Nippon Life Insurance v. OpenAI case: whether AI-drafted legal documents constitute unauthorized practice of law

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois is hearing the case of Nippon Life Insurance Company of America v. OpenAI Foundation, one of the earlier cases raising whether AI-assisted legal documents constitute unauthorized practice of law (UPL) and whether AI companies should be held liable. The plaintiff alleges that Graciela Dela Torre, after settling a long-term disability claim in January 2024, uploaded correspondence with her attorney to ChatGPT a year later and asked whether she was being manipulated by "gaslighting," then fired her attorney and used ChatGPT to draft a motion to reopen the case, ultimately filing two lawsuits, more than 60 documents, and a subpoena, which included fabricated citations and unsubstantiated allegations against Nippon Life's in-house counsel. Nippon Life accordingly sued OpenAI for interfering with the original settlement, aiding in the abuse of legal process, and violating an Illinois UPL statute. In its motion, OpenAI stated that ChatGPT is "a tool that helps advance access to justice," but also argued that it is merely an LLM platform that predicts the next word based on patterns, lacking the knowledge and intent required for aiding abuse or tortious interference.