Steven Schwartz is pictured using ChatGPT to write a legal brief outside federal court in Manhattan, New York, Thursday, June 8, 2023.
Molly Crane-Newman | New York Daily News | Getty Images
A federal judge in New York on Thursday sanctioned lawyers who submitted legal briefs written by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, including citing court cases that did not exist.
In addition to paying the $5,000 fine each, the attorneys were ordered Thursday to notify each judge who was wrongly identified as the author of a bogus case ruling.
In imposing the sanction, Judge P. Kevin Castel said he might not punish lawyers who “confessed” to using ChatGPT to find alleged cases cited by the AI.
“When researching and drafting court arguments, good lawyers will properly obtain
Assistance from junior attorneys, law students, contract attorneys, legal encyclopedias and databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis,” Castell wrote in the order in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
“Technological advances are commonplace, and there is nothing inherently improper in using reliable artificial intelligence tools to help,” Castell wrote. “But existing rules impose gatekeepers on lawyers to ensure the accuracy of the documents they file .”
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