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It Was Only a Matter of Time: *Both* Sides’ Lawyers Sanctioned for Using AI
Jun. 9th, 2026 09:17 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
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On several occasions here we’ve discussed the remarkably stupid tradition of dueling, I guess most recently in this 2024 item about a probably-not-serious proposal to embed that practice in the rules of the Missouri Senate. Lawyers were never immune to this stupidity, which is why, for example, new members of the Kentucky Bar were required to swear an oath that they had never “fought a duel with deadly weapons” or aided or assisted in such a thing. And, in fact, they still are. Today I was interested in finding out whether there had ever been a duel in which both idiots died. I thought I had found three examples, but it turned out those were all bullshit.
That’s what I get for using AI to run the search.
It seems like only yesterday, but in fact was four days ago, that I mentioned the latest fiasco in which lawyers got sanctioned because they had relied on generative AI without checking its output. See “Two More Lawyers Pay for Relying on Artificial ‘Intelligence’” (June 5, 2026). That case was worse than most because the lawyers also weren’t totally honest with the court, although this is something that happens surprisingly often in AI-related sanction cases. According to the AI Hallucination Database, there have been 1,598 cases to date, worldwide, in which someone got in trouble for relying on a generative AI tool that turned out to have just made stuff up.
Of course I haven’t read all of those, but I suspect this might be the first time that all the lawyers on both sides were kicked off the case for doing that.
By “this” I mean Monday’s opinion in Withers v. City of Aberdeen, decided by the federal court for the Northern District of Mississippi. The court had issued an order “directing all counsel of record in this case to show cause as to why the Court should not impose sanctions against them pursuant to [various rules] for filing legal memoranda containing hallucinated case citations.” (Emphasis added.) Each party was represented by two lawyers, one out-of-state, one local. The two out-of-state lawyers admitted they had used generative AI (one for research, the other to draft the brief), and also that neither one bothered to verify what the AI had given them. The two local counsel said they were “unaware of their respective co-counsel’s use of AI,” but admitted that they committed essentially the same error by not reviewing what the other humans had given them. They all then suffered through a show-cause hearing that was surely quite embarrassing.
After discussing the facts, the opinion says this: “Following the hearing, the Court stayed this case and cancelled the scheduled trial, which was previously set to occur on March 23, 2026.” Well, that was bad news for someone, and it was probably no great surprise that it turned out to be bad news for all four.
“This Court is yet again burdened with addressing AI hallucinations in court filings,” the opinion says, citing a number of prior cases. “It has previously acknowledged that AI is a powerful tool that when used prudently, provides immense benefits.” (Emphasis in original, scoffing at the word ‘immense’ added by me.) “However,” the court continues, while generative technology can produce words, it cannot attach sincerity, truth, or responsibility to what it writes.” (Citation omitted.) That’s a human’s job.
Again, none of this is new—which is exactly why the court wasn’t buying one lawyer’s claim that “she was shocked when the Court issued the show cause order,” essentially taking the position that “she was unaware that AI could produce hallucinated cases and explained that she did not even know what a hallucinated case was.” Nope. “The Court finds that explanation to be insufficient and incredulous.” (I think technically the court would be “incredulous” and the explanation “incredible,” but please don’t tell the court I said that. It’s already mad enough.) The increduli-ble-ness was primarily because this has happened and been publicized so many times now that one can expect a reasonable lawyer to know about it—meaning, this excuse might have worked earlier but its time has run out.
The opinion also suggests that deflecting by arguing there are real cases that support the proposition for which you offered the fake ones is not going to work anymore, either (if it ever did). Another lawyer offered that one to the court and it only made it angrier.
Each lawyer gets his or her own section in the opinion, which is not something you want to have happen, unless maybe you saved the judge’s life at some point. To sum it up, the court found varying levels of responsibility, but the results weren’t that different. In particular, all four attorneys were booted from the case. The out-of-state attorneys had their pro hac vice admissions revoked and cannot show their faces in the Northern District of Mississippi (well, its courthouse) for two years. The in-state attorneys were disqualified from appearing further in this case. All four were fined in varying amounts, and the court referred all four to the relevant state bar associations. So it seems fair to say that using generative AI (imprudently) did not produce immense benefits in this case.
I should point out that all this resulted from “only” six fake cases, four on one side and two on the other. I don’t know what percentage that was, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter unless the percentage in your brief is zero.
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