Artificial intelligence is changing the world everyday. Sometimes not for the better. A few weeks back we featured an order from Judge Matthewman sanctioning a lawyer for citing a hallucinated case. That attorney's conduct was child's play compared to the fact pattern Judge Leibowitz just confronted. A preview for you--when the lawyer at issue received an order to show cause about the use of AI-fabricated case citations, he filed a response complete with fabricated AI case quotations. Suffice it to say, things did not end well for said attorney.
Check out the order below.
DE 42_Order re AI by John Byrne on Scribd
30 comments:
Wow. Thanks for sharing. Two observations: What was this lawyer thinking? (I guess he wasn't.) Second, Judge Leibowitz is a solid writer, man. Good pick for a DJ.
Why was that jackass even citing cases in a complaint?
Gotta love the Federal District Judge in NJ who cited non-existent obviousy AI generated authorities. I guess I take some twisted comfort in knowing that practicing lawyers are not the only ones fucking this up.
Good point.
I did not know anything about Judge Leibowitz when he took the bench. Indeed, I had some minor skepticism given stories I had heard. After reading this order, a tip of the hat to the judge. We got (another) a good one on the bench.
I don’t know. I have to think that there are lots of litigants waiting for rulings on motions while we get 21 pages just to say don’t make shit up.
Chat GBT review the blog post and prepare a witty comment
Based on the order of Judge Leibowitz it is not advisable to use chat gbt for the purposes requested. Blog comments can “cause significant liability issues” Moe v. Larry and Curly, 456 F.3d 617,711 (14th Cir 2027),
Bro: some judges in our district literally never rule. You file a motion and, poof, it's off in the ether. I don't know enough about Judge Leibowitz to opinion on whether he's one of those, but I doubt it. Anyway, the facts of this particular case seem to me to be important enough to warrant this reasoned order.
David Osker Marcus with Ghislaine Maxwell after secret meeting with Trump's DOJ. Go David!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14938725/Ghislaine-Maxwell-mystery-box-prison-secret-meeting-Donald-Trump.html
I’ve always been a big fan of you, (David). But for the good of the country, it’s very important for you to reinsure us by promising that your client has testified with complete disregard of any hope of favor from Trump.
He’s representing a client not the country. We have to defend the good of the country.
Did you skip the course in ethics Anonymous?
DOM owes loyalty to one entity - his client. I don’t see anything in the professional rules that require a lawyer to choose his country’s well being over the best course of conduct for his or her client.
Do tell, what rule of ethics / professional conduct requires an attorney “to reinsure [sic] us by promising that your client has testified with complete disregard of any hope of favor” from a president with power to pardon his client? What control should he have over her hopes of a pardon or her motivation to speak? I understand your comment as an appeal to the greater good (“of the country”), but professional ethics? Really?
Kamala Harris apparently skipped the course in ethics as an attorney licensed to practice in California. VP Harris had a duty to call the 25th Amendment on demented Joe Biden, "for the good of the country", but she failed her duty to the American People. Trump is the president. Deal with it. The Democrats are finished as a party, thank goodness. The Republicans are finished as a party too. Trump is not immortal. One day he will join Hulk Hogan. The future is NPA, No Party Affiliation. That's me.
If you think a lawyer's only obligation is loyalty to his client
take a look at the oath you took when you were sworn into the Florida Bar:
"I will not counsel or maintain any proceedings which shall appear to me to be unjust. I will employ for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor."
At a minimum, I hope Blanche recommends DOM for an opening on the S.D. Fla.
In reality the oath you cited is aspiration. The oath is routinely violated by prosecutors. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers issued a press release last year, "Nation's Defense Bar Calls for Immediate Action to Combat Rampant Prosecutorial Misconduct in Florida". This is another reason Trump got elected: The People are sick of lawfare.
https://www.nacdl.org/newsrelease/NACDL-Calls-for-Immediate-Action-to-Combat-Rampant
Wrong. An oath is a promise about what one will do. The violation of an oath is tied to consequences.
Aspirations are about what one wants to do.
The situation is unique, and I see both sides of it. GM is a client with a problem, a 20 year prison sentence for stuff she really probably was somewhat coerced and peripheral to, and there’s a potential solution for her problem. On the other hand she is very incentivized to lie, in a way that strongly benefits the continuation of fascism at what may be Trumps most vulnerable moment. Any lawyer in the situation would
have choices to make, not all of them would be made publicly. Movies are made about the men who make such choices, on behalf of whichever winning side emerges.. One side’s movie will be propaganda, the other art.
After decades of practice, I have never seen the term (cleaned up) after a cite. What exactly does that mean and why is it used by Leobowitz? Or his clerks who probably wrote the opinion.
If you search "(cleaned up") on westlaw, you'll find north of 10,000 examples of federal courts using the convention, with increasingly popularity in the last five years. The (cleaned up) parenthetical is a shorter, tighter way of addressing (internal quotations and citations omitted, alteration adopted, emphasis omitted) and all the other typographical modifications we might make in a quote, the details of which are not germane to the particular context. As far as I know, Justice Thomas was the first on SCOTUS to use the (cleaned up) parenthetical in his Brownback opinion.
Yes it did first appear in Brownback as far as SCOTUS goes. It is used frequently and relates to Bluebook rule 5. The suggestion to use (cleaned up) originated with Jack Metzler, an appellate lawyer with the Federal Trade Commission.
The operative words of my comment are "in reality". On paper you are correct. But not in reality, what actually happens in practice.
If you're not living up to the oath you took maybe you find another profession.
I did not take an oath. I'm a nonlawyer candidate. https://neil2024.blogspot.com/
Relatively hot off the presses (May 2025), the twenty-second edition of The Bluebook counsels using "citation modified" over "cleaned up." It's been rumored that an editor had a spat with the originator of "cleaned up," and so refused to adopt it in The Bluebook. I noticed that newly appointed Judge Kidd used "citation modified" in his first published opinion for the Eleventh Circuit.
This is good stuff. Thanks for the explanation- I will start using this instead of “(internal citations, quotation marks, and emphasis omitted)”
The cites that Judge Leibowitz used were full cites. What needed to be "cleaned up". Not sure how Lebo will work out, but still better than Zloch and "fast Billy D.
Just came out this morning. Now judges are in trouble over AI. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/08/our-artificially-intelligent-judges.php
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