Sanctions watch

“I absolve the mother of any intention to mislead the court.”

“This is larger than any of us,”

“The opinion is short and direct.”

““I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases,” Schwartz later told the judge.”

“"here is this case and it supports our position" and the case doesn’t exist.”

“He wrote that allowing revisions would unfairly burden defendants who had already responded, noting that the proposed corrections still contained errors.”

“The six cases were fake and likely the handiwork of a ChatGPT or similar artificial intelligence (AI) program’s hallucinations,”

““no lawyer should be using … a generative AI product to perform research without verifying results. Period.””

“the worst example of misconduct by a lawyer that I think I’ve ever seen since I’ve been on the bench.”

““as a warning””

“"This is unacceptable," the appeals court said.”

“tantamount to bad faith”

“The next lawyer who does the same thing is warned that he or she will likely see a more significant penalty.”

“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.””

“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.”

“the Rule 11 duty is “nondelegable.””

““To this day it blows my mind it has that capability,””

“To be clear, it is not professional misconduct for a lawyer to use AI to assist in the preparation of a factum.”

“The judge additionally imposed a $3,000 sanction on co-counsel Celeste Boyd, who he said used ChatGPT to draft and edit portions of the briefs but failed to verify the material, Reuters also reports.”

“The Court further emphasized its focus was “not on the misuse of artificial intelligence to conduct unreliable legal research and drafting,” but “the inexcusable submission of false authority and factual arguments to the Court, the subsequent misrepresentations about the extent of the improper conduct, and the failure to take prompt responsibility for errors once discovered.””

“Plaintiff's counsel submitted legal authority and citations generated by “A.I.” software without verifying their authenticity.”

“The Court therefore imposed a $5,000 sanction on the Defendant, both to punish his conduct and to deter similar behaviour in the future.”

“The court finds “good cause supports the imposition of sanctions in order to deter such conduct in the future, which amounts to serious misconduct that threatens to impugn the integrity of the courts and the administration of justice,” Guerra Gamble said.”

“Nearly all of the legal quotations in plaintiff’s opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiff’s reply brief, are fabricated,”

“Rule 11 does not prohibit the use of generative AI, however, it does require parties to verify that they are not submitting briefs to the Court which rely on fictitious cases.”

“The Court does not take this action lightly.”

“Sanctions were warranted against Becker for “his failure to verify the validity of the AI-generated material, and submitting the AI-tainted Motion to the court,” the judge said.”

“two disturbing developments that are adversely affecting the practice of law”

“As this case has unfortunately made clear, generative AI is still no substitute for the professional expertise that the justice system requires of lawyers.”

““The use of ChatGPT was not disclosed to the Court.””

“Judge P. Kevin Castel sanctioned Schwartz, co-counsel Peter LoDuca, and their firm $5,000.”

“The summaries of the decisions cited in the brief showed “stylistic and reasoning flaws that do not generally appear in decisions issued by United States Courts of Appeals.””

“the result, said the judge, was “gibberish””