US Lawyers Sanctioned for Submitting AI-Generated Fake Legal Citations
A Los Angeles attorney was fined $10,000 by the California 2nd District Court of Appeal for filing a court appeal containing fabricated legal citations generated by ChatGPT. The court found 21 of 23 case quotes in the brief were fake, prompting official warnings about AI use in legal documents and regulatory guidance for courts and the state bar.
What happened
Los Angeles-area attorney Amir Mostafavi filed a state court appeal in July 2023 containing fake case quotations generated by ChatGPT. Mostafavi told the court he did not read the text generated by the AI model before submitting the appeal and did not know it would add case citations or make things up.
The California 2nd District Court of Appeal issued an opinion finding that 21 of 23 quotes from cases cited in Mostafavi's opening brief were fabricated. The court fined Mostafavi $10,000 for filing a frivolous appeal, violating court rules, citing fake cases, and wasting the court's time and taxpayers' money.
Reported impact
The opinion stated the fine appeared to be the largest issued over AI fabrications by a California court. The court published the opinion as a warning, noting that numerous out-of-state and federal courts have confronted attorneys for citing fake legal authority.
Index analysis
The incident prompted the California Judicial Council to issue guidelines two weeks later requiring judges and court staff to either ban generative AI or adopt a generative AI use policy by December 15. The California Bar Association began considering whether to strengthen its code of conduct to account for various forms of AI following a request by the California Supreme Court.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.