Tracker

Sanctions watch

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

Embed this

Incidents tracked

Incidents in 2026

$10,000

In fines, where reported

1 of 1 report an amount

The curve

Incidents per month

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

Apr 2025 Jan 2026 Sep 2026

Blamed by name

ChatGPT 53 Claude 4 Lexis+ AI 4 Westlaw Precision 4 CoCounsel 3 Copilot 2 AI-assisted legal software 1 Archie 1 ChatOn 1 CoCounsel, Westlaw Precision, Google Gem 1 Descrybe.ai 1 First Drafts 1 Gemini 1 Ghostwriter Legal 1 Google AI 1 Google Scholar 1 Grok 1 Irys 1 vLex Fastcase 1

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

Hall of Shame

All Outcome unclear 1 Fined 1

Showing 1–1 of 1 incident involving Google AI. Clear filters

Fined $10K Google AI 2026-03-18

The Oregon Court of Appeals fined William L. Ghiorso $10,000 after his appellate brief cited 15 hallucinated cases.

Doiban v. Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission · William Ghiorso · Oregon Court of Appeals · OR

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

kgw.com ↗

The file →

Doiban v. Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission involving petitioner's counsel
Counsel submitted an opening brief containing 15 fabricated case citations and 9 non-existent quotes from unverified AI/search output
Court imposed a $10,000 monetary sanction and ordered a replacement brief with certified non-AI verification
Oregon Court of Appeals
Decided March 18, 2026; counsel admitted using unverified search results and AI for outlining

Get Sanctions Watch in your inbox

New AI-citation sanctions, the morning after they hit the docket.