In 2007, attorney Dennis Block told the LA Times that he viewed it as his “patriotic duty” to evict people from rent-controlled properties. Today, we might argue that there’s another duty worth remembering as a legal professional. Recently, Block’s firm was reminded by a judge not to file briefs with fake cases.
This echoes the ‘ChatGPT Brief’ case in New York, where Block’s firm is thought to have used an AI bot to write a brief. A number of faux case citations were discovered within – an apparent symptom of consumer-facing AI in legal research. This begs the question, what happened to the old-fashioned method of reading through and cross-checking the cases you cite?
In one interview, Landlord attorney Dennis Block admitted to a “terrible failure in our office” and accepted there was no excuse for the incident. The lawyer who had been responsible for drafting the filing, he explained, had been relying on ‘online research.’ However, that legal professional failed to check the validity of the information before their departure from the firm.
The firm ended up receiving a fine of $999 from Judge Ian Fusselman, a mere dollar short of needing to report the incident to the state bar. The firm has been left to reflect on an important lesson – regardless of the technological tools available to us, legal professionals cannot let down their guard or compromise their diligence.
Still, the real concern is not so much with the blatant mistakes made by the law firm in this case. Rather, it lies with the potential for attorneys operating against pro se renters. In the absence of capable opposing counsel, it can be all too easy to create a faux law and evict residents unlawfully from their homes. Yes, Judge Fusselman was able to independently identify problems with the brief, but without a professional legal eye on their side, pro se individuals could easily find themselves outnumbered.
While it was amusing when lawyers messed up against a major airline’s legal team, cases like this poignantly outline how AI could be used to mistreat pro se folks by creating fake laws.
For more information on this story, check out this article from LAist: This Prolific LA Eviction Law Firm Was Caught Faking Cases In Court. Did They Misuse AI?