Former U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Wilner
Two law firms have been ordered to pay $31,100 in sanctions after their Los Angeles attorneys submitted a plaintiff’s brief to a special master in federal court that contained bogus citations generated by artificial intelligence.
The special master, former Magistrate Judge Michael Wilner, handed down the order sanctioning K&L Gates LLP and Ellis George LLP on May 6 in the Central District of California for submitting a supplemental brief that cited nonexistent legal cases. Wilner’s role involved sorting out a dispute between parties over discovery issues in a civil case involving defendant State Farm General Insurance Co.
Wilner said a “collective debacle” resulted from the submission of a brief containing several “false, inaccurate and misleading legal citations and quotations.” Moreover, the actions of the attorneys involved in developing and revising the brief amounted to bad faith, the special master said.
“... Approximately nine of the 27 legal citations in the 10-page brief were incorrect in some way,” Wilner said in his order. “At least two of the authorities cited do not exist at all. Additionally, several quotations attributed to the cited judicial opinions were phony and did not accurately represent those materials. The lawyers’ declarations ultimately made clear that the source of this problem was the inappropriate use of, and reliance on, AI tools.”
The special master reported that Trent Copeland, an attorney at Ellis George, used several AI tools to create an outline of the brief in question. Copeland then sent the outline to K&L Gates, where the information was included into the final brief, apparently with no attorney review of the citations, according to Wilner.
“Based on the sworn statements of all involved … the attorneys at K&L Gates didn’t know that Mr. Copeland used AI to prepare the outline; nor did they ask him,” the order states.
Wilner’s initial review of the supplemental brief showed he was unable to confirm the validity of two of the authorities cited. After he informed K&L Gates of the problems he found in the document, the law firm re-submitted it without the problematic citations, according to the special master, but AI-generated mistakes remained in the brief.
“When I contacted (K&L Gates) and let them know about my concerns regarding a portion of their research, the lawyers’ solution was to excise the phony material and submit the revised brief – still containing a half-dozen AI errors,” he said.
Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said he comes across cases of erroneous AI-assisted legal filings about once per day.
“I initially thought this would be a short-term issue,” Goldman told the Southern California Record, adding that he thought attorneys would quickly get the message as a result of complaints by judges. “... The message is not getting out.”
Such errors are typically called AI hallucinations – fake cases that the user didn’t directly create but failed to verify, likely due to ignorance of the technology, he said.
“The attorneys should always understand the strengths and weaknesses of any technology tool they use," whether it’s word processing or artificial intelligence, Goldman said.
Attorneys have a duty to be technically competent when going about their jobs, he said.
“I am stunned that they would submit anything they haven't vetted for accuracy," Goldman said, adding that this should be especially true at large law firms that have robust practices.
In the State Farm case, Wilner opted to impose the sanctions in the form of fee shifting. Because the insurer paid certain fees to initiate alternative dispute resolution services in the case, the special master ordered the plaintiffs’ law firms to reimburse the defendant $26,100. In addition, Wilner also directed the plaintiffs’ attorneys to pay the defense $5,000 for fees that were incurred as a result of the AI disruptions.
In addition, he rejected the discovery actions sought by the plaintiffs.
Ellis George declined to comment about Wilner’s order.