Posted on 05/25/2025 3:17:00 PM PDT by ransomnote
SNIP
State officials have praised Butler Snow for its experience in defending prison cases – and specifically William Lunsford, head of the constitutional and civil rights litigation practice group at the firm. But now the firm is facing sanctions by the federal judge overseeing Johnson’s case after an attorney at the firm, working with Lunsford, cited cases generated by artificial intelligence – which turned out not to exist.
It is one of a growing number of instances in which attorneys around the country have faced consequences for including false, AI-generated information in official legal filings. A database attempting to track the prevalence of the cases has identified 106 instances around the globe in which courts have found “AI hallucinations” in court documents.
Last year, an attorney was suspended for one year from practicing law in the federal middle district of Florida, after a committee found he had cited fabricated AI-generated cases. In California earlier this month, a federal judge ordered a firm to pay more than $30,000 in legal fees after it included false AI-generated research in a brief.
At a hearing in Birmingham on Wednesday in Johnson’s case, the US district judge Anna Manasco said that she was considering a wide range of sanctions – including fines, mandated continuing legal education, referrals to licensing organizations and temporary suspensions – against Butler Snow, after the attorney, Matthew Reeves, used ChatGPT to add false citations to filings related to ongoing deposition and discovery disputes in the case.
She suggested that, so far, the disciplinary actions that have been meted out around the country have not gone far enough. The current case is “proof positive that those sanctions were insufficient”, she told the lawyers. “If they were, we wouldn’t be here.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
They should have their licenses revoked. Plus a little jail time along with a fine ALSO
These a$$holes are screwing with people’s lives.
Unethical is not even viewable in the rear view mirror. No more practicing law....ever
“Fake citations.”
IOW, Lawyers lying to judges.
An average person who found himself in court and lied to a judge would find himself in jail.
P!ss on our judiciary.
It is not exactly lying. Lawyers keep using AI to write arguments, rather than doing the work themselves. The program will make up fake cases to use as precedents. The lawyers who do this always get caught and get in trouble, but more keep doing it.
I like to think that as opposed to simple citizens, lawyers, who are officers of the court (yes?) are in HUGE trouble if they present false evidence.
Liberty for the accused is at stake.
Lawyers who present false citations should, at a minimum, be disbarred.
Disbar a few and the rest will get the message that they should research their citations.
Near veryone in the work place is using AI now. At this rate kids won’t be learning to write within a few years. They already don’t learn cursive handwriting.
Kinda like an autopen...
Grok did that to me. Fabricated information and when challenged about my inability to verify the cites, defended the fraud as genuine. AI is dangerously unreliable.
“Grok did that to me. Fabricated information and when challenged about my inability to verify the cites, defended the fraud as genuine. AI is dangerously unreliable.”
Thank you for sharing that.
The thing is that lawyers who do this always get caught, and there have been stories about it for 2 years or so, but some still make that mistake. The other side will recognize they are fake cases.
Consider this possibility:
Perhaps the reason that AI generates false cites for lawyers is that the AI's programmers are intentionally trying to dissuade lawyers from using the AI output in court. That is, by generating bad information it forces the lawyer to either verify all the cites (as you did), or risk penalties when caught.
AI can do outstanding legal briefs, and it can do days of work in just minutes. But it needs a real person to validate and make corrections. It is also good at proofing and analyzing briefs to check for weaknesses, issues with flow, etc. You can use one AI tool to judge the work of another AI tool. It is a powerful tool that must be used the right way.
“Perhaps the reason that AI generates false cites for lawyers is that the AI’s programmers are intentionally trying to dissuade lawyers from using the AI output in court.”
Well that is just as bad isn’t it? That they would even manipulate results like that in the first place when it is designed to be an accurate tool the world is going to foolishly fall head over heels for? It begs the questions what else in AI has been manipulated this way and what else will be manipulated this way going forward?
It supports my theory it will be used to change reality and history. It either needs to be absolutely accurate in ALL situations or AI needs to be thrown out altogether... I think we have hit the limit of reliable and safe technology. AI is stepping over that limit line and should never be relied on as the trusted last word or taken seriously at all.
Not sure how we know that all such citations are caught. Perhaps there are many cases decided in part by AI generated “facts”.
By your argument, all reference resources should include bad information, just to make sure users verify everything. Dictionaries, book indexes, encyclopedias, etc.
Oh, I'm not at all arguing "should". I'm only speculating that the people who program and train AI might view the false output (hallucinations) as "the cost of doing business" and in the case of legal questions, an impetus for the lawyers to verify and not accept blindly.
After all AI is not a source of truth whatsoever. It is a source of accumulated data from the internet and other untrustworthy sources. Even if you accept the description of AI as "intelligence" (I personally do not), it is not capable of discerning that the data it's been fed is bogus.
The tendency of AI to "make up stuff" will be its downfall if not corrected.
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