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Sanctions watch

Every incident where a lawyer got caught filing AI-fabricated citations. The Hall of Shame.

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857
Incidents tracked
266
Incidents in 2026
$2,397,608
In fines, where reported
212 of 857 report an amount

The curve

Incidents per month

Last 18 months of published incidents, by the date of the court's order.

May 2025 Oct 2026

Charting 447 of 857 incidents; the rest are undated or fall outside this window.

Blamed by name

ChatGPT 147 Claude 9 CoCounsel 8 Copilot 8 Gemini 8 Lexis+ AI 6 AI-assisted legal software 4 Westlaw Precision 4 ChatGPT-4o 2 ChatOn 2 Eve 2 Google AI 2 LEAP 2 Perplexity AI 2 AI Overviews 1 Archie 1 Centient AI 1 ChatGPT-4 1 ClearBrief 1 CoCounsel, Westlaw Precision, Google Gem 1 Descrybe.ai 1 First Drafts 1 GPT-3.5 1 Ghostwriter Legal 1 Google Scholar 1 Grammarly 1 Grok 1 Irys 1 Legal Genius 1 LegalAI 1 MX2.law 1 OpenCase 1 Strongsuit 1 vLex Fastcase 1

Counts only incidents where the filing court or the reporting named the tool.

Hall of Shame

All Fined 249 Caught, not sanctioned 198 Warned 124 Referred to the bar 101 Reprimanded 86 Outcome unclear 57 Filing dismissed 39 Suspension 2 Upcoming sanction 1
Fined $6K Copilot 2025-07-07
Post-trial filings contained about 30 defective citations generated by Copilot, Gemini, and Grok, and Judge Nina Y. Wang imposed sanctions.
Coomer v. Lindell · Christopher I. Kachouroff; Jennifer T. DeMaster; MyPillow attorneys · U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado · CO
“the “least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance.””
llms-for-lawyers.com ↗
The file →
  • Coomer v. Lindell involving two attorneys representing Mike Lindell.
  • Attorneys used Copilot, Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Perplexity resulting in fake citations.
  • Fined $3,000 each (total $6,000), with an additional $5,000 fine on one attorney later.
  • U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.
  • Dated July 7, 2025; attorneys relied on a wide array of public consumer chatbots.
Warned 2025-07-07
Wright Brothers Aero, Inc. admitted an erroneous citation was introduced via AI software, and GAO dismissed the protest as untimely while warning of sanctions.
Wright Brothers Aero, Inc. · Government Accountability Office
centrelawgroup.com ↗
The file →
  • Wright Brothers Aero, Inc. was dismissed after an AI-introduced citation error.
  • The protester admitted the erroneous citation came from AI software.
  • GAO dismissed the protest as untimely and warned that continued misuse may lead to sanctions.
  • Government Accountability Office; federal bid protest forum.
  • July 7, 2025; the warning appeared in a footnote.
Filing dismissed 2025-07-02
A pro se defendant filed pleadings loaded with 42 nonexistent citations, and the court dismissed the motion to strike after finding the citations were AI-hallucinated.
Powhatan County School Board v. Skinger · U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia · VA
““The fact that her citations to nonexistent legal authority are so pervasive, in volume and in location throughout her filings, can lead to only one plausible conclusion: that an AI program hallucinated them in an effort to meet whatever [the defendant’s] desired outcome was based on the prompt that she put into the AI program,””
thomsonreuters.com ↗
The file →
  • Powhatan County School Board v. Skinger involved a pro se defendant's filings
  • The filings contained 42 citations to nonexistent legal authorities
  • The court dismissed the motion to strike the original opinion from the record
  • U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
  • The court said an AI program hallucinated the citations; no AI tool was named
Reprimanded 2025-07-02
A lawyer filed a family-law brief with scholarship and case citations the court said were generated by artificial intelligence and freely invented, and the judge publicly rebuked the filing.
Amtsgericht Köln · Local Court Cologne
“make finding justice more difficult, mislead the unknowing reader, and severely damage the reputation of the rule of law and especially the legal profession.”
noxtua.com ↗
The file →
  • Amtsgericht Köln involved a lawyer whose family-law brief contained invented citations.
  • The court found the books and legal decisions cited did not exist.
  • The judge issued a public rebuke over the AI-generated, freely invented citations.
  • Court: Local Court Cologne; jurisdiction/state not given on the page.
  • Date: 2025-07-02; the page says the citations were apparently generated by artificial intelligence.
Reprimanded 2025-07-02
A lawyer filed a family-court brief that the Cologne District Court found was apparently generated by AI and freely fabricated.
312 F 130/25 · Cologne District Court
“Die weiteren von dem Antragsgegnervertreter im Schriftsatz vom 30.06.2025 genannten Voraussetzungen stammen nicht aus der zitieren Entscheidung und sind offenbar mittels künstlicher Intelligenz generiert und frei erfunden”
fastdatascience.com ↗
The file →
  • 312 F 130/25 involved the respondent’s representative.
  • The brief was found to be AI-generated and freely fabricated.
  • The court called it Berufsrechtsverstoß, a professional misconduct violation.
  • Cologne District Court in Cologne, Germany.
  • The incident date given on the page is July 2, 2025.
Caught, not sanctioned 2025-07-01
Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo sanctioned an attorney whose brief cited only one actual case after using AI-fabricated citations.
Marina Garcia Marmolejo · US District Court for the Southern District of Texas · TX
“Given that the Laredo Division is one of the busiest court dockets in the nation, there are scant resources to spare ferreting out erroneous AI citations in the first place, let alone surveying the burgeoning caselaw on this subject,”
news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
The file →
  • Judge Marina Garcia Marmolejo sanctioned an attorney in the Southern District of Texas.
  • The brief cited only one actual case, with the rest being erroneous AI citations.
  • The article gives no monetary amount, so the sanction type is not specified beyond sanctions.
  • US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Texas.
  • July 2025; the court noted the Laredo Division's heavy docket and limited resources.
Reprimanded 2025-07-01
A legal brief included claims not from the cited case and evidently invented by AI; the court issued a clear reprimand.
Cologne court July ruling on AI-generated claims · court in Cologne
“Counsel must refrain from making such remarks in the future, as they impede the judicial process, mislead non-specialist readers, and severely harm the reputation of the constitutional state and especially the legal profession.”
posteo.de ↗
The file →
  • Cologne court matter involving an attorney.
  • The brief included claims that did not come from the cited case and were generated by AI.
  • The court issued a clear reprimand.
  • Court in Cologne, Germany.
  • July of the prior year; court said the conduct violated the Federal Lawyers’ Act.
Referred to the bar 2025-07-01
Turner was accused of citing an AI-generated imaginary case in filings seeking reinstatement of his law license, and the board asked the court to strike those filings.
Royce David Turner · Royce David Turner · Iowa Supreme Court · IA
axios.com ↗
The file →
  • Royce David Turner was targeted in a 2025 disciplinary dispute over reinstatement filings.
  • The board said one filing contained at least one AI-generated citation to a case that does not exist or did not support the point.
  • The Iowa Supreme Court was asked to strike multiple recent filings.
  • This was an Iowa state-court disciplinary matter involving the Iowa Supreme Court.
  • The page says the imaginary case was cited in three separate filings.

Showing 771–780 of 857.

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