Law firm submits AI‑made fake citations

Sullivan & Cromwell told a federal bankruptcy judge that a court filing it submitted contained fake and inaccurate legal citations generated by artificial intelligence. (nytimes.com) The firm’s apology was dated April 18 and went to Chief Judge Martin Glenn of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan after errors appeared in an emergency motion filed 10 days earlier in the Prince Global Holdings bankruptcy. (bloomberg.com) Andrew Dietderich, a Sullivan & Cromwell partner and co-head of its restructuring group, said the filing included incorrect case citations and other mistakes, and that opposing counsel at Boies Schiller Flexner flagged the problems. (reuters.com) In court papers described by The New York Times, the problems went beyond typos: the filing cited authorities that did not exist and misquoted real cases. The firm said its own artificial-intelligence rules and secondary review process were not followed. (nytimes.com) A legal citation is the breadcrumb trail that lets a judge check the source behind an argument. When a brief points to a made-up case or a quote that is not in the opinion, the court cannot test whether the law actually supports the claim. (uscourts.gov) Federal judges have been dealing with this problem since at least 2023, when lawyers in Mata v. Avianca were sanctioned after filing a brief that cited seven nonexistent cases generated by ChatGPT. Judge P. Kevin Castel wrote that lawyers still have a gatekeeping duty to verify what they file. (nhd.uscourts.gov) Courts have started writing that duty into filing rules. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit now requires filers to certify either that no generative artificial intelligence was used in drafting a document or that any generated text, citations and legal analysis were reviewed by a human for accuracy. (ca5.uscourts.gov) Sullivan & Cromwell told the judge it had filed a corrected motion and was evaluating whether to strengthen its training and review procedures. The episode landed at one of Wall Street’s best-known firms, showing that the verification problem is not limited to solo lawyers or small practices. (news.bloomberglaw.com) The immediate question in the case is whether the corrected filing resolves the damage. The larger record now includes another court apology built around the same point judges have been making since 2023: lawyers, not software, sign the brief. (reuters.com)