{"id":5971,"date":"2025-10-15T18:10:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lawyer-caught-using-ai-responds\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:10:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:10:29","slug":"lawyer-caught-using-ai-responds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/lawyer-caught-using-ai-responds\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer Gets Caught Using AI in Court, Responds in the Worst Possible Way"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What is it with lawyers and AI? We don\u2019t know, but it feels like an inordinate number of them keep screwing up with AI tools, apparently never learning from their colleagues who get publicly crucified for making the same mistake.<\/p>\n

But this latest blunder from a New York attorney, in a lawsuit centered on a disputed loan, takes the cake. As 404 Media <\/em>reports<\/a>, after getting caught using AI by leaving in hallucinated quotes and citations in his court filings, defense lawyer Michael Fourte then submitted a brief explaining his AI usage \u2014 which was also <\/em>written with a large language model.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the judge was not amused.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, counsel relied upon unvetted AI \u2014 in his telling, via inadequately supervised colleagues \u2014 to defend his use of unvetted AI,\u201d wrote New York Supreme Court judge Joel Cohen in a decision filed earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case adds yet another unfortunate chapter to the story of artificial intelligence misuse in the legal profession,\u201d the judge further lamented.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the reasons that we keep hearing about these completely avoidable <\/strong>catastrophes is that catching your opponent even making a single mistake using an AI tool is an easy way to gain an upper hand in court, so everyone\u2019s on the lookout for them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what happened here: it was the plaintiff\u2019s legal team that first caught the mistakes, which included inaccurate or completely made up citations and quotations. The plaintiffs then filed a request for the judge to sanction Fourte, which is when he committed the legal equivalent of shoving a stick between the spokes of your bike wheel: he used AI again.<\/p>\n

In his opposition to the sanctions motion, Fourte\u2019s submitted document contained more than double the amount of made-up or erroneous citations as last time, an astonished-sounding Cohen wrote.<\/p>\n

His explanation was also pretty unsatisfactory. Fourte neither admitted nor denied the use of AI, wrote judge Cohen, but instead tried to pass off the botched citations as merely \u201cinnocuous paraphrases of accurate legal principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Somehow, it gets worse. After the plaintiffs flagged the new wave of errors in Fourte\u2019s opposition to the sanctions motion, the defense lawyer \u2014 who by now was presumably sweating more than a character in a Spaghetti Western \u2014 then strongly implied that AI wasn\u2019t used at all, complaining that the plaintiffs provided \u201cno affidavit, forensic analysis, or admission\u201d confirming the use of the tech. When he had an opportunity to set the record straight during oral arguments in court, Fourte further insisted that the the \u201ccases are not fabricated at all,\u201d the judge noted.<\/p>\n

Eventually, though, he cracked. After getting further grilled on how a completely made-up court case ended up in his filings, Fourte admitted he \u201cdid use AI.\u201d He also, in practically the same breath, said he took \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for the AI-generated nonsense \u2014 but also tried to pass off some of the blame on some additional staff he\u2019d brought on the case. Classic.<\/p>\n

Later, Fourte \u201cmuddled those statements of contrition,\u201d the judge mused, by saying, \u201cI never said I didn\u2019t use AI. I said that I didn\u2019t use unvetted AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

To which the judge called BS. \u201cIf you are including citations that don\u2019t exist, there\u2019s only one explanation for that. It\u2019s that AI gave you cites and you didn\u2019t check them,\u201d Cohen responded to Fourte\u2019s pleas. \u201cThat\u2019s the definition of unvetted AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all the back and forth, Judge Cohen granted the plaintiff\u2019s motion for sanctions.<\/p>\n

Fourte declined 404\u2019s <\/em>request for comment. \u201cAs this matter remains before the Court, and out of respect for the process and client confidentiality, we will not comment on case specifics,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cWe have addressed the issue directly with the Court and implemented enhanced verification and supervision protocols. We have no further comment at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his case seems especially egregious, Fourte is definitely not alone. Dozens of other lawyers have been caught using AI<\/a> for largely the same reason: submitting erroneous or made up case law. Some used public chatbots like ChatGPT, but others used AI tools special-built for law<\/a>, illustrating how fundamentally error-prone the tech remains.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest firms caught in an AI scandal is Morgan & Morgan, which rushed out a panicked company-wide email<\/a> after two of its lawyers faced sanctions<\/a> for citing AI hallucinations earlier this year. Judges, meanwhile, have done their darndest to make an example out of lawyers careless enough to rely on the word of an LLM<\/a> \u2014 but clearly, this latest case shows, not everyone\u2019s getting the memo.<\/p>\n

More on AI:<\/strong> Top US Army General Says He\u2019s Letting ChatGPT Make Decisions to Make Military Decisions<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Lawyer Gets Caught Using AI in Court, Responds in the Worst Possible Way<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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