A federal judge has imposed $5,000 fines on a group of lawyers after ChatGPT was blamed for their submission of fictitious legal research to support an aviation injury claim. Judge P. Kevin Castel said the lawyers acted in bad faith but credited their apologies in a written ruling Thursday. The lawyers testified earlier this month that they thought references to past cases in a document they submitted to Castel were real. They actually were made up by the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. Separately, the judge tossed out the aviation claim, saying the statute of limitations had expired.
If it was intentional and they knew it was bogus, sure. But without looking at the details, I’m guessing they asked ChatGPT for case references and didn’t fact check their results. Negligent, yes, but apparently not to the level to require disbarment.
This is disbarment worthy
Seriously. Only 5k? After doubling down on the lie? They should never work in law again.
If it was intentional and they knew it was bogus, sure. But without looking at the details, I’m guessing they asked ChatGPT for case references and didn’t fact check their results. Negligent, yes, but apparently not to the level to require disbarment.
See the video linked above.
The initial use of ChatGPT was negligent, but they subsequently attempted to cover up what they did and lied to the judge, so, pretty terrible overall