New Delhi: A US judge on Thursday sanctioned two New York lawyers who submitted a legal brief that included six fictional case citations generated by ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot. US District Judge P. Kevin Casteel in Manhattan ordered attorneys Steven Schwartz, Peter Loducka and their law firm Levido, Levido & Oberman to pay a total of $5,000 in fines.
The judge found that the attorneys had acted in bad faith and “deliberately avoided and made false and misleading statements to the court.” Levido, Levido and Oberman said in a statement Thursday that her attorneys “respectfully” disagree with the court that she acted in bad faith.
“We made a big mistake by not believing that one piece of technology could make a case out of whole cloth,” the company statement said. Schwartz’s lawyers said he declined to comment. Loducka did not immediately respond to a request for comment and his attorney said they are reviewing the decision.
Schwartz admitted in May that he had used ChatGPT to help brief research a client’s personal injury case against Colombian airline Avianca and had inadvertently included false quotes. The brief prepared by Schwartz contained only Loducka’s name.
Avianca’s lawyers first alerted the court in March that they could not locate some of the cases cited in the brief.
Avianca attorney Bart Banino said Thursday that despite the attorneys’ use of ChatGPT, the court reached the “right conclusion” by dismissing the personal injury case. The judge, in a separate order, accepted Avianca’s request to dismiss the case as it was filed too late.
The judge wrote in Thursday’s restraining order that there is nothing “inherently improper” in attorneys using AI “for assistance,” but added that attorney ethics rules “put the onus on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings.” impose a gatekeeping role.”
The judge also said that the lawyers “persisted on a bogus opinion” after being asked by the court and the airline whether they existed. His order also stated that the lawyers should inform the judges, all genuine, who were identified as the authors of the fake cases of sanction.