A lawyer has been fined $5,000 after a court found that a brief he submitted in a murder case included testimony from witnesses who did not exist, according to a filing. The brief “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses,” the filing says, along with “false testimony” about the shooter’s clothing and appearance. The lawyer, Aarons, admitted during an August hearing that he had used ChatGPT and believed it would produce a “bulletproof summary” of the trial.
Justice C. Shannon Bacon questioned how Aarons could have been unaware of the risks of relying on AI, according to Reuters. She asked whether he watched the news, listened to the radio or read anything about events in the world. Justice Bacon noted that problems with lawyers relying on AI hallucinations are a prominent story every day.
Aarons said in a statement to Reuters that he is remorseful and hopeful the disciplinary board will consider that it was an honest mistake. The penalty follows a growing pattern of courts finding citations fabricated by AI in legal filings. The number of lawyers using AI tools in their work is increasing, and so are the instances in which a court discovers citations that are hallucinated by AI.
Last year, a judge criticized two law firms for submitting a brief with “numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations.” Lawyers for MyPillow’s Mike Lindell were also fined for putting AI-generated misquotes and fake AI citations in a brief. Those cases involved fabricated or inaccurate legal citations, while the matter involving Aarons concerned fabricated witness testimony in a murder case.
The disciplinary action against Aarons adds to a set of court rulings in the United States that have penalized lawyers for submitting AI-generated material without verifying it. The filing’s finding of fabricated witnesses and false testimony about the shooter’s appearance places the sanction within a broader debate over how AI tools are used in legal work. Courts have continued to encounter hallucinated citations as lawyers adopt the technology. Aarons’s statement to Reuters and the August hearing exchange with Justice Bacon remain central to the record of the case.
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