Mississippi Judge Cancels Trial After Lawyers on Both Sides Submit AI-Generated Filings

Lawyers Are Getting in Trouble for AI-Generated Filings

Omar Gallaga has covered technology, digital culture and other topics for outlets including CNET, NPR, WIRED, Texas Monthly, MSNBC, Consumer Reports, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic and the Austin American-Statesman, where he was a longtime tech reporter, editor and podcaster. He lives in the Texas Hill Country. Legal teams that are increasingly relying on AI tools to help generate some of their legal work are doing so at their peril. In a recent Mississippi case in federal court, lawyers on both sides of a dispute over a solar project's fees were disciplined for using AI software that hallucinated cases or included cases in filings that weren't part of state law. The case, Withers v. City of Aberdeen, involved a dispute between a lawyer, Tom Withers III, and the city of Aberdeen, Miss. Withers claimed the city owed him fees involving a solar development project. He wasn't one of the lawyers reprimanded, but his legal team was, as were lawyers representing the city, when a judge determined that four of them -- two of them on each side -- had used AI in filings that weren't properly verified by human lawyers. The outcome drew the attention of The New York Times, among other outlets, and could come to represent a cautionary tale for those in the legal profession. It was first spotted by marketing and commerce lawyer Rob Freund who posted about it on X, calling it a "comedy of AI errors." The website 404 Media reported on Freund's post, drawing national attention to the cse. US District Judge Sharion Aycock fined the four lawyers and shut down the case over the AI errors, among other legal sanctions. "The Court finds that, through their own admissions, all four attorneys failed to verify the legal authorities cited in their respective filings in violation of Rule 11," she said. Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that a lawyer must sign a filed legal document, basically promising to the judge that what is being filed is truthful. "All attorneys are licensed and are presumably well trained in the law," Aycock wrote. "Their practice of blindly relying on technology resulted in the hallucinatory citations contained in their respective filings." AI hallucinations are errors or falsehoods that large language models routinely serve up as they string together words into a plausible-sounding narrative. AI's legal pitfalls The Mississippi case isn't the only instance of lawyers getting into hot water over AI mistakes. Legal snafus recently led the state of New York to adopt new rules about generative AI -- as of June 1, for instance, results generated using tools like ChatGPT are not protected by attorney-client privilege. The largest US association for lawyers, the American Bar Association, said in a statement to CNET that lawyers are facing new and complex challenges when it comes to using AI with their work. "Lawyers understand that generative AI outputs require scrutiny and oversight," said AMA President Michelle A Behnke. "The ABA is here to support its members as they navigate new law, new technology and new practice tools." The group has a task force on AI and in December published a report that covers AI adoption among lawyers, best practices and AI policies. It also has issued ethical guidance for lawyers using AI. Among its advice: "lawyers should understand 'the benefits and risks associated' with the technologies used to deliver legal services to clients."

Judge rules both sides in lawsuit misused AI, disqualifies lawyers

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - A federal judge in Mississippi has disqualified the attorneys on both sides of a contract dispute after finding that their failure to verify AI-generated research led to fabricated legal citations in court filings. In an order, opens new tab on Monday, U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in Aberdeen, Mississippi, said attorneys for the plaintiff and defendant had acknowledged that case citation errors in recent filings in the lawsuit stemmed from the use of AI programs. "This case presents the court with an unusual scenario -- attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct," Aycock wrote. The attorneys at a hearing in the case "expressed embarrassment and apologized to the court," Aycock wrote. Both sides will ⁠need to find new lawyers, the judge said. Lawyers may use AI tools, but they are required to verify that materials submitted to a judge are accurate. Aycock barred the lawyers on each side who either used AI for legal research or for drafting the filings at issue -- Kathleen Wilson and Kathryn Williams -- from appearing in the Northern District of Mississippi for two years. Wilson was fined $2,500, and Williams was fined $3,500. The other lawyers who were disqualified, Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway and Mark McClinton, were serving as local counsel to Wilson and Williams and were not directly involved in drafting the filings. They were each ordered to pay $1,000. Wilson, Ridgeway, ⁠Williams and McClinton did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The case involves a contract dispute over legal fees with the city of Aberdeen. The plaintiff and a representative for the city did not immediately respond to requests for comment. State and federal judges increasingly have sanctioned attorneys for misusing artificial intelligence tools that can make up case citations, ⁠misquote the law or generate non-existent legal sources. "In an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubber stamp when acting as local ⁠counsel," Aycock wrote in Monday's order. The judge said her order will be sent to the attorney disciplinary organizations in the states where the four lawyers are licensed. Group fights Shell Oil bid for AI prompts ⁠used in climate lawsuit Fallout grows for former law partner sanctioned over AI 'hallucination' OpenAI says ChatGPT is not a lawyer, asks court to toss insurer's lawsuit US judge says senior lawyers must pay for mistakes by subordinates using AI tools US judges weigh risks as AI seeps into judicial work Reporting by Mike Scarcella Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Judge Cancels Whole Case After Lawyers Admit They Didn't Read AI-Generated Filings

