Legal Services
A US federal judge in Kansas has fined lawyers representing a patent-holding company a combined $12,000 for filing court documents containing non-existent quotations and case citations generated by artificial intelligence, marking the latest instance of sanctions over so-called AI “hallucinations”. US District Judge Julie Robinson said in an order issued on Monday that, although only one lawyer had directly used AI and included the inaccurate material, the other attorneys who signed the filings were also responsible for failing to properly vet them. The sanctioned lawyers represent Lexos Media IP in a patent infringement lawsuit against online retailer Overstock.com. “A reasonably competent attorney filing documents in court should be aware of the pronounced, well-publicised risks of using unverified generative AI for legal research, and the ethical obligations associated with signing a court filing without checking it for accuracy,” Robinson wrote. Courts across the United States have increasingly issued warnings, fines and other sanctions against lawyers and self-represented litigants for relying on AI-generated case citations and legal material without verification. Such systems are known to produce fictional details, commonly referred to as hallucinations.
