{"id":153460,"date":"2026-06-01T13:38:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/01\/florida-makes-new-ai-rule-check-your-damned-work-or-else\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T13:38:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:38:50","slug":"florida-makes-new-ai-rule-check-your-damned-work-or-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/06\/01\/florida-makes-new-ai-rule-check-your-damned-work-or-else\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Makes New AI Rule: Check Your Damned Work Or Else!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you remember your legal writing class? Probably not \u2014 the other doctrinals and their associated cold call nightmares probably crowd out the memories of your LW teacher running through how to construct a table of authorities. As it turns out, those were some of the most important lessons to remember. I don\u2019t know how everyone else responds to AI hallucination stories about LLMs being blamed for fake cases and holdings ending up in legal documents, but I always see it as a PEBKAC problem<\/a> rather than faulty programming. No matter how much the marketing department leans in on an LLM program being ready to help you with your law practice, you\u2019re still responsible for the work product because you\u2019re the with the actual license to practice. Florida\u2019s Supreme Court made some changes to remind lawyers that the responsibility falls on them, not the black box they\u2019re prompting their legal questions into. ABA Journal<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court released an update to the state\u2019s general practice rules, which requires the signer of any document filed with Florida courts to ensure that \u201cthe legal authorities identified exist and are accurately cited.\u201d This requirement applies to filings prepared by attorneys and pro se litigants.<\/p>\n

In another amendment, the Florida Supreme Court authorizes courts to impose sanctions for \u201cany filing inconsistent with\u201d the representation that a signer makes under the updated rule. These sanctions could include reprimand, dismissal of proceedings and attorney fees.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Neither of these new rules should change anything. Generic due diligence expectations should cover attorneys submitting documents with legal authorities that are a) actually existing and b) properly cited. What this more or less does is shake off a lazy \u201cI didn\u2019t know any better!\u201d defense when a lawyer gets ChatGPT to cough up a case saying that their client should be able to walk because he said \u201cpsych\u201d before he punched a guy in the face. I\u2019ve long been in the Ron White \u201cignorance of the law is no excuse\u201d camp, but it is a kindness for Florida to go out of their way to make the rules plain.<\/p>\n

My soft spot for the rule update is for pro se litigants. Despite all of the equality under the law trimmings we pretend to believe, fighting in court is a monied person\u2019s battlefield. Pro se litigants are often in that position because they cannot afford a lawyer due to limited resources. Getting help from Claude could be the closest thing they have to getting a legal opinion. If and when they screw up these rules, I hope that the court shows as much grace as it can toward them. Even the annoying sovereign citizen variety.<\/p>\n

Florida Supreme Court Issues New AI Rules For Lawyers<\/a> [ABA Journal]<\/p>\n

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at christopherrashadwilliams@gmail.com<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Florida Makes New AI Rule: Check Your Damned Work Or Else!<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Do you remember your legal writing class? Probably not \u2014 the other doctrinals and their associated cold call nightmares probably crowd out the memories of your LW teacher running through how to construct a table of authorities. As it turns out, those were some of the most important lessons to remember. I don\u2019t know how everyone else responds to AI hallucination stories about LLMs being blamed for fake cases and holdings ending up in legal documents, but I always see it as a PEBKAC problem<\/a> rather than faulty programming. No matter how much the marketing department leans in on an LLM program being ready to help you with your law practice, you\u2019re still responsible for the work product because you\u2019re the with the actual license to practice. Florida\u2019s Supreme Court made some changes to remind lawyers that the responsibility falls on them, not the black box they\u2019re prompting their legal questions into. ABA Journal<\/a> has coverage:<\/p>\n

\n

On Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court released an update to the state\u2019s general practice rules, which requires the signer of any document filed with Florida courts to ensure that \u201cthe legal authorities identified exist and are accurately cited.\u201d This requirement applies to filings prepared by attorneys and pro se litigants.<\/p>\n

In another amendment, the Florida Supreme Court authorizes courts to impose sanctions for \u201cany filing inconsistent with\u201d the representation that a signer makes under the updated rule. These sanctions could include reprimand, dismissal of proceedings and attorney fees.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Neither of these new rules should change anything. Generic due diligence expectations should cover attorneys submitting documents with legal authorities that are a) actually existing and b) properly cited. What this more or less does is shake off a lazy \u201cI didn\u2019t know any better!\u201d defense when a lawyer gets ChatGPT to cough up a case saying that their client should be able to walk because he said \u201cpsych\u201d before he punched a guy in the face. I\u2019ve long been in the Ron White \u201cignorance of the law is no excuse\u201d camp, but it is a kindness for Florida to go out of their way to make the rules plain.<\/p>\n

My soft spot for the rule update is for pro se litigants. Despite all of the equality under the law trimmings we pretend to believe, fighting in court is a monied person\u2019s battlefield. Pro se litigants are often in that position because they cannot afford a lawyer due to limited resources. Getting help from Claude could be the closest thing they have to getting a legal opinion. If and when they screw up these rules, I hope that the court shows as much grace as it can toward them. Even the annoying sovereign citizen variety.<\/p>\n

Florida Supreme Court Issues New AI Rules For Lawyers<\/a> [ABA Journal]<\/p>\n

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

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord\u2122 in the Facebook group\u00a0Law School Memes for Edgy T14s . \u00a0He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boat builder who is learning to swim and is interested in rhetoric, Spinozists and humor. Getting back in to cycling wouldn\u2019t hurt either. You can reach him by email at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> and by Tweet\/Bluesky at\u00a0@WritesForRent<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you remember your legal writing class? Probably not \u2014 the other doctrinals and their associated cold call nightmares probably crowd out the memories of your LW teacher running through how to construct a table of authorities. As it turns out, those were some of the most important lessons to remember. I don\u2019t know how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153461,"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-153460","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\/06\/Chris-Williams-2025-eZidSH.jpg?fit=512%2C288&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153460","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=153460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}