Prosecutor Used Flawed A.I. to Keep a Man in Jail, His Lawyers Say; The New York Times, November 25, 2025

Shaila Dewan, The New York Times ; Prosecutor Used Flawed A.I. to Keep a Man in Jail, His Lawyers Say

"On Friday, the lawyers were joined by a group of 22 legal and technology scholars who warned that the unchecked use of A.I. could lead to wrongful convictions. The group, which filed its own brief with the state Supreme Court, included Barry Scheck, a co-founder of the Innocence Project, which has helped to exonerate more than 250 people; Chesa Boudin, a former district attorney of San Francisco; and Katherine Judson, executive director of the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, a nonprofit that seeks to improve the reliability of criminal prosecutions.

The problem of A.I.-generated errors in legal papers has burgeoned along with the popular use of tools like ChatGPT and Gemini, which can perform a wide range of tasks, including writing emails, term papers and legal briefs. Lawyers and even judges have been caught filing court papers that were rife with fake legal references and faulty arguments, leading to embarrassment and sometimes hefty fines.

The Kjoller case, though, is one of the first in which prosecutors, whose words carry great sway with judges and juries, have been accused of using A.I. without proper safeguards...

Lawyers are not prohibited from using A.I., but they are required to ensure that their briefs, however they are written, are accurate and faithful to the law. Today’s artificial intelligence tools are known to sometimes “hallucinate,” or make things up, especially when asked complex legal questions...

Westlaw executives said that their A.I. tool does not write legal briefs, because they believe A.I. is not yet capable of the complex reasoning needed to do so...

Damien Charlotin, a senior researcher at HEC Paris, maintains a database that includes more than 590 cases from around the world in which courts and tribunals have detected hallucinated content. More than half involved people who represented themselves in court. Two-thirds of the cases were in United States courts. Only one, an Israeli case, involved A.I. use by a prosecutor."

AI, ethics, and the lawyer's duty after Noland v. Land of the Free; Daily Journal, November 24, 2025

Reza Torkzadeh, Daily Journal; AI, ethics, and the lawyer's duty after Noland v. Land of the Free

"Noland establishes a bright line for California lawyers. AI may assist with drafting or research, but it does not replace judgment, verification or ethical responsibility. Technology may change how legal work is produced -- it does not change who is accountable for it."

GEORGE C. YOUNG AMERICAN INNS OF COURT EXPLORES ETHICS AND PITFALLS OF AI IN THE COURTROOM; The Florida Bar, November 26, 2025

The Florida Bar; GEORGE C. YOUNG AMERICAN INNS OF COURT EXPLORES ETHICS AND PITFALLS OF AI IN THE COURTROOM

"The George C. Young American Inns of Court continued its ongoing focus on artificial intelligence with a recent program titled, “The Use of AI to Craft Openings, Closings, and Directing Cross-Examination: Ethical Imperatives and Practical Realities.”...

Demonstrations showed that many members could not distinguish AI-generated narratives from those written by humans, highlighting the technology’s increasingly high-quality output. However, presenters also noted recurring drawbacks. AI-generated direct and cross-examinations frequently included prohibited or incorrect elements such as hearsay, compound questioning, and fabricated details — jokingly referred to as “ghost people” — distinguishing factual hallucinations from the better-known “phantom citation” problem.

The program concluded with a reminder that while AI may streamline drafting and help lawyers think creatively, professional judgment cannot be outsourced. The ultimate responsibility for accuracy, ethics, and advocacy remains with the lawyer."

A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years; CNN, November 15, 2025

Ray Sanchez , CNN; A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years

"Ely S. Parker, a Tonawanda Seneca from western New York, never took no for an answer.

At the start of the Civil War, Parker’s offer to enlist was rejected outright by another New Yorker, Secretary of State William H. Seward, who – according to historians – told the Seneca leader the war dividing America “was an affair between white men and one in which the Indian was not called on to act.”

“Go home, cultivate your farm, and we will settle our own troubles among ourselves without any Indian aid,” Seward told Parker, who also unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to grant him US citizenship so he could enlist. Native Americans would not be made citizens until 1924.

But Parker had connections: He was a close friend of future Union Army Commander Ulysses S. Grant, who eventually intervened and endorsed his commission as captain. He would become a top aide to the Union Army’s most revered general.

On Friday, in a ceremonial courtroom in downtown Buffalo, supporters and direct descendants of Parker gathered for a celebration of his resiliency, with the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department posthumously admitting him to the bar – 176 years after he had been denied because Native Americans were not considered US citizens.

