U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta sanctioned an attorney who filed a brief containing erroneous citations in every case cited after the attorney admitted to relying on generative AI to write the brief. The attorney had used the tools Grammarly, ProWriting Aid, and Lexis’ cite-checking tool. The attorney was ordered to pay sanctions, including opposing counsel’s invoice for fees and costs. The court noted that sanctions were necessary because the attorney had acted “recklessly and shown “singularly egregious conduct” because they did not verify the citations and the citations of all nine cases cited were erroneous. The court further noted that the lack of verification raised “serious ethical concerns.”
The attorney’s co-counsel was not sanctioned as they indicated they were unaware of the use of generative AI, but they admitted that they didn’t independently check and verify the citations and underwent questioning by the court.
The sanctioned attorney self-reported the incident to the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board and filed a motion to withdraw from the case.
This is a hard lesson to learn: it is not the first time an attorney has been sanctioned by a court for filing hallucinated citations. The message in all of the cases is that attorneys have an ethical obligation to check every cite before filing a pleading with the court, and extreme caution should be taken when using generative AI tools in the brief writing process.
Similarly, Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, sent letters to two federal judges this week requesting information about their use of generative AI in drafting orders in cases. According to Grassley, original orders entered by the judges in July in separate cases were withdrawn after lawyers noted that factual inaccuracies and other errors were contained in the orders. Grassley noted that lawyers are facing scrutiny over the use of generative AI, and therefore judges should be held to the same or higher standard.
The judges have not responded to date.
The same lessons learned from attorneys using generative AI tools may wish to be considered by courts and their law clerks. Proceed with caution.