AustraliaProfessional services2024 – ongoingMassar Briggs Law
AI-assisted citation research for native title proceedings
Massar Briggs Law was ordered to pay costs after false citations entered court documents
Problem
A junior solicitor prepared citations while working remotely without access to the underlying documents held by the firm.
Approach
The solicitor said she used Google Scholar results to prepare footnotes, then reused some citations in another filing. The court considered generative AI a likely source of the false references, although the precise mechanism remained uncertain. The principal could not establish that anyone had checked the citations.
Results
No published figures
Takeaway
The firm incurred an indemnity costs order because unchecked references caused other parties additional work and delay. The court identified inadequate supervision and verification as central failures.
Categories
- Size
- Small business
- Industry
- Professional services
- Business function
- Finance, risk and legal
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Regulator, audit or court
Sources
Source summaries
The published reasons described false or incorrect references in documents prepared for native title proceedings. The court ordered the firm to pay respondents' related costs on an indemnity basis and treated generative AI involvement as likely.
Full details are in the original sources.
