A plaintiff’s attorney has been ordered to pay $2,500 in sanctions to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for her use of artificial intelligence in drafting documents that were submitted to the court, which came after a District Court judge, since overturned, ordered another attorney from the firm representing the plaintiff to pay $33,000 in attorney’s fees to the defendants for not doing enough of an investigation into the plaintiff’s claims before filing a lawsuit alleging the defendants violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
The background: The lawsuit was filed after the plaintiff claimed to be the victim of identity theft and alleged that an automobile finance account had been opened in his name. The plaintiff sued the defendants, a credit reporting agency and auto lender, asserting violations of the FCRA.
- The District Court later concluded that the plaintiff’s counsel had not conducted even a minimal pre-suit investigation and that some of the damages claims were barred by law. As a result, the District Court ordered the plaintiff’s counsel and law firm to pay attorney’s fees to both defendants. That sanctions order was later vacated by the Fifth Circuit on procedural grounds related to notice and the scope of the sanctions statute.
- While that earlier sanctions order was being appealed, a separate issue emerged at the appellate level. The plaintiff’s counsel submitted a reply brief to the Fifth Circuit that contained numerous inaccurate quotations, case citations, and misstatements of fact and law. The court issued an order to show cause and identified multiple instances where cited cases did not support the propositions attributed to them.
The ruling: In its order, the Fifth Circuit concluded that the attorney used generative artificial intelligence to draft a substantial portion, if not all, of the reply brief and failed to verify the accuracy of the content before filing it.
- The court also found that the attorney was not forthcoming in her initial responses about whether and how AI was used. The panel noted that submitting fabricated or unsupported quotations and legal assertions is an abuse of the judicial process and constitutes conduct unbecoming a member of the bar.
- In one passage, the court emphasized that to ethically use generative AI, a lawyer must “ensure that the legal propositions and authority generated are trustworthy.”
- The court ordered the attorney to pay $2,500 in sanctions, stressing that existing professional responsibility rules already require attorneys to verify filings for accuracy, regardless of whether AI tools are used.
