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 “Shepard's Citation Agent” · 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 →
Michael Cohen, former lawyer to Donald Trump, used Google Bard to find case precedents for a motion to end his court supervision. The AI generated fictitious citations, which his lawyer included without verification. The fake cases were discovered by the judge, who found they did not exist. The incident may undermine Cohen's credibility as a witness in the upcoming Manhattan criminal case against Trump.
10 source articles · 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 →
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) used generative AI to draft court documents for extradition appeals, resulting in the inclusion of non-existent legal authorities. The error was identified by opposing counsel before the hearing and had no impact on the outcome. The CPS apologised to the High Court, attributing the mistake to a failure by a reviewing lawyer to verify the AI-generated content, and undertook an internal review to prevent recurrence. The judge accepted the apology and noted the serious risks of using AI without proper oversight.
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 →
A federal judge's temporary restraining order blocked parts of Mississippi House Bill 1193, affecting state officials, educators, parents, and students, while also citing nonexistent people and misstating law.
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 →
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 →
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rudy Renfer filed a response brief in a North Carolina federal case that contained fabricated quotations and misstated case holdings. Renfer attributed the errors to an inadvertent filing of an unfinished draft. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Numbers ordered senior leaders from the U.S. attorney's office to appear at a show-cause hearing to explain why the office should not be held jointly responsible and why Renfer should not be sanctioned.
2 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 →
Mike Lindell's legal team submitted a brief in a defamation case that contained approximately 30 citations to non-existent court cases. The brief was generated using artificial intelligence, and the team admits to using AI but claims an earlier draft was filed by mistake. Federal judge Nina Wang has ordered the attorneys to show cause why they should not face sanctions for the defective filing.
10 source articles · 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
The AI generated hallucinated legal citations that were filed in court, misleading the court and opposing counsel.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The lawyer submitted AI-generated court documents containing false citations and quotes, harming his client's discrimination case.
1 source article · read the reporting →
The AI generated fabricated case law that was submitted to the court, affecting the legal proceedings.
1 source article · read the reporting →
