diff --git a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/base.py b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/base.py
index bcbba00ba..8fde45e4e 100644
--- a/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/base.py
+++ b/packages/jupyter-ai/jupyter_ai/chat_handlers/base.py
@@ -20,6 +20,9 @@
 from jupyter_ai_magics.providers import BaseProvider
 from langchain.pydantic_v1 import BaseModel
 
+# necessary to prevent circular import
+from pydantic import BaseModel
+
 if TYPE_CHECKING:
     from jupyter_ai.handlers import RootChatHandler