Sanctions watch

“"rather than a correction, Mr. Brigandi attempted a cover-up," and that "he failed at both."”

“The court found that the municipality relied on materials generated by AI tools that included a non-existent Education Ministry directive and fabricated court rulings, and exceptionally ordered the municipality to pay 30,000 NIS (approximately $9,600) in legal costs.”

“{¶133} This case illustrates the peril. An attorney who, by his own counsel’s admission, was sophisticated in his understanding of AI tools permitted a non-attorney staff member to use a public generative AI platform to prepare an appellate filing. The AI tool fabricated transcript quotations—attributing specific, inflammatory statements to a real prosecutor that were never spoken. The attorney filed the document without verifying its contents. When the fabrications were identified, he did not correct the record. He appealed this court’s denial of the tainted application to the Supreme Court of Ohio without disclosing the fabrications. He proffered an AI policy that itself appeared to have been generated by AI, complete with unfilled placeholder brackets. Two months after a sanctions hearing, a filing in another court bore the unmistakable hallmarks of unchecked AI output, including a ChatGPT prompt embedded in the text of a legal brief. {¶134} This court does not write to condemn the use of artificial intelligence in the practice of law. To the contrary, this court recognizes that AI is an inevitable and potentially beneficial feature of modern legal practice. But the use of AI does not relieve an attorney of any of the obligations imposed by the Rules of Professional Conduct, by the rules of court, or by the oath of admission to the bar. An attorney who files a document containing AI-generated content is responsible for that content, fully and without qualification. The duty to verify, the duty of candor, the duty of competence, and the duty of supervision cannot be delegated to a machine. {¶135} The sanctions imposed herein are proportionate, individually justified, and collectively designed to serve the purposes for which the court’s sanctioning authority exists: to compensate for harm, to deter future misconduct, to protect the integrity of the judicial process, to preserve public confidence in the administration of justice, and to ensure that the practice of law remains a profession grounded in truth, accuracy, and candor.”

“Still, they “displayed a reckless disregard for the obligation to ensure that what is filed in federal court is true, verified, and worthy of the public trust,” warranting sanctions “both to redress the specific harm and to deter recurrence.””

“submitting a brief with unchecked and ultimately fabricated citations may breach an attorney’s duties of professionalism, truthfulness, and candor to the court.”

“The court found they "repeatedly misrepresented the record, cited non-existent cases, and cited cases for propositions of law that they did not even discuss, much less support."”

“Pro se status does not shelter plaintiffs from sanctions pursuant to Rule 11. … Filing a document that contains citations to nonexistent cases, quotes language that comes from no real case, or that contains arguments wholly unsupported by the record violates Rule 11. Allen did just that. This demonstrates that Allen failed to make a reasonable inquiry into the supporting law or facts.”

“"We publish this opinion to emphasize that courts and attorneys alike have a responsibility to protect the legal system against distortion by fabricated law, particularly in this new era of hallucinated citations generated by artificial intelligence (AI) tools."”