“The posthumous admission to the bar is fitting and deserving of a man who lived his life with integrity,” said C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, an associate professor of history at George Mason University who has written extensively about Parker. “He didn’t give up. He continued to fight for what he believed in.”

Parker is the first Native American posthumously admitted to the bar in US history, according to legal experts. The petition for admission was made on behalf of his great-great-great-grandniece, Melissa Parker Leonard, whose father, Alvin, often played the chief in historical reenactments. The effort dates to 2020, when former Texas appellate Justice John Browning, a law professor at Faulkner University, first approached Alvin Parker, who died in 2022.

“Despite all the odds, all the adversity, the Seneca people still reside in western New York,” Parker Leonard, a 42-year-old educator and vice president of The Buffalo History Museum, told CNN."

Law firm Morgan & Morgan drops Disney lawsuit over Mickey Mouse ad; Reuters, November 12, 2025

Blake Brittain, Reuters ; Law firm Morgan & Morgan drops Disney lawsuit over Mickey Mouse ad

"Personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan on Wednesday voluntarily dismissed a lawsuit against Disney that sought to proactively defend its use of the early Mickey Mouse film "Steamboat Willie" in an advertisement.

Morgan & Morgan asked a Florida federal court to dismiss its case without prejudice, which means it can be refiled. Spokespeople for the firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment or for more information, including whether the parties settled."

Cleveland attorney’s use of AI in court filings raises ethical questions for legal profession; Cleveland.com, November 12, 2025

Advance Local Express Desk

David Gambino, cleveland.com

 , Cleveland.com; Cleveland attorney’s use of AI in court filings raises ethical questions for legal profession

"A Cleveland defense attorney is under scrutiny in two counties after submitting court filings containing fabrications generated by artificial intelligence — a case that’s prompting broader questions about how lawyers are ethically navigating the use of AI tools in legal practice.

William Norman admitted that a paralegal in his office used ChatGPT to draft a motion to reopen a murder conviction appeal. The document included quotes that did not exist in the trial transcript and misrepresented statements made by the prosecutor."

Vigilante Lawyers Expose the Rising Tide of A.I. Slop in Court Filings; The New York Times, November 7, 2025

 Evan Gorelick , The New York Times; Vigilante Lawyers Expose the Rising Tide of A.I. Slop in Court Filings

"Mr. Freund is part of a growing network of lawyers who track down A.I. abuses committed by their peers, collecting the most egregious examples and posting them online. The group hopes that by tracking down the A.I. slop, it can help draw attention to the problem and put an end to it.

While judges and bar associations generally agree that it’s fine for lawyers to use chatbots for research, they must still ensure their filings are accurate.

But as the technology has taken off, so has misuse. Chatbots frequently make things up, and judges are finding more and more fake case law citations, which are then rounded up by the legal vigilantes.

“These cases are damaging the reputation of the bar,” said Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University School of Law. “Lawyers everywhere should be ashamed of what members of their profession are doing.”...

The problem, though, keeps getting worse.

That’s why Damien Charlotin, a lawyer and researcher in France, started an online database in April to track it.

Initially he found three or four examples a month. Now he often receives that many in a day.

Many lawyers, including Mr. Freund and Mr. Schaefer, have helped him document 509 cases so far. They use legal tools like LexisNexis for notifications on keywords like “artificial intelligence,” “fabricated cases” and “nonexistent cases.”

Some of the filings include fake quotes from real cases, or cite real cases that are irrelevant to their arguments. The legal vigilantes uncover them by finding judges’ opinions scolding lawyers."

California Prosecutor Says AI Caused Errors in Criminal Case; Sacramento Bee via Government Technology, November 7, 2025

Sharon Bernstein, Sacramento Bee via Government Technology; California Prosecutor Says AI Caused Errors in Criminal Case

"Northern California prosecutors used artificial intelligence to write a criminal court filing that contained references to nonexistent legal cases and precedents, Nevada County District Attorney Jesse Wilson said in a statement.

The motion included false information known in artificial intelligence circles as “hallucinations,” meaning that it was invented by the AI software asked to write the material, Wilson said. It was filed in connection with the case of Kalen Turner, who was accused of five felony and two misdemeanor drug counts, he said.

The situation is the latest example of the potential pitfalls connected with the growing use of AI. In fields such as law, errors in AI-generated briefs could impact the freedom of a person accused of a crime. In health care, AI analysis of medical necessity has resulted in the denial of some types of care. In April, A 16-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita boy killed himself after discussing suicidal thoughts with an AI chatbot, prompting a new California law aimed at protecting vulnerable users.

