Incidents gathered from public reporting around the world. Each one links to the articles it came from. None of it is a finding that anyone broke the law.
Reports people file about their own experience are not shown here and never will be without their agreement. Tell us what happened to you.
116 incidents closest to “Protégé Legal AI” · matched on meaning · public reporting
The AI system generated fictitious legal citations in a summary judgment motion, misleading the court and opposing counsel.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Digital Minds, a Finnish recruitment company founded by psychologists, used IBM Watson AI to analyze job applicants' social media and email messages for personality assessments. The company obtained written consent but the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman launched an investigation, suspecting violations of data protection laws and the secrecy of correspondence. The service was used on fewer than ten applicants and has been paused pending the investigation.
9 source articles · read the reporting →
Momus Analytics, a legal technology company, uses machine learning to rank potential jurors for attorneys. Experts and researchers who reviewed the company's patent application say the algorithm relies on demographic characteristics such as race, which may violate constitutional prohibitions against discriminatory jury selection. The company claims its software has helped secure verdicts worth over $940 million, but did not respond to requests for comment.
9 source articles · read the reporting →
AI-generated fake court precedents were included in a legal appeal, leading to sanctions against the litigant for bad-faith litigation.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) has filed a lawsuit in British Columbia Supreme Court against Caseway AI, alleging that the company's AI chatbot scraped approximately 3.5 million records from CanLII's database in bulk, violating its terms of service and copyright. CanLII claims it adds value to public court records through hyperlinks and corrections, which it says constitute protected copyrighted work. Caseway AI argues the information is public and accessible elsewhere, and that it did not use CanLII's enhancements. The lawsuit was settled in March 2026, with terms undisclosed.
5 source articles · read the reporting →
AI-hallucinated fake quotations were included in court filings submitted by counsel Elizabeth Tate, misleading the court.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI generated legal briefs containing fabricated citations, which were submitted to the Connecticut Supreme Court.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI generated fabricated legal citations that were submitted to the bankruptcy court.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI system generated fake legal citations that were included in a court filing, misleading the court and opposing counsel.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI generated fictitious legal citations that were submitted to the court in a legal filing.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Brazilian authorities are investigating federal judge Jefferson Rodrigues after he published a ruling that contained incorrect legal citations and precedents, which he attributed to the use of AI tool ChatGPT. The National Justice Council summoned the judge to explain the errors, which included wrongly attributing past decisions to the Superior Court of Justice. Rodrigues described the mistakes as a "mere mistake" caused by work overload. This is reported as the first such case in Brazil.
8 source articles · read the reporting →
The Authors Guild and a group of prominent authors filed a lawsuit against OpenAI Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on September 19, 2023. The complaint alleges that OpenAI infringed their copyrights by using their works to train its AI language models without permission. The case is ongoing.
8 source articles · read the reporting →
The AI chatbot provided inaccurate information to a user.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The FTC took action against DoNotPay, a company that claimed to offer an AI service that was 'the world's first robot lawyer.' The company promised to generate legal documents and replace human lawyers, but the FTC alleged it failed to test its AI output and did not hire any attorneys. DoNotPay agreed to a settlement requiring it to pay $193,000 and notify consumers about the limitations of its service.
7 source articles · read the reporting →
EvenUp, a legal tech startup valued at $1 billion, uses AI to draft personal injury demand letters. Former employees revealed that the AI system frequently makes errors, including missing injuries and fabricating medical conditions. The company defends its hybrid approach with human oversight, but critics allege overpromised AI capabilities.
6 source articles · read the reporting →
An actor's digital replica was generated without consent and used to spread fake news in a Venezuelan propaganda campaign. The actor turned to Equity for help, but current laws provide few protections. Equity is campaigning for new personality rights to prevent such exploitation.
9 source articles · read the reporting →
Two law firms submitted a supplemental brief containing fake legal citations generated by AI systems including Google Gemini and Westlaw's CoCounsel. Judge Michael Wilner imposed $31,000 in sanctions after discovering the citations were fabricated. The lawyers admitted using AI without proper review or disclosure.
5 source articles · read the reporting →
The Center for Investigative Reporting, publisher of Mother Jones and Reveal, has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court, alleging the companies used its copyrighted articles without permission or compensation to train their AI products. The nonprofit argues that the AI-generated summaries of its stories threaten journalism and violate the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
6 source articles · read the reporting →
In January 2024, journalists and authors Nicholas Basbanes and Nick Gage sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. The lawsuit alleges that the companies used their published journalism to train large language models without permission or compensation. The case has been folded into a class action brought by the Authors Guild. The AI firms have denied any wrongdoing, and the case is still making its way through the legal system.
8 source articles · read the reporting →
A Dutch privacy probe into election advice has appeared to expose early violations of the EU AI Act's rules for general-purpose AI models by OpenAI, xAI and Mistral, according to MLex. The companies' chatbots provided distorted voting advice to users. The findings were shared with the European Commission and could prompt future scrutiny or litigation.
6 source articles · read the reporting →
Eticas conducted an adversarial audit of RisCanvi, an AI risk assessment tool used in Catalonia's criminal justice system. The audit uncovered biases in risk classifications against specific demographics and significant reliability issues. The findings call for fairer practices in criminal justice AI.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
In 2020, Thomson Reuters filed a copyright lawsuit against legal AI startup Ross Intelligence, alleging that Ross reproduced materials from its Westlaw legal research service. In February 2025, a US District Court judge ruled in Thomson Reuters' favor, finding that Ross infringed copyright and that fair use did not apply. Ross Intelligence had shut down in 2021 due to litigation costs.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
A Kansas federal judge fined four lawyers a total of $12,000 for filing court documents containing non-existent quotations and case citations generated by ChatGPT. The lawyers, representing patent holder Lexos Media IP, failed to verify the AI's output, which included hallucinated legal authorities. The judge imposed fines ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 and ordered one lawyer to report the incident to state disciplinary authorities. The sanctioned attorneys acknowledged the error and stated that firms should implement strict policies for AI use.
2 source articles · read the reporting →
In Withers v. City of Aberdeen, a contract dispute, both sides' attorneys submitted briefs containing fabricated case citations generated by AI tools. The court identified six non-existent citations and sanctioned all four attorneys, revoking pro hac vice admissions, imposing fines, and referring them to state bars. The drafting attorneys had used AI research and drafting tools without verifying outputs, while local counsel signed filings without review. The ruling emphasises that attorneys cannot delegate verification duties to AI and that ignorance of AI risks is no defence.
2 source articles · read the reporting →
