A federal district court judge in New York’s Southern District recently used her discretion to warn a self-represented litigant about submitting false and nonexistent legal authority to the Court. Sanctions may be imposed for submitting false and nonexistent legal authority to the Court. See, e.g., Park v. Kim, 91 F.4th 610, 613-16 (2d Cir. 2024)…
Tag: ChatGPT
Prompting Claude.ai and ChatGPT to outline a new Michigan Supreme Court decision
Today, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a split opinion in People v Prude (Docket 165664)—a case that was decided without oral argument. Because users can now attach files with their “prompts” when using the free versions of the generative AI tools Claude.ai and ChatGPT, I decided to take each for a spin to outline the…
Protective orders that prohibit submitting confidential discovery material to open generative AI tools
In a sign of the AI times, the federal court in the Southern District of New York recently entered a protective order that includes an AI-restriction paragraph:
How judges can draft and add easy-to-understand summaries in their written decisions
Summary for Pro Se Plaintiff The magistrate judge is recommending that the motion for summary judgment be granted. Your evidence does not show that Nurse Yule, Nurse Practitioner Housley, or Dr. Wong acted in ways that they knew were likely to cause you additional harm or suffering. Such evidence is required to show a violation…
Procedural takeaways when there are AI/fake-case concerns
In less than a year after the ChatGPT usage in Mata v Avianca, Inc., SD NY (Docket No. 1:22-cv-01461) captured headlines, we’re starting to see a pattern and lessons for how adverse parties and courts are handling suspected fake-case court filings. The pattern often follows the routine of other claims when reliability may be questioned…
Florida attorney receives one-year suspension from practicing in a Florida federal court for including fake cases in court filings (and for other misconduct)
Today, a federal judge in the Middle District of Florida issued a one-year suspension order to attorney Thomas Grant Neusom for naming fabricated cases in filed court documents and for violating other court procedures, processes, and civility expectations. The relevant facts and proceedings toggle between two case files: Clark Pear LLC v. MVP Realty Associates…
Even self-represented litigants can be sanctioned for court filings that include AI-generated, bogus case law cites
A Missouri business owner opted to handle his own appeal following a November 2022 unpaid wages judgment ($311,313.70 with interest accruing 9% per year). For the research and writing part, the self-represented business owner hired an online consultant who claimed to be a California-licensed attorney. (See page 2 of the Reply brief for the explanation.)…
Putting Claude.ai to work creating outlines of filed court briefs
Given Anthropic’s Claude.ai’s impressive ability to handle .pdf uploads and complex prompts, it seemed only right to upload public efiled court briefing, put the AI-created output in comparative table form, and see how things would go. Overall? Pretty darn good! Check out how well (with a couple of misses) Claude followed my instructions on how to…
ChatGPT was never designed for legal research (and here is why it should NOT be used that way)
Even though ChatGPT has some pretty clear disclaimers about factual accuracy, two New York City attorneys and their law firm gained a lot of public attention for claiming that the bogus cases cited in their federal court filing were the result of (wrongly) using ChatGPT as a legal-research database. Federal District Court Judge P. Kevin…
Here is how ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing measure sentiment, emotion, and tone
#AppellateTwitter wasted no time criticizing an experienced SCOTUS advocate for his recent brief’s word choice: But wait. Nearly one year (!) after the Court invited her views, the Solicitor General has delivered what can only be described as a hot mess of a brief. In it, the government claims to have unearthed a new obstacle…