“While artificial intelligence can be a useful research tool, it remains an evolving technology with limitations — including the potential to generate ‘hallucinated’ citations,” Wilson said. “We are actively learning the fluid dynamics of AI-assisted legal work and its possible pitfalls.”

Big Law’s Big Choice; The Bulwark, November 4, 2025

 PAUL ROSENZWEIG, The Bulwark; Big Law’s Big Choice

"When nine Big Law firms settled with Donald Trump (or, perhaps more accurately, cravenly “caved” to him), they probably thought that discretion was the better part of valor. Why fight with the big dog when the fight will only hurt, and when there is no apparent downside to surrender?

The downside has now become apparent. As reported in the New York Times, the District of Columbia Bar Legal Ethics Committee recently issued an opinion calling into grave question the ethical appropriateness of Big Law’s settlements with Trump.

Though the opinion does not mention Trump by name, the upshot of the opinion is that the big law firms that settled with him have to address significant ethical questions. Taken seriously, this opinion is a quiet earthquake that might shake the foundations of several law firms both because it says that what the law firms have done may have violated the Rules of Professional Conduct and because it also suggests that their violations cannot be cured without rescinding their agreements with Trump."

Judge’s reopening of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ raises ethical concerns; Prism, September 29, 2025

Alexandra Martinez, Prism; Judge’s reopening of ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ raises ethical concerns

"A U.S. appeals court ruled on Sept. 4 to keep Florida’s controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center operating while an appeal plays out, after a district court ruling to shut down the facility. The judge who authored the 2-1 majority opinion was 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Lagoa. 

Some immigrant rights advocates and local leaders argue that Lagoa’s role in overseeing the case, filed in part against Florida’s government, raises ethical concerns. Lagoa is married to attorney Paul Huck, a partner at Lawson Huck Gonzalez, one of Florida’s most politically connected conservative law firms. The firm is earning millions of dollars from contracts tied to the state’s other legal battles. The firm is not involved in the “Alligator Alcatraz” lawsuit."

AI as Intellectual Property: A Strategic Framework for the Legal Profession; JD Supra, September 18, 2025

Co-authors:James E. Malackowski and Eric T. Carnick , JD Supra; AI as Intellectual Property: A Strategic Framework for the Legal Profession

"The artificial intelligence revolution presents the legal profession with its most significant practice development opportunity since the emergence of the internet. AI spending across hardware, software, and services reached $279.22 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 35.9% through 2030, reaching $1.8 trillion.[i] AI is rapidly enabling unprecedented efficiencies, insights, and capabilities in industry. The innovations underlying these benefits are often the result of protectable intellectual property (IP) assets. The ability to raise capital and achieve higher valuations can often be traced back to such IP. According to data from Carta, startups categorized as AI companies raised approximately one-third of total venture funding in 2024. Looking only at late-stage funding (Series E+), almost half (48%) of total capital raised went to AI companies.[ii]Organizations that implement strategic AI IP management can realize significant financial benefits.

At the same time, AI-driven enhancements have introduced profound industry risks, e.g., disruption of traditional business models; job displacement and labor market reductions; ethical and responsible AI concerns; security, regulatory, and compliance challenges; and potentially, in more extreme scenarios, broad catastrophic economic consequences. Such risks are exacerbated by the tremendous pace of AI development and adoption, in some cases surpassing societal understanding and regulatory frameworks. According to McKinsey, 78% of respondents say their organizations use AI in at least one business function, up

from 72% in early 2024 and 55% a year earlier.[iii]

This duality—AI as both a catalyst and a disruptor—is now a feature of the modern global economy. There is an urgent need for legal frameworks that can protect AI innovation, facilitate the proper commercial development and deployment of AI-related IP, and navigate the risks and challenges posed by this new technology. Legal professionals who embrace AI as IP™ will benefit from this duality. Early indicators suggest significant advantages for legal practitioners who develop specialized AI as IP expertise, while traditional IP practices may face commoditization pressures."

All About the Action:Are lawyers more at risk for gambling addiction?; ABA Journal, August 1, 2025

DAVID WEISENFELD, ABA Journal ; All About the Action: Are lawyers more at risk for gambling addiction?

"“Something about gambling draws in certain types of lawyers,” Levant says. But the same things that make them successful in the courtroom can turn against them with gambling and make them vulnerable to wins and losses, he notes."

What Deepfake Scams Teach Us About AI and Fraud; ABA Journal, June 10, 2024

 Jeffrey M Allen, ABA Journal; What Deepfake Scams Teach Us About AI and Fraud

"How Can Lawyers Help? Start with Awareness

Whether you work in elder law, family law, estate planning, or general civil practice, you’ve probably encountered lonely, grieving, or emotionally raw clients. The very people scammers like to target.

