AI: A Help or A Trap

Recently I sent an attorney a specific list items that needed to be repaired in a real estate matter. In response I received a first year law school treatise setting forth the rule of common law responsibility of the seller to make repairs. I just wanted to know if the seller would repair the toilet! Time after time, she told her AI to send some law school treatise.

So I decided to check if any other attorneys had found issues with AI. I found a case in which attorneys used ChatGPT to write a brief which they filed in the US District Court, a federal court. Upon examination, the Judge and the opposing counsel discovered that the brief cited nonexistent cases and made up fake quotes. Judge P. Kevin Castel said the attorneys “abandoned their responsibilities” when submitting the AI brief and it was worse when the attorneys continued to assert that the cases were real. Any of them could have checked a case to make sure it was real and did not!

The judge ordered the attorneys and their firm to pay $5,000 each in fines. He also ordered them to notify each judge that they falsely named as the author of the fake cases. Furthermore, the judge dismissed their complaint and said that the lawyers exhibited “bad faith” by not admitting that they used AI. See Mata v. Avianca, No1:2022cv1461 Document 54 (SDNY 2023)

In sum, my fellow attorneys beware! We cannot be lazy and send unresponsive emails or fake pleadings. We must tell each other if our clients will fix the toilet. In litigation, doing the research and double checking all our sources is part of being an attorney. And it is a most enjoyable profession!