Do not use artificial intelligence to write your legal briefs

The Court of Appeals has reprimanded a lawyer who filed an appellate brief that cites a case that does not exist. This is another example of a lawyer using artificial intelligence to write a brief without making sure that the cases cited by AI are real cases.

The case is Park v. Kim, issued on January 30. This case is actually a double-whammy. The case itself was dismissed because the plaintiff would not comply with discovery orders. The trial court kept giving plaintiff second chances on compliance but in the end the court threw out the case under Rules 37 and 41(b). Since trial judges have broad discretion to dismiss cases when the plaintiff repeatedly fails to comply with discovery orders, that ruling is affirmed by the Court of Appeals (Merriam, Parker and Nathan). 

But the larger story here is what happened to plaintiff's attorney. She used AI to help write the brief. Lawyers have done this before and gotten in trouble when they fail to ensure that the cases cited by AI were real cases. In this case, the attorney used ChatGPT for the reply brief, which cited only two cases. One of those cases was Matter of Bourguignon v. Coordinated Behaviorial Health Services, Inc., 114 A.D.3d 947 (3d Dept. 2014). The judges on the Court of Appeals could not find that case and asked counsel to provide them with a copy. Counsel responded that she was unable to do so and admitted that she had relied on AI to help write the brief. The actual case for this citation is Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947 (2d Dept. 2014), which deals with a child-support issue under the Family Court Act. Park's case involves a workplace injury.

Place

Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947, 980 N.Y.S.2d 828 (2014)

Place

Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947, 980 N.Y.S.2d 828 (2014)

Matter

Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947, 980 N.Y.S.2d 828 (2014)

Matter

Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947, 980 N.Y.S.2d 828 (2014)

Matter

Kay v. Desantis, 114 A.D.3d 947, 980 N.Y.S.2d 828 (2014)

I am sure the Court of Appeals was flabbergasted to learn that the reply brief cited a non-existent case. The Court writes, "Attorney Lee’s submission of a brief relying on non-existent authority reveals that she failed to determine that the argument she made was 'legally tenable.' The brief presents a false statement of law to this Court, and it appears that Attorney Lee made no inquiry, much less the reasonable inquiry required by Rule 11 and long-standing precedent, into the validity of the arguments she presented." The Court has referred counsel to the grievance committee for the federal courts, where some kind of sanction is probably in order.