Attorneys' lack of candor over AI errors leads to stricter sanctions
A federal appeals court has sanctioned two lawyers for filing briefs that contained artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations and for their lack of candor over the mistakes. (Image from Shutterstock)
A federal appeals court has sanctioned two lawyers for filing briefs that contained artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations and for their lack of candor over the mistakes.
In a June 3 opinion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at San Francisco said California lawyers Mike Singh Sethi and William Rounds filed briefs with nonexistent cases and misattributed quotations and misrepresented actual cases. The attorneys claimed that the errors were due to typographical mistakes and repeatedly denied AI produced the errors.
“The misconduct in this case did not end with the initial filing of the brief,” the appeals court wrote in its opinion. “At every subsequent step—including a motion to correct, oral argument, the response to the panel’s order to show cause, and more recent filings in other cases—the attorneys knowingly or recklessly made false statements to this court.”
Sethi and Rounds, who represented plaintiffs in an immigration case, eventually admitted that it was “probable” that the errors were due to unauthorized use of AI by their brief writers, and that they failed to check the cites before filing the briefs, the appeals court said.
The 9th Circuit imposed a $2,500 sanction on each attorney and suspended them from practicing at the appeals court for six months. The court also said they must disclose their use of AI in all filings for the next two years.
“When an attorney learns of any error in a filing—including generative AI hallucinations—he should immediately alert the court and opposing counsel of the error and disclose its source,” the appeals court also said. “If, in the motion to correct, the attorneys had disclosed that AI was used in the opening brief against firm policy and apologized for failing to check the brief, lesser sanctions may have been warranted.”
Reuters and Law360 have additional coverage.
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