{"id":123881,"date":"2025-06-23T14:02:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T22:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/23\/judge-suggests-briefs-with-hallucinated-citations-could-land-lawyers-in-prison-for-life\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T14:02:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T22:02:35","slug":"judge-suggests-briefs-with-hallucinated-citations-could-land-lawyers-in-prison-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/23\/judge-suggests-briefs-with-hallucinated-citations-could-land-lawyers-in-prison-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Suggests Briefs With Hallucinated Citations Could Land Lawyers In Prison For Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whenever we catch lawyers in the U.S. turning in court filings filled with fake cases that ChatGPT spit out, they earn a healthy round of public ridicule<\/a> and, at worst, some fines<\/a>. The Department of Justice tried to consign people to an El Salvadoran slave camp based on a fake Supreme Court quote<\/a> and folks barely even noticed. The British legal system apparently isn\u2019t as easy going, with a panel of U.K. judges suggesting a lawyer might face life in prison<\/em> for submitting AI-fabricated case law in a civil action.<\/p>\n

If that seems harsh, just remember how these people deal with divorce actions:<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s hardcore, man. We can\u2019t even agree to keep people in prison for trying to hang Mike Pence and the U.K. is already looking at disappearing Edward V for using Claude to write the summary judgment motion.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the judges in the instant matter didn\u2019t order junior barristers locked up in the Tower. They didn\u2019t even explicitly mention life imprisonment, but they did categorize fake cases as, in some cases, rising to the level of \u201cperverting the course of justice.\u201d The maximum penalty for that specific charge? Life. In. Prison.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the corollary to the American \u201cobstruction of justice,\u201d which has a maximum penalty of ZERO as long as you\u2019re the president of the United States at the time<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In this case, \u201ca 90 million pound ($120 million) lawsuit over an alleged breach of a financing agreement involving the Qatar National Bank,\u201d according to the Associated Press<\/a>, the filing managed to cite a whopping 18 fake cases. The client informed the court that the mistake was his fault and not his solicitor\u2019s. <\/p>\n

Yeah\u2026 except lawyers are supposed to check that stuff. Even if the client is a lawyer \u2014 like when former Trump fixer Michael Cohen fed his attorneys some AI hallucinations<\/a> they then filed \u2014 the first rule of lawyering is that the client is always (potentially) wrong. The whole point of hiring representation is to make sure the personally aggrieved client isn\u2019t going off half-cocked.<\/p>\n

No one is going to jail over this one, making the opinion more akin to a U.K. professional responsibility version of Scared Straight<\/em>. Fake cases in a $120 million civil dispute are not going to fool anyone for long. Opposing counsel will sniff those out quickly, so anyone larding up on fake cases in a banking dispute is either doing so unintentionally or guilty by reason of insanity. The most draconian of punishments are intended for the unscrupulous actor trying to deliberately mislead.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the miscarriage of justice that\u2019s coming \u2014 if it hasn\u2019t already arrived. Somewhere out there, there\u2019s a tenant representing themselves because attorneys cost too much and Legal Aid had its budget slashed to appease Elon Musk, and that poor soul is getting buried under a tsunami of fake precedent that they\u2019ll never be able to look up and the overworked judge will just rubberstamp. It happens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Worse, we\u2019re going to hear the stories of the unsophisticated party trying to keep their head above water with ChatGPT and not the deeper-pocketed bully who can make up cases. Because we\u2019ll catch the former and the latter might skate for a years if the overwhelmed justice system doesn\u2019t catch it.<\/p>\n

Maybe the U.S. could use a little more professional fear before that happens.<\/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

The post Judge Suggests Briefs With Hallucinated Citations Could Land Lawyers In Prison For Life<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whenever we catch lawyers in the U.S. turning in court filings filled with fake cases that ChatGPT spit out, they earn a healthy round of public ridicule<\/a> and, at worst, some fines<\/a>. The Department of Justice tried to consign people to an El Salvadoran slave camp based on a fake Supreme Court quote<\/a> and folks barely even noticed. The British legal system apparently isn\u2019t as easy going, with a panel of U.K. judges suggesting a lawyer might face life in prison<\/em> for submitting AI-fabricated case law in a civil action.<\/p>\n

If that seems harsh, just remember how these people deal with divorce actions:<\/p>\n

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

It\u2019s hardcore, man. We can\u2019t even agree to keep people in prison for trying to hang Mike Pence and the U.K. is already looking at disappearing Edward V for using Claude to write the summary judgment motion.<\/p>\n

To be clear, the judges in the instant matter didn\u2019t order junior barristers locked up in the Tower. They didn\u2019t even explicitly mention life imprisonment, but they did categorize fake cases as, in some cases, rising to the level of \u201cperverting the course of justice.\u201d The maximum penalty for that specific charge? Life. In. Prison.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the corollary to the American \u201cobstruction of justice,\u201d which has a maximum penalty of ZERO as long as you\u2019re the president of the United States at the time<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In this case, \u201ca 90 million pound ($120 million) lawsuit over an alleged breach of a financing agreement involving the Qatar National Bank,\u201d according to the Associated Press<\/a>, the filing managed to cite a whopping 18 fake cases. The client informed the court that the mistake was his fault and not his solicitor\u2019s. <\/p>\n

Yeah\u2026 except lawyers are supposed to check that stuff. Even if the client is a lawyer \u2014 like when former Trump fixer Michael Cohen fed his attorneys some AI hallucinations<\/a> they then filed \u2014 the first rule of lawyering is that the client is always (potentially) wrong. The whole point of hiring representation is to make sure the personally aggrieved client isn\u2019t going off half-cocked.<\/p>\n

No one is going to jail over this one, making the opinion more akin to a U.K. professional responsibility version of Scared Straight<\/em>. Fake cases in a $120 million civil dispute are not going to fool anyone for long. Opposing counsel will sniff those out quickly, so anyone larding up on fake cases in a banking dispute is either doing so unintentionally or guilty by reason of insanity. The most draconian of punishments are intended for the unscrupulous actor trying to deliberately mislead.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the miscarriage of justice that\u2019s coming \u2014 if it hasn\u2019t already arrived. Somewhere out there, there\u2019s a tenant representing themselves because attorneys cost too much and Legal Aid had its budget slashed to appease Elon Musk, and that poor soul is getting buried under a tsunami of fake precedent that they\u2019ll never be able to look up and the overworked judge will just rubberstamp. It happens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Worse, we\u2019re going to hear the stories of the unsophisticated party trying to keep their head above water with ChatGPT and not the deeper-pocketed bully who can make up cases. Because we\u2019ll catch the former and the latter might skate for a years if the overwhelmed justice system doesn\u2019t catch it.<\/p>\n

Maybe the U.S. could use a little more professional fear before that happens.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever we catch lawyers in the U.S. turning in court filings filled with fake cases that ChatGPT spit out, they earn a healthy round of public ridicule and, at worst, some fines. The Department of Justice tried to consign people to an El Salvadoran slave camp based on a fake Supreme Court quote and folks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":123795,"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-123881","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\/06\/Headshot-300x200-wmumc9.jpeg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123881","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=123881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}