Attorneys can protect clients (and themselves) by:

• Spotting the red flags. Does the story sound dramatic, urgent, or secretive? That’s a clue.
• Verifying everything. Real celebrities don’t DM strangers asking for cash. If a story seems off, it probably is.
• Watching for payment via crypto or wire transfer. Once it’s gone, it’s almost impossible to recover.
• Encouraging clients to slow down. Scammers rely on urgency. A second opinion can stop a scam from progressing.

What Should Lawmakers Do?

There’s no silver bullet here, but the legal system should adapt.

• Modernize fraud and impersonation laws to include AI-generated deepfakes and synthetic media explicitly.
• Increase platform accountability. Social media and messaging platforms should be required to detect and remove known scams more quickly.
• Encourage cross-border enforcement agreements to track international fraud rings more efficiently."

Emil Bove Is a Sign of the Times; The Atlantic, July 30, 2025

 Quinta Jurecic, The Atlantic; Emil Bove Is a Sign of the Times

"Whatever approach Bove takes from here, his path so far has demonstrated that total sycophancy to the president can be a fantastic career move for ambitious lawyers—especially those for whom other avenues of success might not be forthcoming."

Getting Along with GPT: The Psychology, Character, and Ethics of Your Newest Professional Colleague; ABA Journal, May 9, 2025

 ABA Journal; Getting Along with GPT: The Psychology, Character, and Ethics of Your Newest Professional Colleague

"The Limits of GenAI’s Simulated Humanity

• Creative thinking. An LLM mirrors humanity’s collective intelligence, shaped by everything it has read. It excels at brainstorming and summarizing legal principles but lacks independent thought, opinions, or strategic foresight—all essential to legal practice. Therefore, if a model’s summary of your legal argument feels stale, illogical, or disconnected from human values, it may be because the model has no democratized data to pattern itself on. The good news? You may be on to something original—and truly meaningful!
• True comprehension. An LLM does not know the law; it merely predicts legal-sounding text based on past examples and mathematical probabilities.
• Judgment and ethics. An LLM does not possess a moral compass or the ability to make judgments in complex legal contexts. It handles facts, not subjective opinions.  
• Long-term consistency. Due to its context window limitations, an LLM may contradict itself if key details fall outside its processing scope. It lacks persistent memory storage.
• Limited context recognition. An LLM has limited ability to understand context beyond provided information and is limited by training data scope.
• Trustfulness. Attorneys have a professional duty to protect client confidences, but privacy and PII (personally identifiable information) are evolving concepts within AI. Unlike humans, models can infer private information without PII, through abstract patterns in data. To safeguard client information, carefully review (or summarize with AI) your LLM’s terms of use."

Trial Court Decides Case Based On AI-Hallucinated Caselaw; Above The Law, July 1, 2025

Joe Patrice, Above The Law; Trial Court Decides Case Based On AI-Hallucinated Caselaw

"Between opposing counsel and diligent judges, fake cases keep getting caught before they result in real mischief. That said, it was always only a matter of time before a poor litigant representing themselves fails to know enough to sniff out and flag Beavis v. Butthead and a busy or apathetic judge rubberstamps one side’s proposed order without probing the cites for verification. Hallucinations are all fun and games until they work their way into the orders.

It finally happened with a trial judge issuing an order based off fake cases (flagged by Rob Freund(Opens in a new window)). While the appellate court put a stop to the matter, the fact that it got this far should terrify everyone.

Shahid v. Esaam(Opens in a new window), out of the Georgia Court of Appeals, involved a final judgment and decree of divorce served by publication. When the wife objected to the judgment based on improper service, the husband’s brief included two fake cases. The trial judge accepted the husband’s argument, issuing an order based in part on the fake cases."

Emil Bove’s ‘I’m Not A Henchman’ T-Shirt Has People Asking Questions At Judicial Confirmation Hearing; Above The Law, June 26, 2025

 Liz Dye  , Above The Law; Emil Bove’s ‘I’m Not A Henchman’ T-Shirt Has People Asking Questions At Judicial Confirmation Hearing

"Emil Bove, III began his career at the Southern District of New York, where he was by all accounts a competent prosecutor. His management style left something to be desired, however, and he was denied promotion for “abusive” behavior

(Opens in a new window) toward his subordinates...

Third Circuit, here he comes!

On Wednesday, June 25, Bove appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is considering his nomination to the Third Circuit.

