{"id":149433,"date":"2026-04-23T13:14:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/23\/elite-biglaw-firm-learns-the-real-cost-of-ai-hallucinations-the-firms-reputation\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T13:14:55","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T21:14:55","slug":"elite-biglaw-firm-learns-the-real-cost-of-ai-hallucinations-the-firms-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/04\/23\/elite-biglaw-firm-learns-the-real-cost-of-ai-hallucinations-the-firms-reputation\/","title":{"rendered":"Elite Biglaw Firm Learns The Real Cost Of AI Hallucinations: The Firm\u2019s Reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reputational concern is that it tells the court you didn\u2019t read the case and you didn\u2019t cite check your brief. Firms are now getting sanctioned for it so there is an economic concern as well. I think most law firm leaders would agree that the most significant issue is the impact on the reputation and brand of the firm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0 A law firm leader, in comments given to Law.com<\/a> on the condition of anonymity, concerning Sullivan & Cromwell\u2019s recent run-in with AI hallucinations<\/a> submitted in a court filing. The firm leader went on to say that \u201c[r]ule number one from first year of law school is don\u2019t cite fictional cases.\u201d A New York practice group leader echoed those thoughts, telling Law.com<\/a>, \u201cSomebody manually has to go and look at every case and every quote, and make sure that it\u2019s there. We always do that. We did that 10 years ago. We did that 15 years ago. I did that as a first year associate. In fact, I did that in law school when I was on law review and did cite checking. So, in some ways, that\u2019s not new. What\u2019s just new is the allure of the [AI] shortcut, you know?<\/em><\/strong>\u201c<\/p>\n

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

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Elite Biglaw Firm Learns The Real Cost Of AI Hallucinations: The Firm\u2019s Reputation<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Image via ChatGPT)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The reputational concern is that it tells the court you didn\u2019t read the case and you didn\u2019t cite check your brief. Firms are now getting sanctioned for it so there is an economic concern as well. I think most law firm leaders would agree that the most significant issue is the impact on the reputation and brand of the firm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014\u00a0 A law firm leader, in comments given to Law.com<\/a> on the condition of anonymity, concerning Sullivan & Cromwell\u2019s recent run-in with AI hallucinations<\/a> submitted in a court filing. The firm leader went on to say that \u201c[r]ule number one from first year of law school is don\u2019t cite fictional cases.\u201d A New York practice group leader echoed those thoughts, telling Law.com<\/a>, \u201cSomebody manually has to go and look at every case and every quote, and make sure that it\u2019s there. We always do that. We did that 10 years ago. We did that 15 years ago. I did that as a first year associate. In fact, I did that in law school when I was on law review and did cite checking. So, in some ways, that\u2019s not new. What\u2019s just new is the allure of the [AI] shortcut, you know?<\/em><\/strong>\u201c<\/p>\n

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

Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>,\u00a0or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day. The reputational concern is that it tells the court you didn\u2019t read the case and you didn\u2019t cite check your brief. Firms are now getting sanctioned for it so there is an economic concern as well. I think most law firm leaders would agree that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":149434,"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-149433","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\/2026\/04\/Staci-Zaretsky-Z5h8S6.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149433","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=149433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}