Lawyers have real bad day in court after citing fake cases made up by ChatGPT
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That's it? Really? Was expecting a much bigger penalty, maybe a suspension of license.
Particularly after they doubled down on the cases being real when questions were asked. That's by far the more damaging part of this IMO.
Particularly after they doubled down on the cases being real when questions were asked. That's by far the more damaging part of this IMO.
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So the lawyers were admonished, but NOT referred to the disciplinary board of their state bar, judge went very easy on them. They will however still face a hit to their malpractice insurance as their client has a slam dunk case against them, if they're smart they'll just pay the client whatever the maximum likely damages were in the case out of pocket and have them sign a promise not to go after their insurance.
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I've been watching a British guy play through X4: Foundations.
One thing of note is that in that series, AGI is very illegal. I wonder if the reason for that was how many lawyers got burned?
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Dumbshits. They couldn't take a moment to verify the cases referenced were in fact real?
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killswitch1984
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Most state bars do not necessarily require a reference from a judge to begin disciplinary proceedings. In this case, I would not be surprised if the client kicks this off.
I'm non-practicing these days, but back when I tried facing down judges in Texas, I could not imagine using a tool like ChatGPT to research, let alone write, legal briefs. This situation will forever be cited in professional ethics courses taken by every law student in the country, and possibly the world, until long after these lawyers are gone. It's bad enough doing sloppy research, it's far worse to repeatedly lie to a federal judge and try to hide your utter incompetence. The judge said they didn't do this for the money or out of animus, but I would vote for disbarment all the same. It shows such a lack of character that "giving lawyers a bad name" doesn't begin to encompass what they did. The rule of law requires a severe punishment; I just hope their state bar steps up.
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Think of it this way. They are now, for the rest of their careers, going to be known as 'the guys who did that stupid thing that everybody in their field knows about'. They might even make it into law school books as examples of what not to do taught to other prospective future lawyers.
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Is that light penalty the same fine as would have been handed down if a human had invented the cases?
The ultimate blame lies with the lawyers as they need to check their work! You can't simply blame computers.
Edit: Sorry for the error! Stupid autocorrect!
The ultimate blame lies with the lawyers as they need to check their work! You can't simply blame computers.
Edit: Sorry for the error! Stupid autocorrect!
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The state bar will likely also have something to say. Expect these lawyers to be suspended for a few months, at a bare minimum.
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Apparently not, because
Representing a client in federal court without access to federal case law seems like malpractice all by itself.
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What kind of formulas are you doing that are easier to express in writing to chatGPT than to just write yourself?
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So will these lawyers now sue OpenAI for the fake results that Chat GPT provided?
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steelcobra
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
More likely they're going to face disbarment for the gross incompetence, blatant legal malpractice, and most importantly, provably lying to a judge. This is just the start of their career issues.
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The case presented had no merit. It was gibberish and it was trying to cite precedent that didnt exist. Maybe the client had a case, but if they did that case didnt make it to court.
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Its mindbogglingly stupid that a judge would give such a light slap on the wrist when they're the ones who have to deal with this nonsense directly, but here we are. I expected nothing and I'm still disappointed.
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Hold on. Hold on.
Multiple lawyers doubled down on fake AI bullshit and they were still only fined a measly $5k? My god, I wish I could get away with the shit lawyers do professionally.
Multiple lawyers doubled down on fake AI bullshit and they were still only fined a measly $5k? My god, I wish I could get away with the shit lawyers do professionally.
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Yeesh, I feel like in one way or another that level of negligence should be borderline career ending.
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That uh… seems like kind of a mild fine. I hope for their sake their client came to them already out of time to file under the Montreal (treaty?) and they were just spitballing to see if they could extend the SOL. Otherwise the client will be coming after them next. And their respective states’ bar associations.
Know a lawyer that used ChatGPT. To make a Word Add-In that made redacting documents easier. I got called in to sanity-check the thoroughness of the redactions, which appeared to be complete (text replaced by different, merely descriptive text, then printed to PDF). There are a billion things you can do to make the practice of law easier with ChatGPT. Furthest this lawyer is contemplating is hooking up ChatGPT to this Add-In to identify information in need of redaction through categorical description. We’ll see how that works…
Know a lawyer that used ChatGPT. To make a Word Add-In that made redacting documents easier. I got called in to sanity-check the thoroughness of the redactions, which appeared to be complete (text replaced by different, merely descriptive text, then printed to PDF). There are a billion things you can do to make the practice of law easier with ChatGPT. Furthest this lawyer is contemplating is hooking up ChatGPT to this Add-In to identify information in need of redaction through categorical description. We’ll see how that works…
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The Youtube channel Legal Eagle posted a video about this case two weeks ago. A decent watch, IMO, since he gives some of the "inside baseball" details.
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It doesn't sound like the dismissal was a sanction on the case, but rather a result of the underlying SOL issue.
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I think it might be.
This feels to me like the judge gave them just a tiny little cut. Just enough to bleed. Then told them to go swim in shark-infested waters overnight.
I think he's got other stuff to do, and knows full well some combination of their peers, the bar, and their clients will tear them to shreds.
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Even if you buy the "I didn't know the chatbot was lying", I am shocked the punishment isn't harsher for any one of the below:
1) Doubling down on the lie
2) Submitting a brief written by a different lawyer not allowed to practice in this venue as your own work
3) Lying about being on vacation to cover up #2
Is it that commonplace for lawyers to lie to judges, beyond possibly lies of omission?
1) Doubling down on the lie
2) Submitting a brief written by a different lawyer not allowed to practice in this venue as your own work
3) Lying about being on vacation to cover up #2
Is it that commonplace for lawyers to lie to judges, beyond possibly lies of omission?
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I don't think #2 is a big deal. This sort of arrangement is pretty common. But once you submit the work product of someone else, you take ownership of it.
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for those that dont know, these lawyers work at a firm that deals in workers compensation law.
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It's not about taking a moment, it's about money. Somebody else already responded, but to drive it home and clarify a bit: access to the legal databases that would be used to verify this costs money. If you don't have unlimited access to these databases...and it sounds like they had no access...then each search costs money. And unless the cases in question are very high profile, they probably won't show up in a simple Google search. More importantly, a simple Google search can't verify that they don't exist, since Google as a legal resource is incomplete...finding a case on Google (from a reputable site) means it does exist, but the lack of hits doesn't actually mean that it doesn't.
And then yeah, these idiots just asked ChatGPT if the cases it was citing were real, and took the answer at face value.
They and their firm are learning the hard way that the only thing more expensive than a subscription to those databases is not having a subscription to them.
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I agree that many lawyers will use AI that way. I am also sure the opposing side will take the time to verify any
cited cases.
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