Large language models have led to a slew of pro se lawsuits where people believe they can represent themselves with the help of AI. You'd expect better for actual lawyers, but it turns out you'd be wrong. As 404 Media first reported, a Mississippi judge recently tossed a case and sanctioned lawyers on both sides for submitting court filings riddled with AI-fabricated information. The case was a dispute between lawyer Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, in which Withers alleged that he was owed unpaid legal fees. Withers wasn't representing himself, but maybe in retrospect wishes that he had, because his representation decided to use AI to conduct research for the case and to actually generate the filings submitted to the judge. Per a court document, the two lawyers representing Withers admitted that they didn't verify any of the information produced by AI before filing their briefs. That's not great, but it gets worse, because the lawyers representing the city of Aberdeen also used AI, meaning professional lawyers were basically wasting everyone's time by making LLMs argue against each other. As you might imagine, the judge in the case was not exactly thrilled by the whole situation. Sharion Aycock, senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi, took the dramatic step of pausing the proceedings entirely and canceling the trial for the time being while dismissing all four lawyers involved in the case. Two of those lawyers -- one from each side, both of whom admitted to using AI tools to generate their filings -- are barred from appearing before the court for two years. All lawyers involved also got hit with fines, ranging from $1,000 to $3,500, based on whether they simply failed to verify information in a filing or if they actually drafted documents with AI-hallucinated citations. "This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario -- attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct," Aycock wrote in a sanctions order. "This court is yet again 'burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.'" The AI problem has hit courts across the country pretty hard, much to the dismay of judges who find themselves tasked with checking the work of lawyers to make sure some completely hallucinated citation doesn't accidentally get included in actual legal precedent. Law researcher Damien Charlotin has taken it upon himself to track every instance of AI-generated citations in legal filings, and has so far documented a jarring 1598 cases so far. If you are a lawyer, please help Charlotin by simply not using AI slop in your work. It's the least you can do.

Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case

The lawyers on both sides of a federal court case in Mississippi were caught using artificial intelligence, a situation where, effectively, generative AI tools were used to argue against each other. The judge wrote in a blistering sanctions order, that the lawyers wasted the court's time, and that "in an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubber-stamp." "This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario -- attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct," Sharion Aycock, senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi wrote in a sanctions order. "This court is yet again 'burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.'" The case in question involved a contractual dispute between lawyer Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, over apparently unpaid legal fees (Withers was not representing himself and was not sanctioned by the court). The case was first noticed by Rob Freund, a lawyer who frequently posts about cases involving AI hallucinations. Freund called it a "comedy of AI errors," and suggested "there were two clients who basically were paying for ChatGPT (or whatever LLM) to argue against itself." 404 Media has repeatedly covered the phenomenon of lawyers using AI to prepare their filings, and the specifics in this court case follow a similar pattern to what we've seen before: Lawyers for both sides cited nonexistent, hallucinated cases while making their arguments. The difference is that every lawyer involved in the case is implicated, leading Aycock to pause the proceedings, cancel the trial, and disqualify all four lawyers involved. Two of the lawyers were barred from appearing before the court for two years; all lawyers received a fine of between $1,000 and $3,500, depending on Aycock's assessment of their culpability for not verifying the outputs of the AI they used. Judges around the country have been increasingly frustrated with lawyers who use AI; last week, we wrote about a judge who ripped into various lawyers for citing hallucinated cases in New York.

