United StatesProfessional services2023Levidow, Levidow & Oberman
ChatGPT legal research for a court brief
A New York law firm and two of its lawyers were fined $5,000 after a ChatGPT-assisted brief cited court opinions that did not exist
Problem
A lawyer at the firm needed case law to oppose a motion to dismiss a personal injury suit against the airline Avianca. The firm had limited research tools and wanted a faster way to find precedents.
Approach
Attorney Steven Schwartz used ChatGPT to find and draft supporting cases, and colleague Peter LoDuca filed the brief in March 2023. The brief cited six opinions that did not exist. After the court asked questions, the lawyers kept defending the citations until late May. On June 22, 2023, Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York sanctioned both lawyers and the firm and dismissed the underlying suit.
Results
Takeaway
The judge wrote that lawyers may use AI and remain responsible for checking what it produces. The sanction rested as much on the firm's refusal to admit the error as on the fake citations.
Categories
- Size
- Small business
- Industry
- Professional services
- Business function
- Finance, risk and legalInternal work and knowledge management
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Regulator, audit or court
Sources
Source summaries
The ABA Journal reports Judge Castel's June 22, 2023 order fining two lawyers and their firm $5,000. It says six fake opinions were cited and that the lawyers did not admit the problem until May 25. They also had to write to each judge falsely named as an author.
LawNext reports the $5,000 penalty on Peter LoDuca, Steven Schwartz and the firm, and the duty to notify the client and the named judges. It quotes the judge saying that existing rules make lawyers gatekeepers of what they file.
Full details are in the original sources.