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.
44 incidents closest to “Protégé Legal AI” · matched on meaning · public 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 →
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 →
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 →
دعوى قضائية ضد أوبن إيه.آي ومايكروسوفت بتهمة انتهاك حقوق النشر - صحيفة السوسنة الأردنية
The Seattle Times and Newsday filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, accusing them of copying articles without permission to train AI systems. The newspapers claim the companies used content behind paywalls to train models like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, which can reproduce or closely paraphrase their reporting. OpenAI said its models rely on publicly available data under fair use, while Microsoft expressed surprise but willingness to discuss the matter.
1 source article · read the reporting →
Ranked job applicants' likelihood of success, affecting their hiring prospects.
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 →
訴状もプレスリリースも「AIだのみ」 弁護士つけずに〝本人訴訟〟 驚いて取材すると… - ｄメニューニュース
A man relied entirely on AI to draft a lawsuit and a press release, then filed a pro se complaint against a yakiniku restaurant. He alleged the restaurant served him cold noodles that had fallen into a drain and sought 30,000 yen in damages. Even the decision to contact reporters was made with AI guidance.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The Federal Court denied leave to file an AI-generated pleading, delaying the applicant's case.
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 →
The Galileu AI system, developed by the Tribunal Regional do Trabalho da 4ª Região (TRT-RS) and nationalised by the Conselho Superior da Justiça do Trabalho (CSJT), detected a prompt injection attempt in a petition filed at the 3rd Labour Court of Parauapebas, Pará. The system alerted the magistrate, who reviewed the content and made a decision based on human verification, in line with judicial AI supervision requirements. The court reported that the system prevented the malicious content from being processed and highlighted the importance of institutional AI tools with security measures.
1 source article · 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 →
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 →
The High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands fined a lawyer €420 for including 48 false case citations generated by a general-purpose AI tool in an appeal brief. The court found the lawyer failed to verify the citations against official databases, breaching the duty of veracity and good faith. The lawyer admitted the facts and expressed remorse, leading to a reduced fine. The court also referred the matter to the local bar association for possible disciplinary action.
4 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 →
Chicago Tribune Company, LLC filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI, Inc. in the Southern District of New York on December 4, 2025. The complaint alleges copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501. The case is assigned to Judge Loretta A. Preska.
5 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 →
