’s not unbridled,” he said. “You are an important part of the equation.”

The broader lesson is that AI in litigation was already under scrutiny before the Meta verdict, as firms faced sanctions risks for hallucinated filings while trial teams explored safer uses for strategy and review.

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