In a recent development, lawyers representing former Trump Fixer Michael Cohen sought the termination of his supervised release, citing three supposedly exemplary cases wherein the Second Circuit approved a modification of a similar arrangement. Judge Furman’s analysis of these cases revealed the supposed existence of none of these cases.
More specifically, references to decisions supposedly related to supervised release turned out to be unrelated or non-existent cases. One, for example, pointed to a Fourth Circuit decision devoid of any connection to supervised release, while others corresponded to a Board of Veterans Appeals decision and one that appears to correspond to nothing.
The mistakes made in this motion bear signs of a poorly applied AI search, possibly by an unspecialized product such as ChatGPT rather than a platform specifically tailored to generate legal results. There is an ongoing debate about the appropriateness of such AI tools in legal research, but this error underlies a failure in proper legal procedure. Lawyers are still obligated to review the cases before including them in a court filing.
Additionally, poor drafting was also evident. Certain sections were verbatim copies in each section, an evidence of providing less effort into the case. AI certainly isn’t a culprit for the lack of effort.
The consequences of these apparent missteps are potentially severe. Schwartz is required to provide the court with copies of the cited decisions. Should he be unable to do so, he would then be expected to justify why he should not be sanctioned by the court. The court may utilize Rule 11(b)(2) & (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C. & 1927, and the inherent power of the court to sanction, considering it a serious issue to cite non-existent cases.
This incident is an indisputable reminder that legal professionals must maintain diligence and accuracy while leveraging new technologies for case research. Blaming AI for such mishaps would be a disservice to the legal profession and the evolving role of technology within it.