Forum: Author Hangout

I read a news story the other day. I don't remember the details of who, what, when, where, but I remember the gist of the story. It was a civil case and the plaintiff presented a good case. The defendant's lawyer (respected) demanded that the case be dismissed because there was ample precedent on point, and cited several cases where a court had ruled in the defendant's favor.
The problem came when neither the plaintiff's lawyers nor the judge in the case could find any reference to the cases cited. The respected defendant's lawyer confessed that he had not written the brief himself, but had AI do it. In fact, the cases cited in the brief did not exist. AI made it up.
The respected lawyer groveled before the court. I do not recall the outcome of the case or whether the lawyer was disciplined.

Actually took me a few minutes to dig out the story I remembered. I can't believe this attorney was so stupid as to not at least check the citations before he made the filing, but there you have it. (Open the pod bay doors, Hal...) https://mashable.com/article/chatgpt-lawyer-made-up-cases

I saw that article this morning here:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/05/lawyer-cited-6-fake-cases-made-up-by-chatgpt-judge-calls-it-unprecedented/
Basically the same, just different publication.

I guess it was a horserace to see who could automate their lies first.

Who won, lawyers or politicians?

What's the big deal about a lawyer lying and cheating?

Lying to and/or cheating a client is one thing. Doing it to a court is a major no no.

My understanding is that motions and briefs and such are filed with the court under penalty of perjury. Something like that in a big enough case could lead to criminal charges against the attorney that did it.

The easiest way for a lawyer to get disbarred is to lie to or cheat a client.
Lying to a court (once) would likely result in sanctions ($$$) and possibly suspension from practice.
This was clearly negligence and stupidity: sanctions are the likely result. Plus a lawsuit from the client.
My suspicion is that an associate was given this file at 3:00 the day the brief was due and told to get it done.

Wait, there's more!
Heard on the radio this morning (June 1) that the judge in the case, after he could not find the cases, asked the lawyer to produce copies of the rulings.
The lawyer then went back to his AI, asked if the cases were true, and the AI said yes. The lawyer then asked the AI for copies of the rulings in the cases - and the AI produced them - and the lawyer then took those rulings and filed them in the court.
It was after that that the other lawyers still said - it didn't happen. So the judge called the other courts where the actions allegedly took place - and the other courts told the judge - these cases do NOT exist.
So not only did the AI make up the cases - it then made up briefs and rulings to back up its claims that the cases were real.
Makes me wonder how many references and case citations might exist that have not yet been discovered. How many lawyers across the country are looking at accounts of this case and wondering if they might be in trouble?

So the AI did the same thing a sleazy lawyer would do.

This doesn't make sense.
There were a total of 6 cases cited that he could have looked up in minutes without using the AI.

I don't think there are many, at least in the federal level. The thing is, the database of federal court rulings are on sites such as WestLaw and LexisNexis that lawyers/legal researchers can search. You just have to enter the citation ref into those databases and you will get an electronic copy of case judgment. The opposing counsel(s), if they are competent, will likely also know those cases inside out too (just like this case). Of course, it takes additional time and effort to make sure that said judgment is not overturned at a later date by a higher court, for example. That's one of the reasons why lawyer's time is expensive...

Looks like originally this Schwartz guy (not qualified to represent clients in federal court, but presumably able to do so in state court?) can't find any good cases supporting his argument in usual google/... search and resort to asking chatGPT about it, never to actually go back and check the chatGPT reference (a must for any court filing from any attorney so basically he knew the judgment cited were bogus. And to top it off, the other lawyer LoDoca (who is the federal attorney) signed off the multiple briefs to the court asserting authenticity. Worse, they doubled-down (twice!) before the judge issued OSCs.

P.S. The YouTube channel LegalEagle did an excellent video on this, highly recommended!

It would be misfeasance, not malfeasance. Mis- is you made a mistake. Mal- is you did it on purpose. Either could also be grounds for a malpractice complaint.

Now they are court-sanctioned and had to report that sanction to their licensing authority, let's see what the NY Bar do...

I think the LoDoca is in deeper trouble than Schwarz, lying about having a vacation plus signing off those filings under his name, and never withdrawing those problematic filings.

There's a quote from a story on SOL: "He's an example of the 98% of lawyers who give the others a bad name".
I had thought that quote was from Jay Cantrell's "Intersecting Circles" but could not find it there or in any of his other tales.