{"id":119532,"date":"2025-05-18T17:02:34","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:02:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/18\/am-law-200-firm-slapped-with-order-to-show-cause-over-fake-citations-you-know-where-this-is-going\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T17:02:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:02:34","slug":"am-law-200-firm-slapped-with-order-to-show-cause-over-fake-citations-you-know-where-this-is-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/05\/18\/am-law-200-firm-slapped-with-order-to-show-cause-over-fake-citations-you-know-where-this-is-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Am Law 200 Firm Slapped With Order To Show Cause Over Fake Citations\u2026 You Know Where This Is Going"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week, we\u2019ve had K&L Gates sanctioned over fake AI cites<\/a>. It spread to Canada<\/a>. Latham admitted to an AI screw-up<\/a> in a case WHERE THEY WERE REPRESENTING AN AI COMPANY. And we\u2019re not too far removed the DOJ probably used AI to gin up a self-serving but very fake Supreme Court quote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And so it\u2019s absolutely on brand for May 2025 that we end the week with yet another \u201clawyers file papers with fake citations\u201d story. <\/p>\n

This time it\u2019s Am Law 200 firm Butler Snow potentially in trouble over AI. So is this the start of the Butlerian jihad<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n

This case is before the court on a motion for leave to depose an incarcerated person by Defendant Jefferson Dunn, the former Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Doc. 174, and the response of said incarcerated person, Plaintiff Frankie Johnson, see Doc. 186. Mr. Johnson opposes the request to depose him the week of June 3rd for several reasons, including that counsel for Defendant Dunn appears to have fabricated citations to legal authority in his motion for leave, \u201cpossibly through the use of generative artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Possibly<\/em> generative AI, seems like a generous carve out but since the alternative is \u201cthe lawyers made up falsehoods off the dome,\u201d they\u2019d better hope it\u2019s a generative AI issue.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, we wondered if the courts are under-sanctioning for these errors. We\u2019re a couple years into this and \u2014 at least among the Am Law 200 \u2014 there are plenty of opportunities for training and plenty of bodies around to give a human review of everything, yet this is still happening!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post Am Law 200 Firm Slapped With Order To Show Cause Over Fake Citations\u2026 You Know Where This Is Going<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This week, we\u2019ve had K&L Gates sanctioned over fake AI cites<\/a>. It spread to Canada<\/a>. Latham admitted to an AI screw-up<\/a> in a case WHERE THEY WERE REPRESENTING AN AI COMPANY. And we\u2019re not too far removed the DOJ probably used AI to gin up a self-serving but very fake Supreme Court quote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And so it\u2019s absolutely on brand for May 2025 that we end the week with yet another \u201clawyers file papers with fake citations\u201d story. <\/p>\n

This time it\u2019s Am Law 200 firm Butler Snow potentially in trouble over AI. So is this the start of the Butlerian jihad<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\n

This case is before the court on a motion for leave to depose an incarcerated person by Defendant Jefferson Dunn, the former Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections, Doc. 174, and the response of said incarcerated person, Plaintiff Frankie Johnson, see Doc. 186. Mr. Johnson opposes the request to depose him the week of June 3rd for several reasons, including that counsel for Defendant Dunn appears to have fabricated citations to legal authority in his motion for leave, \u201cpossibly through the use of generative artificial intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Possibly<\/em> generative AI, seems like a generous carve out but since the alternative is \u201cthe lawyers made up falsehoods off the dome,\u201d they\u2019d better hope it\u2019s a generative AI issue.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, we wondered if the courts are under-sanctioning for these errors. We\u2019re a couple years into this and \u2014 at least among the Am Law 200 \u2014 there are plenty of opportunities for training and plenty of bodies around to give a human review of everything, yet this is still happening!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

1<\/strong> 2<\/a>Next \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week, we\u2019ve had K&L Gates sanctioned over fake AI cites. It spread to Canada. Latham admitted to an AI screw-up in a case WHERE THEY WERE REPRESENTING AN AI COMPANY. And we\u2019re not too far removed the DOJ probably used AI to gin up a self-serving but very fake Supreme Court quote. And so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Headshot-300x200-n5B0dx.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}