Why You Shouldn’t Trust ChatGPT or Gemini With Your Severance or Termination Advice

Using ChatGPT or Gemini for help after you’ve been fired, let go, or forced to resign might seem like a fast, free solution — but it can lead to serious mistakes. These popular AI tools aren’t trained employment lawyers. They don’t understand your legal rights or what strategy will get the best result.

Here are 7 reasons why you shouldn’t trust ChatGPT, Gemini, or any AI tool with your severance or dismissal case.

1. AI Can Give You Bad Legal Advice

AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini often sound confident — but confidence doesn’t mean accuracy. When addressing terminations and wrongful dismissal, we’ve seen them:

• Tell users they’re only owed government-legislated minimums (e.g., one week per year)
• Misstate key facts about severance pay
• Confuse provincial laws
• Tell you to resign at the worst possible time
• Even invent case law that doesn’t exist

2. AI Tends to Tell You What You Want to Hear

Tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are designed to be helpful — which often means telling you what sounds right based on what you’ve shared. They’ll usually take your word at face value, even if your assumptions are off.

If you tell AI that you’ve been wrongfully or constructively dismissed, it won’t question that — it will explain those concepts as if they apply. But employment law depends on facts, context, and legal interpretation, not just how the situation feels.

This doesn’t mean your concerns aren’t valid. It means AI isn’t built to challenge your assumptions or assess the full picture — the way a real employment lawyer can.

At Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, we listen, review your documents, and apply the law — so you get clear, strategic advice, not just something that sounds reassuring.

3. AI Can Undermine Your Severance Negotiations

When AI tools estimate severance pay, the numbers are often way off — either too low or too high. Both situations hurt your position.

We’ve seen people:

• Ask for just a few extra weeks, when they were entitled to several months, and in many cases, up to 24 months’ pay
• Reject fair offers because AI told them their claim was incorrectly worth six figures

ChatGPT and Gemini don’t account for real-world factors like job market trends, industry norms, or what your employer has done in similar cases.

4. AI Doesn’t Understand Strategy — Or What Actually Wins a Case

ChatGPT and Gemini don’t know what works in the real world. Legal success isn’t just about what the law says — it’s about knowing how to apply it, what evidence actually matters, and when to act.

AI can’t weigh:

• Timing or leverage
• Your industry or employer’s patterns
• Which documents carry legal weight
• Whether to negotiate quietly or push harder

Relying on the wrong “strategy” or weak evidence can undermine your claim or give your employer the upper hand. We’ll also prevent you from using the wrong evidence that could backfire. Our lawyers evaluate your entire situation — not just keywords.

5. AI Doesn’t Understand the Law in Your Province

ChatGPT and Gemini are not completely tailored to Ontario, Alberta, BC, or any other province. They often:

• Confuse rules across jurisdictions
• Quote government employment standards minimums while ignoring common law rights
• Skip over real severance entitlements entirely

In Canada, most non-unionized employees are owed much more than government minimums — as much as 24 months’ pay. Relying on AI could mean walking away from tens of thousands of dollars severance pay.

6. AI Hallucinates — and Has Already Misled Canadians

AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are known to “hallucinate” — confidently generating legal content that looks real, but simply isn’t. That includes fake case law, misleading citations, and analysis based on facts that don’t exist.

This isn’t hypothetical. It’s already happening in Canada:

• In British Columbia, a couple involved in a condo dispute used AI-generated legal research from Microsoft Copilot. Out of 10 case citations, nine were completely fake, leading to major issues in court. CBC reported the story here.
• In Ontario, a person representing themselves in court used AI to help write their legal documents. But the service they used made up court decisions. The judge caught the errors and warned that using this kind of AI-generated material in legal documents could lead to serious consequences. See the court’s decision..

When AI invents legal information or gives you the wrong case law, it won’t raise its hand and correct itself — and you’ll be the one dealing with the fallout.

7. Why So Many People Come to Us After Things Go Wrong

At Samfiru Tumarkin LLP, we’ve represented more than 50,000 non-unionized employees across Canada. We’re the most positively reveiwed employment law firm in the country — and for good reason.

Far too often, people come to us after relying on AI advice or another law firm that told them what they wanted to hear just to get them in the door. Sometimes they were told they had a slam-dunk case or were guaranteed punitive damages — only to discover later that the strategy was flawed, or their expectations weren’t grounded in legal reality.

When that strategy fails, they’re left confused, frustrated, and at risk of losing out on what they’re really owed.

That’s were we step in: to help clean up the situation, protect your rights, and recover what we can. But we’d rather help you avoid that risk in the first place.

We don’t overpromise just to earn your business. We give you a clear legal opinion and strategic understanding of what’s actually achievable — based on your facts, the law in your province, and what we know from handling thousands of similar cases.

We represent you in negotiations — and, in rare cases where the matter doesn’t resolve, in court.

You only get one shot at doing this right. Make sure your next step is based on real legal advice — not artificial confidence.

Speak to a Real Employment Lawyer

If you’ve been fired, laid off, pressured to quit, or denied severance, don’t rely on ChatGPT or Gemini. Speak to a real employment lawyer who knows how to navigate your unique matter.

• 👥 Over 50,000 clients helped across Canada
• 💰 Millions recovered in severance and compensation
• ⚖️ No win, no fee — you don’t pay unless we win*
• ⭐ 3,102 5-star Google reviews across Canada (4.7 average)
• 🏆 Recognized as one of Canada’s Best Law Firms by The Globe and Mail

* Conditions apply. Not all cases qualify.

Contact us now to find out what you’re owed. Book your consultation or call 1-855-821-5900.