He opened by insisting, “I am not anybody’s henchman, I am not an enforcer. I’m a lawyer from a small town, who never expected to be in an arena like this.”

That is horseshit, of course. No one gets to “an arena like this” without a healthy dose of ambition. Note that Bove’s aw shucks modesty didn’t extend to telling the White House that he’d be a more appropriate nominee the US District Court.

And although his tone during the hearing was measured, his willingness to twist the truth was on full display

Asked about the Adams case, Bove pointed to the order dismissing the charges(Opens in a new window) as proof that he’d behaved appropriately. In reality, the Justice Department’s refusal to prosecute left the court little choice. And Judge Dale Ho denied the DOJ’s request to dismiss without prejudice, because allowing the Trump administration to reap the benefits of a corrupt bargain would be “difficult to square with the words engraved above the front entrance of the United States Supreme Court: ‘Equal Justice Under Law.’”

Bove denied telling subordinates to defy a court order, but said he just plum couldn’t remember if he’d told them to give the bird to a federal judge.

Over and over he simply refused to answer questions based on spurious claims about the deliberative process privilege. But, he assured the senators, all was on the up and up, even if he couldn’t commit(Opens in a new window) to recusing from cases involving his former client Donald Trump.

And if any Republican senator might be tempted to vote no, he brought out the big guns. Alan Dershowitz, late of Harvard Law (and his marbles), sent a letter(Opens in a new window) to the Judiciary Committee gushing that “Mr. Bove’s superior character, demeanor and diligence are evident throughout his time as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, as well as in private practice.”"

(Opens in a new windowtoward his subordinates.

Pope: Intelligence is seeking life's true meaning, not having reams of data; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, June 20, 2025

Carol Glatz , United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Pope: Intelligence is seeking life's true meaning, not having reams of data

"Access to vast amounts of data and information is not the same thing as having intelligence, which is uniquely human and requires being open to truth, goodness and the real meaning of life, Pope Leo XIV told AI experts and executives.

"Authentic wisdom has more to do with recognizing the true meaning of life than with the availability of data," he said in a written message released by the Vatican June 20.

"Acknowledging and respecting what is uniquely characteristic of the human person is essential to the discussion of any adequate ethical framework for the governance of AI," he wrote.

The message, written in English, was addressed to people attending the second annual Rome conference on AI, Ethics and the Future of Corporate Governance being held in Rome and at the Vatican June 19-20.

The conference "brings together executives from leading AI companies as well as large enterprises using AI with policymakers, scholars, ethicists and lawyers to consider in a holistic way the challenges facing the ethics and governance of AI, both for companies developing this revolutionary technology as well as the enterprises incorporating AI into their businesses," according to the event's website."

Global AI: Compression, Complexity, and the Call for Rigorous Oversight; ABA SciTech Lawyer, May 9, 2025

Joan Rose Marie Bullock, ABA SciTech Lawyer; Global AI: Compression, Complexity, and the Call for Rigorous Oversight

"Equally critical is resisting haste. The push to deploy AI, whether in threat detection or data processing, often outpaces scrutiny. Rushed implementations, like untested algorithms in critical systems, can backfire, as any cybersecurity professional can attest from post-incident analyses. The maxim of “measure twice, cut once” applies here: thorough vetting trumps speed. Lawyers, trained in precedent, recognize the cost of acting without foresight; technologists, steeped in iterative testing, understand the value of validation. Prioritizing diligence over being first mitigates catastrophic failures of privacy breaches or security lapses that ripple worldwide."

Lack of oversight may be why younger lawyers use fake AI citations; ABA Journal, June 1, 2025

 DAVID WEISENFELD , ABA Journal; Lack of oversight may be why younger lawyers use fake AI citations

"Under Rule 5.1 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, a partner in a law firm and a lawyer who—individually or together with other lawyers—has managerial authority in a law firm must make “reasonable efforts” to ensure all lawyers in the firm conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct.

But what are reasonable efforts in the age of generative AI, which has seen lawyers being sanctioned for citing fictitious cases?...

In the 2024 Massachusetts case Smith v. Farwell, a lawyer for the plaintiff filed legal memoranda that cited and relied on fictitious cases. Acknowledging his ignorance of AI and disclaiming any intention to mislead the court, the lawyer attributed the inclusion of the cases to an associate and two recent law school graduates who had not yet passed the bar who worked on the brief.

The judge credited the attorney’s contrition, but he said it did not exonerate him of all fault and ordered him to pay a $2,000 sanction.

Just as ignorance of the law is no excuse, a lack of technical knowledge does not justify any sort of failure to supervise, according to Lucian Pera, a partner with Adams and Reese."