https://gizmodo.com/attorney-hit-with-historic-fine-for-citing-ai-generated-cases-2000738651
A court in Oregon has issued a fine of $10,000 to an attorney who submitted a legal brief with citations and quotes hallucinated by AI, according to a new report from the Oregonian. It’s the highest fine yet for citing fake cases in the state and would have been higher, but the judges offered some leniency, according to the newspaper.
The attorney, identified by the Oregonian as Bill Ghiorso in Salem, submitted a legal brief to the Oregon Court of Appeals that contained 15 fake citations and nine fake quotes. Ghiorso reportedly blamed a paralegal for the AI hallucinations and initially challenged the fine.
The appeals court in Oregon first fined a different attorney for the practice back in December 2025. The three-judge panel established that this kind of issue should be met with $500 for each fake citation and $1,000 for each false quotation or statement of law. Adding up all the hallucinations, Ghiorso was first hit with a $16,500, but the judges capped that at $10,000.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by HiThere on Friday April 03, @12:59PM (18 children)
This is something that *really* needs to be discouraged. Lawyers need to be responsible for the accuracy of what they present.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday April 03, @01:06PM (15 children)
Thus, the historic fine. It's not the first time it's happened, but it would be nice if it was the last.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by canopic jug on Friday April 03, @01:33PM (12 children)
Any monetary fine is no more effective than a symbolic slap on the wrist with wet noodle. When a lawyer fucks up so severely as to misrepresent AI slop as legal writing, the only reasonable solution is immediate disbarment. Otherwise, you are just giving them wiggle room to see how much slop the courts are willing to accept rather than setting a zero tolerance policy for such fraud.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, @03:08PM (1 child)
The judges that let them off are corrupt and should be "de-benched". From top to bottom, we have nobody to properly enforce the law. Considering how long this has been going on, the only safe assuption to make is that nobody of any consequence cares.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday April 03, @07:05PM
The people making the decision on punishment usually aren't judges but bar association disciplinary committees. Those committees tend to be reluctant to be too harsh because they don't want the other lawyers to be hard on them if it's ever their turn to be busted.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday April 03, @04:16PM (9 children)
This is a warning shot. Judges can escalate their penalties for repeated offenders. In addition, the opponents in the court room are now aware and can look for use of AI in this lawyer's court filings.
Further, keep in mind that the problem wasn't that the lawyer used AI, but that they didn't independently vet the argument. Here, they merely asked the AI if the cited cases were real. Seriously.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday April 03, @04:28PM (6 children)
Fraud is still fraud, whether the lawyer wrote it directly himself or whether he tried to wash that fraud through some "AI". At the end of the day, it is still fraud no matter the approach. By letting the lawyer off with a fine, the judge is saying that some level of fraud is ok and that they are now just haggling over how much fraud the judge will allow.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 03, @04:37PM (5 children)
Show that he committed fraud then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, @04:42PM (4 children)
The judge called him out on the fraud, the made up case citations, but has given him an almost free pass.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Friday April 03, @05:15PM (3 children)
Not how I would describe fraud.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday April 05, @06:46AM (2 children)
If ultimately fabricated citations are not act of fraud, then what do you call it? I certainly call it fraud.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 05, @12:49PM (1 child)
Dereliction of duty. Fraud requires intentional fabrication or other deception. Apparently, the judge didn't find evidence of that intent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by canopic jug on Sunday April 05, @12:59PM
From this distance is really appears like he very knowingly tried to deceive the court by attempting to foist fabricated citations on it in place of actaul legal work.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Saturday April 04, @03:26AM (1 child)
Just how far does the arbitrary power of a judge go impose monetary penalties (or imprisonment?) go? No case was brought against the lawyer, no jury decided that the lawyer broke the law. Does the lawyer have any way to challenge the decision?
I think the lawyer did something both immoral and illegal, but it should take a separate legal procedure (a separate trial) to deal with it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 04, @04:38AM
Judges have considerable latitude in preserving order and integrity in their courtrooms. Among other things, it preserves the right to a speedy trial. Imagine that you are tried for a crime and bail has been rejected or set at a level that you can't pay - so you are stuck in jail for the duration of the trial. Now suppose that the prosecutor deliberately breaks the law triggering a second trial, but does so in a way that requires the second trial to resolve before the first trial can resolve. Then during that second trial, he does something illegal again in a way that requires a third trial to resolve before the second trial can resolve. Recursive trial creation. We have a way to indefinitely extend a trial, if one of the two sides is willing to break a lot of laws. Having the judge decide on punishment right away short circuits that strategy.
(Score: 3, Touché) by krishnoid on Friday April 03, @06:38PM (1 child)
Or go the European Union route, and make sure it isn't the last time [politico.eu] they're fined.
(Score: 5, Funny) by turgid on Friday April 03, @08:47PM
Darn Undemocratic Marxist Eurocommies! EUSSR! Toilet paper! Venezuela! George Soros!
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, @01:45PM
I'd agree about doubling the fine (or more), in particular if the lawyer doesn't take responsibility for the error -- blaming it on his paralegal is the worst sort of passing the buck.
In my experience, there are at least two kinds of lawyers:
the high-fliers like this one, who sounds pretty sleazy
the hardworking local lawyers who handle all sorts of "family law" for lack of a better term - wills, estates, real estate transactions, sorting the paperwork to start a small business, that sort of thing
How to separate them and fine the jerks is an interesting problem. It may sort itself naturally, since the family law work probably doesn't require lots of prior case references.
(Score: 2) by jb on Sunday April 05, @08:03AM
Indeed. A full week in the pillory for each and every false citation should be the bare minimum. Plus mandatory disbarring.
Lawyers are supposed to be professionals. Professionals are not supposed to practice plagiarism (which is the best any LLM can ever manage), nor are they supposed to practice outright dishonesty (which is what the LLM's output was in this case).
The penalty has to fit the crime. A $10k fine is peanuts to any lawyer more senior than an articled clerk: it amounts to between 1 and 2 days of billable time.
Bottom line: if someone pretends to be a professional yet uses someone else's work without attribution (or even checking!), then that person deserves both to be removed from his profession permanently and to be held up to public ridicule for as long as it takes for every single member of the local community to know what a complete fraud he was (and get a chance to hurl a rotten tomato or three!).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snotnose on Friday April 03, @01:39PM (2 children)
If he's fresh out of law school trying to get his footing $10k is a hefty fine. If he's been chasing ambulances for a while and pulls in a couple mil a year it's chump change.
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 03, @03:32PM
Not hefty enough. Immediate disbarment is the only way to deal with this, jail time would be better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04, @02:09AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 04, @07:19AM
The judges don't have the power to disbar him or put him in jail.
The state bar will be after him, because he clearly violated several ethics rules. They could suspend his license, but I doubt they'll disbar him unless he has other strikes against him already.
And ...
If he's in a law firm, they'll probably can him.
His reputation is shot, so the client will fire him. His other clients will likely fire him too.
His client probably has a malpractice case against him. His other clients may also have malpractice cases too. The opposing side might also have a case against him.
Any cases he had in the last several years (since LLMs) are now in question.
This happened in a case that was on appeal, which likely means big money was involved.
In some states, a lawyer's personal assets (house, bank accounts, etc.) can be taken to pay a malpractice judgement.
His insurance company will likely settle and then drop him. Then he'll have to pay through the nose for malpractice insurance, if he can get any.