California Issues Historic Fine Over Lawyer's ChatGPT Fabrications

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CalMatters: A California attorney must pay a $10,000 fine for filing a state court appeal full of fake quotations generated by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT. The fine appears to be the largest issued over AI fabrications by a California court and came with a blistering opinion (PDF) stating that 21 of 23 quotes from cases cited in the attorney's opening brief were made up. It also noted that numerous out-of-state and federal courts have confronted attorneys for citing fake legal authority. "We therefore publish this opinion as a warning," it continued. "Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations -- whether provided by generative AI or any other source -- that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified."

The opinion, issued 10 days ago in California's 2nd District Court of Appeal, is a clear example of why the state's legal authorities are scrambling to regulate the use of AI in the judiciary. The state's Judicial Council two weeks ago issued guidelines requiring judges and court staff to either ban generative AI or adopt a generative AI use policy by Dec. 15. Meanwhile, the California Bar Association is considering whether to strengthen its code of conduct to account for various forms of AI following a request by the California Supreme Court last month.

The Los Angeles-area attorney fined last week, Amir Mostafavi, told the court that he did not read text generated by the AI model before submitting the appeal in July 2023, months after OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as capable of passing the bar exam. A three-judge panel fined him for filing a frivolous appeal, violating court rules, citing fake cases, and wasting the court's time and the taxpayers money, according to the opinion. Mostafavi told CalMatters he wrote the appeal and then used ChatGPT to try and improve it. He said that he didn't know it would add case citations or make things up.

Why not disbarred?

[Tablizer]

or as MTG says, "disrobed"?

Re:

[kellin]

Only if they continue to act in bad faith. There's stupidity/laziness and then there's malice. Fining someone should put a stop to general stupidity and laziness, but it won't stop people from being complete douchebags.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fining someone should put a stop to general stupidity and laziness, but it won't stop people from being complete douchebags.

Dude, they're lawyers...

Re:Why not disbarred?

[abulafia]

It is really hard to get disbarred.

Varies a bit by state, but unless you're outright stealing from clients, you get a lot of escalating warnings and 2nd chances.

If you're curious how bad you have to behave to actually get disbarred, the shenanigans of one Richard P. Liebowitz [techdirt.com] may be instructive.

Re: Why not disbarred?

[YeOldeTimeMachine]

Totally true. I know a disbarred attorney. A pathological liar. A middle manager at my wifeâ(TM)s employer thought he was being clever by hiring the disbarred attorney as a lowly office assistant in order to get free legal advice. The middle manager quit a year or two later and stuck the org with one of the most pernicious little devils you can imagine. He clawed his way into becoming union steward then local union president, a job few want, where he terrorized just about everyone. His pay is minuscul

Not enough

[TwistedGreen]

Should be $10,000 per incident, making it $210,000 total for the 21 of 23 quotes that were fabricated.

Re:

[timeOday]

Why? I doubt the lawyer took this risk intentionally or will be doing it again. It sends the message clearly, you are responsible for your legal filings, regardless of the tools you might use.

Re:

[Pascoea]

It sends the message clearly, you are responsible for your legal filings, regardless of the tools you might use.

I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I think that very point would have been covered in the first week or two of lawyering class. "You're responsible for anything that bears your signature" seems to be a pretty foundational level legal concept.

I doubt the lawyer took this risk intentionally

Well sure they did. I doubt they accidentally used ChatGPT and neglected to verify the output before submitting. No, they didn't knowingly and intentionally submit garbage, but they were sure willful in neglecting their professional duties.

Why? I doubt the lawyer... will be doing it again.

This I agree with. And I think

Re:

[serafean]

> Why? I doubt the lawyer took this risk intentionally

He definitely used AI by accident...

Re:

[timeOday]

My guess is this was done right after ChatGPT hit and it just didn't occur to them that it might make up citations.

Re:

[Pascoea]

Nailed it: "Sylvia Noland (Noland) filed the present action in August 2018, and filed the operative second amended complaint (complaint) in August 2019."

Re:

[Monoman]

This. Technology isn't the problem in this case. The lawyer asked someone else to do his work and didn't check it at all before putting his signature on it. He signed off on it so he gets to take full responsibility.

Re:

[kmoser]

Should be $10,000 per incident, making it $210,000 total for the 21 of 23 quotes that were fabricated.

Don't be ridiculous, he didn't do something serious like pirate songs or movies!

Re:

[PleaseThink]

Oh, so the next generation will be 'downloading' their media from generative AI. Here's the prompt to get a good enough song X. This prompt generates the 'fan made Star Wars remake' style for movie Y. The next 3 prompts give you all the binary data for video game Z. Apply this diff to turn it into an iso. Etc...

