Progress. As the Michigan Supreme Court considered its administrative file (in 2023) to amend a court rule that would allow parties and attorneys to include any preferred personal pronoun in the caption section of court filings and would require courts to use those pronouns (unless doing so would result in an unclear record), I submitted…
Tag: Lori Shemka
(Emojis omitted.)
Legal-decision readers are familiar with quotation parentheticals like (emphasis added/omitted/changed), (alteration in original), (quotation marks and citation omitted), or (cleaned up). A new kid shows up every once in a great while: (emojis omitted). I noticed (emojis omitted) in the August 29, 2024 memorandum decision from the Indiana Court of Appeals Shannon v Indiana, 23A-CR-2744…
Self-represented litigant receives warning (not sanctions) for submitting “false and nonexistent legal authority”
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)…
Seeing how judicial decision-making benefits when using a “focus order”
A “focus order” is an order from the court to the parties directing them to focus their upcoming briefing and argument on specified issues. The Michigan Supreme Court routinely includes “focus” instructions in its argument orders. For years, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers has found the focus order tool to be positive and productive…
Four different prompts. Asking Claude.ai to help understand a divided appellate decision
Three justices wrote when the Michigan Supreme Court released Thursday’s 62-page decision in Shareef El-Jamaly v Kirco Manix Const (164902-4). Justice Welch penned the 32-page majority (joined by Justices Bernstein, Cavanagh, and Bolden). Chief Justice Clement filed a 3-page opinion that concurred and dissented in part. Justice Zahra authored a 27-page dissent (joined by Justice…
When 4 jurists write: Prompting Claude.ai to create tables of disagreement and agreement and asking follow-ups in the ex parte decision People v Loew (164133)
Four justices wrote when the Michigan Supreme Court released today’s 93-page decision in People v Loew (164133). Chief Justice Clement penned the 29-page lead majority (joined by Justices Zahra and Viviano). Justice Welch filed a 31-page opinion that concurred and dissented in part (joined by Justice Cavanagh). Justice Bolden wrote for herself in a 15-page…
Prompting Claude.ai to create tables of disagreement and agreement in the indigent/expert-witness decision People v Warner (163805)
A divided Michigan Supreme Court released its 39-page decision in People v Warner (163805) last Thursday. I deleted the Syllabus pages and put Claude.ai (a next-generation AI assistant) to work on the majority and dissenting opinions by creating tables showing the areas of disagreement and agreement. Here is the prompt: Create a three-column table that outlines the key…
Using Claude.ai to understand the package-deal plea withdrawal decision People v Samuels (164050)
A divided Michigan Supreme Court released its 32-page decision in People v Samuels (164050) on Friday. I deleted the Syllabus pages and put Claude.ai (a next-generation AI assistant) to work on the majority and dissenting opinions. First, I asked Claudi.ai to outline the decision using this complex prompt: Draft an opinion outline of the attached…
The case for adding the new Black’s Law Dictionary (12th Edition) to your legal-writing toolbox
The 12th Edition of Black’s Law Dictionary was released early last month. Chief Editor Bryan A. Garner and publisher Thomson Reuters highlight that 2,500 new terms have been added to the more than 70,000 law-related words and phrases. Thousands of Latin maxims also make their debut. Plus, every page has been supplemented and revised. Price:…
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…