Furious Judge Cancels Entire Trial After Finding Out Lawyers on Both Sides Used AI

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Lawyers just can't stop being caught using AI chatbots, polluting their filings with hallucinated citations that infuriate judges when they're caught. Even prestigious law firms are being humiliated, with some perpetrators getting slapped with fines and facing discipline from the Bar. In a particularly egregious reminder of just how widespread the problem has become, a United States district judge in Mississippi found out that lawyers from both sides of a recent case had used AI. As 404 Media reports, Northern District of Mississippi judge Sharion Aycock berated everybody involved in a sanctions order, ultimately fining them, canceling the trial, and barring half of them from appearing in the district's court for two years. "This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario -- attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct," she wrote. "This court is yet again 'burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.'" Lawyer Rob Freund first spotted the gaffe, calling it a "comedy of AI errors," in a tweet. The case involved four lawyers total, who were fighting over unpaid legal fees. Two of them represented plaintiff and lawyer Tom Withers, while the other two represented the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi. Withers brought a "single breach of contract claim against the city," per Aycock. But the court quickly determined that filings from both parties "contained hallucinatory citations." In a January 20 hearing, a lawyer representing Withers named Kathryn Williams "admitted to using an AI tool to conduct legal research," while another lawyer representing the city, Kathleen Wilson, "admitted to using generative AI to draft her response filing," according to Aycock. "Neither of them verified the legal authority output by AI before filing their briefs," she wrote, adding that "each of the attorneys expressed embarrassment and apologized to the Court." Wiliams and Wilson have since been ordered to pay fines ranging from $1,000 to $3,500. Both were barred from appearing before any case in the local Northern District of Mississippi for two years. All four lawyers involved were disqualified from participating in the case any further. Worse yet, Aycock revealed that Wilson had attempted to argue that she was "unaware that AI could produce hallucinated cases and explained that she did not even know what a hallucinated case was." "The Court finds that explanation to be insufficient and incredulous," the judge wrote. Williams also attempted to absolve herself, arguing that the "in-house" AI research tool she used wasn't supposed to hallucinate cases either, an excuse that didn't sit much better with the judge, either. In short, it's a particularly glaring reminder how often lawyers are resorting to use AI, resulting in chaos in the courtroom. According to a 2025 report, hallucinations remain pervasive in filings -- easily avoidable errors that are bogging down legal proceedings and eroding trust. More on lawyers and AI: Prestigious Wall Street Law Firm Humiliated When Its AI Use Is Discovered in Court

Both lawyers in case use hallucinating AI, causing judge to throw up hands, bar them for 2 years, fine everybody, and call the whole thing off for 60 days

We at PC Gamer have covered the disturbing trend of lawyers -- who are, on average, supposed to be competent and reasonably well-read, and quite literally where the phrase 'passing the bar' comes from -- using AI citations in courtrooms before. But this one's a doozy, because it turns out absolutely everyone involved had the same large language model blindspot. As spotted by lawyer Rob Freund on X (thanks, 404Media), the case -- which Freund accurately dubs a "comedy of AI errors", took place during a dispute between Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen. Withers was represented by Kathleen M. Wilson (with Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway as local counsel) and Kathryn Y. Williams (with Mark C. McClinton doing the same). Per this document, both Wilson and Williams were found to be citing AI-hallucinated citations that did not exist: "The attorneys admitted that the hallucinatory citations cited by them, and identified by the Court, resulted from unverified AI use." A show-cause hearing, essentially a chance for the lawyers to defend themselves, ended mostly in WIlson and Williams hanging their heads in shame: "Each of the attorneys expressed embarrassment and apologized to the Court. They also provided explanations regarding their independent roles in conducting legal research and/or drafting the filings at issue. "In short, Williams and Wilson, the two out-of-state attorneys, assumed responsibility for drafting the filings at issue on behalf of their respective clients. Williams admitted to using an AI tool to conduct legal research, and Wilson admitted to using generative AI to draft her respective filing. Neither of them verified the legal authority output by AI before filing their briefs." What's more, both Ridgeway and McClinton admitted to "failing to review the subject filings", and being unable to catch the entirely made-up citations in their duties as local counsel. So to sum things up, four entire lawyers -- with degrees and everything -- used AI to try and skimp out on doing work, or likely didn't double-check their cases at all, let alone for hallucinations. This resulted in the judge scrapping the entire thing and punishing everyone involved. Wilson and William were ordered to pay fines ($2,500 and $3,500 respectively) and barred from practicing in the district for two years. Meanwhile, Ridgeway and McClinton were ordered to shell out $1,000 for their poor double-checking. Both Withers and the city were given 60 days to find new counsel -- who hopefully both won't believe ChatGPT to be some almighty legal god, this time.