If this isn't Law School 101, it should be

[davidwr]

"Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations -- whether provided by generative AI or any other source -- that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified." [emphasis added]

Common sense says if you have your staff prepare a document for court but you sign off on it, you are 100% responsible for everything in the same as if you did all the work yourself.

IANAL so I don't know if the actual law agrees with common sense. If it doesn't, change the law.

In the modern era, "AI" is the new "staff member."

Re:

[gurps_npc]

I disagree. Just say:

No AI citations allowed at all.

Any legal AI should be programmed to replace citations with:

"Insert full 1992 Citation here.". Then the lawyer can go through looking for all 1992 citations to find one that fits.

The purpose of legal paperwork is not to make it easy, but to make it accurate. Given AI's total failure to make it accurate, they should be banned from giving a full citation and the real lawyers should do that work.

Re:

[cusco]

This is an old lawyer technique predating the use of AI, the difference in this case is the absolute brazenness of the shyster involved. Since judges are just normal human beings they'll look at the first few citations in a case and assume the rest are just more of the same. This has allowed citations of cases which were decided in the exact opposite of what the pleading would lead a judge to believe, even in Supreme Court cases they've done that. In this case the douchebag apparently didn't even bother

If I were a judge

[reanjr]

If I were on the bench, I'd be sending those lawyers to jail for contempt or handing out $250k fines. It's absolutely unacceptable behavior. They shouldn't be practicing law.

He signed it

[ebonum]

He signed a sworn statement along with the filing that states he stands behind his filing.
If a lawyer falsely signs filings, I'd support 1 warning with a fine much larger than 10k. Second time - disbarred.
We put a huge amount of trust in lawyers. If they abuse that trust, they gotta go.

Re:

[oldgraybeard]

told the court that he did not read text generated by the AI model before submitting

Re:He signed it

[migos]

He had to say that otherwise he would be in even bigger trouble.

Re:

[ebonum]

When a lawyer "attests" to a court filing, the lawyer confirms its authenticity, truthfulness, and legal basis. By signing the document, a lawyer makes a representation to the court that they have conducted a reasonable inquiry and have not submitted the filing for an improper purpose.
"(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;"

It's called Rule 11
https://www [cornell.edu]

"A California attorney must pay a $10,000 fine"

[oldgraybeard]

This says no one really cares, they just need to look like they are doing something.

People don't like punishing people like them

[FeelGood314]

A judge was once a lawyer so while the judge might be very angry, he is unlikely to severely punish another lawyer. This is a problem with all trade groups and licensing and accreditation bodies that are run by people in the industry. In Canada professional engineers can f@#k up and kill someone and the most the governing body will do is take their license away and fine them $5000. That's like $3500 USD for killing someone. So $10k for lying under oath is the most you will see. https://en.wikipedia.org/ [wikipedia.org]

Can you proofread?

[wakeboarder]

AI isn't going to do you job for you, and as much as Sam Altman would like to convince you otherwise, don't listen to him. You still have to do your job.

Re:

[Gilmoure]

But, but, we already fired all the clerks and interns
(our quarterly profits are way up!)

Worse, fraud goes unpunished

[laughingskeptic]

I feel sorry for the plaintiff. She worked for half a year for fraudsters who did not pay her and then because her attorney is an idiot that filed 25 flawed claims, and zero legally valid claims, she gets nothing. The fraudsters who screwed her but hired better attorneys get away with it.

For some reason ...

[PPH]

.. this makes me think of The Sorcerer's Apprentice [wikipedia.org].

Hope the client is taking a close look

[nedlohs]

What hours did that lawyer bill for writing that brief?

historic?

[DuroSoft]

$10k is historic? god... lawyers never get the short end of the stick

Re:

[aRTeeNLCH]

... Well, in many cases they actually deserve the long, wide end, and repeatedly all the way in, if you ask me. Per false AI invented quote.

PR

[UnixUnix]

Oh, I'm so ready to hire an attorney who does not read what he files!

Monetary fines? Useless

[Vranitzky]

Soon courts will start using AI to review cases and so they will miss all the fake references. I'm surprised they are still able to catch them. Disbar any lawyer doing this and you will see them suddenly putting in some real work. Monetary damages are useless. Lawyers already get tons of money. Losing a few tens of thousands is just pocket change. It would be like fining Apple for 10 million dollars for something. Pocket change, who cares. Stop them selling iPhones? That will make them take notice.

ignorance not a defense!

[klipclop]

I'm glad to see this also applies to the lawyers using generative AI to construct documents full of unverified false citations!