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As mistakes made by AI keep popping up in legal documents, some judges are trying out new ways to stop lawyers from cheating with chatbots (at least without double-checking their work). Instead of just handing out fines, judges are getting creative with their punishments.
A Judge’s Novel Punishment
Take what happened in Nevada. Two defense attorneys from Cozen O’Connor admitted they filed paperwork with AI-generated content. Judge David Hardy gave them a choice: either pay $2,500 each, get kicked off the case, and be reported to the state bar, or write letters to their old law school deans and bar officials explaining what went wrong and offer to give talks about AI and ethics.
Cozen O’Connor says it has strict rules about using AI. It apparently has a policy against using public tools for client work, along with mandatory tech training and a requirement that lawyers check everything themselves. They stressed that breaking these rules leads to consequences. But despite these purported rules, lawyers will get lazy and sloppy.
The case at issue with Cozen O’Connor was about internet provider Uprise and a failed fiber optic project. Judge Hardy found at least 14 citations that looked made up, plus others that were misquoted or twisted. The lawyers and their firm apologized and admitted that one of them had used ChatGPT to help write the document…and accidentally submitted an early draft. (To no one’s surprise, he’s since been let go from the firm.)
Creative Consequences on the Rise
Judge Hardy isn’t alone in this approach. Gary Marchant from Arizona State University notes that judges are getting more frustrated as these problems keep happening. That’s why some are looking for new ways to not just punish sloppy lawyers but also send a message to everyone else.
Some judges have turned to making lawyers who abuse AI apologize or at least warn affected judges. A federal judge in Arizona required a lawyer to notify other judges who had been falsely cited as authors of non-existent cases generated by AI. The judge explained that alerting her counterparts would “minimize potential harms of those fictitious cases to those jurists.” The lawyer was also removed from the case.
In New York, Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered the attorneys of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman to write letters to each judge falsely identified as the author of one of various fake cases, informing them of the error and apologizing. In Alabama, Judge Anna Manasco ordered Butler Snow attorneys to share her ruling with clients, other judges and lawyers at their firm nationwide. She argued that making up legal authority calls for much more serious consequences than just the usual warnings or small fines.
Will lawyers shape up, or will judges keep having to come up with weirder sanctions? Either way, the moral of the story is the same one you’ve been hearing since write-on for Law Review: cite-checking is important!
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