NY judge sanctions lawyer for fake AI citations

Listen to this article

A judge in New York City has sanctioned a New Jersey lawyer for what he called “yet another unfortunate chapter to the story of artificial intelligence (AI) misuse in the legal profession.”

Michael Fourte, an attorney based in Verona, N.J., who was representing a client in New York State Supreme Court, included “AI-hallucinated” citations and quotations in a brief.

That led to the opposing counsel filing a motion for sanctions, to which Fourte responded with an opposing brief that also included multiple new AI-hallucinated citations and quotations, according to a decision by state Supreme Court Justice Joel M. Cohen.

AI hallucinations are incorrect or misleading results generated by an artificial intelligence tool.

“In other words, (Fourte) relied upon unvetted AI … via inadequately supervised colleagues — to defend his use of unvetted AI,” Cohen wrote.

In the underlying case, plaintiff Pamela Ader, executor of the estate of her late husband, Richard Ader, filed a lawsuit against JS Property Holdings LLC, and her son, Jason Ader, claiming that Jason failed to repay a $13 million loan from his father.

The plaintiff’s attorneys filed a motion for summary judgment. Fourte made several excuses for the failure to repay the debt, which Cohen rejected.

Ader’s attorneys identified inaccurate citations and quotations in Fourte’s brief opposing the motion for summary judgment.

After Ader’s attorney brought the issue to Cohen, Fourte submitted an affirmation that acknowledged that “several passages were inadvertently enclosed in quotation” and claimed the passages “were intended as paraphrases or summarized statements of the legal principles established in the cited authorities,” according to Cohen’s decision.

“Defense counsel’s explanation of the citation and quotation errors as innocuous paraphrases of accurate legal principles does not hold water,” Cohen wrote.

“The cited cases often did not stand for the propositions quoted, were completely unrelated in subject matter, and in one instance did not exist at all,” Cohen wrote.

Fourte’s filing in opposition to the sanctions motion “contains another wave of fake citations and quotations,” Cohen wrote.

Ader’s attorneys spotted several mis-citations “including four citations that do not exist, seven quotations that do not exist in the cited cases, and three that do not support the propositions for which they are offered,” according to the decision.

Fourte included even more fake citations in papers filed in opposition to Adrer’s application for attorneys’ fees.

“Use of AI is not the problem per se. The problem arises when attorneys abdicate their responsibility to ensure their factual and legal representations to the Court — even if originally sourced from AI — are accurate,” Cohen wrote.

“When attorneys fail to check their work — whether AI-generated or not — they prejudice their clients and do a disservice to the Court and the profession. In sum, counsel’s duty of candor to the Court cannot be delegated to a software program,” he wrote.

Cohen granted Adrer’s request for attorney’s fees and expenses incurred by the delay in adjudicating her summary judgment motion.

Cohen also directed Ader’s attorneys to submit a copy of his decision and order to the Grievance Committee for the Appellate Division, First Department, and the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics.

[email protected] / (585) 232-2035