Earlier in May, a lawyer used ChatGPT and cited a number of fakes cases in his brief. Due to the incident, the court had ordered him to appear for a disciplinary hearing.
On Thursday, a US federal judge imposed $5,000 fines on both Mr. Schwartz and his colleague Peter LoDuca. This is the first time such a hearing on ChatGPT has taken place.
The two lawyers, work for the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman. They were representing a client in an aviation injury claim.
Judge P. Kevin Castel said the case should serve as an advance warning to the lawyer and others in the legal profession. He considered that the gentlemen had apologized. Hence, he stated he did not deem it fit to issue a sterner punishment.
However, the judge asked lawyers to proceed with caution when using technology in their legal career.
“Technological advances are commonplace and there is nothing inherently improper about using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for assistance, but existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings,”: read part of Judge Castel’s ruling.
Lawyer Abandoned Duty
The judge observed that the use of ChatGPT fake cases in submissions without due diligence was abandonment of duty by the two lawyers.
In their brief, the lawyers had submitted six bogus cases generated by AI. The AI chatbot, generated cases involving aviation mishaps that Schwartz could not find through usual methods used at his law firm
The lawyers’ firm stood in support of the two. They released a statement that said:
“We continue to believe that in the face of what even the Court acknowledged was an unprecedented situation, we made a good faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth.”
Nevertheless, the firm promised to comply fully with the court order.
In regards to the actual case, the judge threw it out due to the expiry of the statute of limitations.
