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.
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44 incidents closest to “Everlaw Storybuilder” · matched on meaning · public reporting
AI legal research tool generated seven nonexistent case citations in pretrial filings, affecting the court and opposing party.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The attorney's use of generative AI to draft a legal brief produced incorrect case citations, subjecting the attorney to potential court sanctions and affecting the integrity of the filing.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Attorneys from Ellis George LLP and K&L Gates LLP submitted a brief to a special master in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California containing numerous hallucinated legal citations generated by AI tools including CoCounsel, Westlaw Precision, and Google Gemini. The lawyers failed to verify the citations, and even after being alerted to errors, filed a corrected brief that still contained fake authorities. Special Master Michael Wilner found the conduct tantamount to bad faith, struck the brief, denied discovery relief, and ordered the firms to jointly pay $31,100 in the defendant's legal fees.
3 source articles · read the reporting →
Three Butler Snow lawyers were removed from a case and publicly reprimanded by a federal judge after they filed motions containing five non-existent case citations generated by ChatGPT. The firm apologised and hired Morgan Lewis to review all citations, finding no other errors. The judge referred the lawyers to the Alabama State Bar and ordered them to disclose the sanctions to all clients and judges in pending cases. The incident highlights the risks of using AI for legal research without verification.
3 source articles · read the reporting →
AI generated false legal citations that were submitted in court, affecting the plaintiff in an insurance dispute.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Generated legal filings that were submitted to a court, potentially affecting the client's case and the court's proceedings.
1 source article · read the reporting →
In-house counsel group accuses rival of training AI on its materials Reuters
1 source article · read the reporting →
A junior advocate in South Africa used the AI tool Legal Genius to draft court submissions for an urgent licensing dispute. The written arguments contained multiple non-existent case citations, which the presiding judge discovered. The junior counsel admitted to using the AI tool, apologised, and was referred to the Legal Practice Council for investigation, while the senior counsel also apologised for conducting only a 'sense-check'.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
Workday Gains an Edge in AI Hiring Bias Fight: California Brief - Bloomberg Law News
1 source article · read the reporting →
A Melbourne lawyer used AI software Leap to generate a list of case citations for a family court hearing. The citations were fake, causing the hearing to be adjourned. The lawyer apologized and paid costs, but was referred to the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner for investigation. The software vendor Leap stated that a verification process was available but not used by the lawyer.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
The AI-generated performance evaluation contributed to the teacher's termination.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Two lawyers from Levidow, Levidow, & Oberman used ChatGPT to research legal precedents for a client's personal injury case against Avianca. The AI chatbot generated six non-existent cases, which the lawyers submitted to a federal court without verification. After the opposing party and the judge questioned the citations, the lawyers initially stood by them before admitting the error. The judge dismissed the case and imposed a $5,000 fine on the lawyers for bad faith conduct.
10 source articles · read the reporting →
A litigant in person in a Manchester civil case used ChatGPT to generate case citations, which turned out to be entirely fictitious. The barrister for the other party discovered that one case name was fabricated and the others had unrelated passages. The judge questioned the litigant, who admitted using the AI tool, and accepted that the misleading submissions were inadvertent, imposing no penalty.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Luật sư bị phạt vì dùng AI 'bịa' lời khai nhân chứng - Báo Thanh Niên
The New Mexico Supreme Court fined defense attorney Stephen Aarons $5,000 for filing legal documents with false witness statements created by ChatGPT. Aarons had input case materials into the AI, hoping for a perfect summary, but it generated fabricated details. The court found he failed to verify the documents and referred his case to a disciplinary board.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Kusmin L. Amarsingh, a Maryland lawyer representing herself, was sanctioned $1,000 by the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after she used ChatGPT to draft an appellate brief that cited multiple nonexistent cases. The court found her actions reckless and referred her to Maryland attorney-disciplinary authorities. Amarsingh admitted the error and completed a continuing legal education course on AI ethics. The underlying racial bias lawsuit against Frontier Airlines was dismissed.
2 source articles · read the reporting →
Attorney Howe used Westlaw's CoCounsel AI to draft appellate briefs for a criminal defendant. The briefs contained fabricated quotations and misrepresented case holdings. The Sixth Circuit discovered the AI use from the file name and, upon investigation, found the citations false. Howe admitted he failed to adequately review the AI-generated content. The court denied compensation, appointed new counsel, and referred Howe for disciplinary proceedings.
1 source article · read the reporting →
In early 2025, a lawyer submitted a brief to the Norwegian Supreme Court in a civil case that contained laws and legislative history invented by an AI tool. Supreme Court staff discovered the non-existent sources during routine review. The court stated the lawyer had not checked the AI-generated sources before filing and raised the matter with the lawyer, but no sanctions were imposed. Høyesterett updated its attorney guide to require quality-checking of AI output.
1 source article · read the reporting →
In a defamation case in Johannesburg, lawyers for plaintiff Michelle Parker used ChatGPT to find supporting judgments, but the cases turned out to be entirely fictitious, generated by the AI's hallucination. The opposing counsel and law librarians could not locate the cited judgments, leading to the discovery that they were fabricated. The magistrate found no intent to mislead but ordered Parker to pay punitive costs, warning against relying on AI without verification.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
Heather Hersh, an appellate attorney, used generative AI to draft a reply brief in a Fair Credit Reporting Act case. The brief contained multiple fabricated legal quotations and inaccurate assertions. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Hersh failed to verify the AI-generated content and was not candid about her use of AI, imposing a $2,500 monetary sanction under FRAP 46(c) and inherent authority. The court emphasised that attorneys must verify AI outputs and remain honest with the court.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
Jeffrey Kotchka, representing himself in a probate appeal, used generative AI to draft his legal brief and submitted it without verifying the citations. The Arizona Court of Appeals found that six of eight citations were deficient, including two that referred to non-existent cases. The court sanctioned Kotchka by ordering him to pay the opposing party's attorney's fees incurred in addressing the fake citations, ruling that citing hallucinated cases is sanctionable regardless of intent. The court acknowledged AI's potential to assist self-represented litigants but emphasised the duty to verify all citations.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Zachariah Crabill, a Colorado lawyer, used ChatGPT to draft a legal motion in May 2023, citing case law that the AI had fabricated. He did not alert the court to the inaccuracies and initially blamed a legal intern. A judge suspended him for one year and one day for violating professional conduct rules, with the possibility of reducing the suspension after 90 days and two years of probation.
4 source articles · read the reporting →
In the case of R (Ayinde) v Haringey, a barrister and solicitors for the claimant cited five fake cases in judicial review grounds. The judge found that the lawyers had misled the court and made wasted costs orders of £2,000 each against the barrister and the solicitors. The article suggests the fake cases may have been generated by an AI bot, and the lawyers failed to verify them.
5 source articles · read the reporting →
Lawyers at Morgan & Morgan filed a legal brief in a case against Walmart that cited nine cases, eight of which were entirely fictional. The firm admitted that an AI chatbot had generated the non-existent cases. Morgan & Morgan apologised for the error.
10 source articles · read the reporting →
The AI tool generated fictitious case law citations that were included in a court filing, affecting the plaintiff and the court.
1 source article · read the reporting →
