New York lawyers sanctioned for using false AI-generated cases in legal brief
US Lawyers who included fabricated AI generated case citations in a legal brief have been sanctioned $5,000.The judge ruled they acted in bad faith and made false statements.
Two lawyers from New York and their law firm, Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, have been fined $5,000 by a US judge for including six falsified AI-generated case citations in a legal brief. The lawyers are obligated to inform the actual judges who were falsely attributed as authors of the fabricated cases about the imposed sanctions.
One of the lawyers admitted using ChatGPT for research purposes in a personal injury case against Avianca, a Colombian airline, inadvertently including the false citations. US District Judge P. Kevin Castel concluded that the lawyers had acted dishonestly and provided misleading information to the court. The law firm disagreed with this assessment, claiming that the lawyers were unaware that the technology they relied on could produce fabricated cases.
The judge acknowledged the potential benefits of AI assistance but emphasized attorneys’ responsibility to ensure the accuracy of their submissions. The judge also required the lawyers to inform the real judges about the penalty, who were identified as the creators of the fraudulent cases.
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