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.
140 incidents closest to “Shepard's Citation Agent” · matched on meaning · public reporting
The AI generated false legal citations and quotations in an appellate brief, misleading the court and harming the client's immigration appeal.
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 →
AI generated fabricated legal citations in a court filing by Shahryar Mazaheri.
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 court granted a motion to dismiss and imposed sanctions on plaintiff's counsel for submitting a brief with AI-hallucinated fake cases.
1 source article · read the reporting →
AI generated hallucinated legal citations that were filed in court, misleading the court and opposing counsel.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI generated fabricated legal citations that were included in a court filing, affecting the court and the opposing party.
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 →
Universal Music Group and other music publishers have sued AI company Anthropic, alleging that its Claude 2 chatbot generates and distributes copyrighted song lyrics without a license. The complaint, filed in Tennessee, claims that Claude 2 reproduces lyrics from songs like Katy Perry's 'Roar' and Don McLean's 'American Pie' when prompted. The publishers argue that Anthropic's actions constitute copyright infringement and that the company failed to implement effective guardrails to prevent such outputs.
9 source articles · read the reporting →
The AI generated false legal quotations that were submitted to the court in a legal brief.
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 →
The AI generated fictitious legal authorities and arguments that were filed in a court motion, misleading the court and opposing counsel.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI system generated legal briefs containing fabricated case citations, which were filed in court, affecting the court and the opposing party.
1 source article · read the reporting →
AI-generated fake legal citations were submitted to the court, affecting the plaintiff's appeal and the defendant's legal costs.
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 →
In a British Columbia Supreme Court case, lawyer Chong Ke used ChatGPT to generate legal case citations for a notice of application in a parenting dispute. The citations were fictitious and were discovered by opposing counsel, who incurred costs investigating them. Ke later acknowledged the error, apologized, and withdrew the fake cases before the hearing. The court considered whether to order special costs against Ke personally.
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 →
A US federal magistrate judge has ordered Anthropic to respond to music publishers' claim that a court filing by Anthropic data scientist Olivia Chen cited a fictitious academic article that may have been generated by Anthropic's AI tool Claude. The publishers' lawyer said he had confirmed with the named author and journal that the article did not exist. Anthropic's lawyer disputed this, saying it was a mis-citation rather than an AI hallucination. The filing was made in an ongoing copyright case brought by Universal Music Group, Concord, and ABKCO against Anthropic over the use of song lyrics to train Claude.
5 source articles · read the reporting →
In August 2024, Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson and Charles Graeber filed a lawsuit against Anthropic PBC in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The complaint alleges copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501. Anthropic waived service, and the case was assigned to the court.
8 source articles · read the reporting →
Utah's online dispute resolution system for small claims cases automatically enters default judgments against defendants who fail to register within 14 days. Samantha Thompson missed the buried notice in her summons and was ordered to pay $995.42 plus wage garnishment. The system has increased default judgment rates, especially for payday lenders. Critics say the confusing paperwork disadvantages low-income litigants.
4 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 →
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 →
