'Extremely Remorseful' Lawyers Confronted by Judge Over 'Legal Gibberish' Citations from ChatGPT (apnews.com) 78
The Associated Press reports:
Two apologetic lawyers responding to an angry judge in Manhattan federal court blamed ChatGPT Thursday for tricking them into including fictitious legal research in a court filing... [Attorney Steven A. Schwartz] told U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel he was "operating under a misconception ... that this website was obtaining these cases from some source I did not have access to." He said he "failed miserably" at doing follow-up research to ensure the citations were correct.
"I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases," Schwartz said...
The judge confronted Schwartz with one legal case invented by the computer program. It was initially described as a wrongful death case brought by a woman against an airline only to morph into a legal claim about a man who missed a flight to New York and was forced to incur additional expenses. "Can we agree that's legal gibberish?" Castel asked.
Schwartz said he erroneously thought that the confusing presentation resulted from excerpts being drawn from different parts of the case. When Castel finished his questioning, he asked Schwartz if he had anything else to say. "I would like to sincerely apologize," Schwartz said. He added that he had suffered personally and professionally as a result of the blunder and felt "embarrassed, humiliated and extremely remorseful."
He said that he and the firm where he worked — Levidow, Levidow & Oberman — had put safeguards in place to ensure nothing similar happens again.
An attorney for the law firm also told the judge that lawyers have historically had a hard time with technology, particularly new technology. "And it's not getting easier."
"I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases," Schwartz said...
The judge confronted Schwartz with one legal case invented by the computer program. It was initially described as a wrongful death case brought by a woman against an airline only to morph into a legal claim about a man who missed a flight to New York and was forced to incur additional expenses. "Can we agree that's legal gibberish?" Castel asked.
Schwartz said he erroneously thought that the confusing presentation resulted from excerpts being drawn from different parts of the case. When Castel finished his questioning, he asked Schwartz if he had anything else to say. "I would like to sincerely apologize," Schwartz said. He added that he had suffered personally and professionally as a result of the blunder and felt "embarrassed, humiliated and extremely remorseful."
He said that he and the firm where he worked — Levidow, Levidow & Oberman — had put safeguards in place to ensure nothing similar happens again.
An attorney for the law firm also told the judge that lawyers have historically had a hard time with technology, particularly new technology. "And it's not getting easier."
What a lame excuse (Score:2)
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I think it's a good development - especially that it's being reported - as maybe people will comprehend this technology for what it actually is - a "statistical parrot" instead of assuming it's actually intelligent in any way, because otherwise things might've been much worse.
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Throw the book at him! Literally, not figuratively! And stream it live on YouTube!
Re: What a lame excuse (Score:2)
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Hi. I didn't read the label first. Pity me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, what a fool. This guy is supposedly educated, and yet put his livelihood income on the line on a guess that the machine was "smart". Please revoke his license for 3-6 months - that should send a solid message. If he feels the true fault is on the side of ChatGPT, then I do encourage him to file suit. Hell, I hope he does it anyhow. The general artificial "intelligence" industry could probably use some legal challenges at this stage
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Re:Hi. I didn't read the label first. Pity me? (Score:4, Informative)
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He's still doing better than the average chat bot or Slashdot editor. Zing!
Wait. I take that back. This is a revelation. I think we've stumbled on a job that could actually be replaced with a chat bot. Not in some nebulous future time, but right now. Sure, it's going to post dups and misleading or flat-out incorrect summaries, but that's exactly the kind of thing we've come to expect from Slashdot. It make up some nonsense links, but no one reads the articles anyway so who would notice?
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I'll bet there's someone in a cubicle interfacing the APIs now.
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That was an eating disorder hotline. It was only last week. Your memory is playing tricks on you.
No, it was definitely a suicide hotline. The case is real and can be found on legal reference databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/e... [cbsnews.com]
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Honestly, what a fool. This guy is supposedly educated, and yet put his livelihood income on the line on a guess that the machine was "smart". Please revoke his license for 3-6 months - that should send a solid message. If he feels the true fault is on the side of ChatGPT, then I do encourage him to file suit. Hell, I hope he does it anyhow. The general artificial "intelligence" industry could probably use some legal challenges at this stage
I agree that a 3 to 6 month Suspension with Written Reprimand is about right for this.
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A classic example of the 98% of lawyers who give the others a bad name, sheesh.
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Unfortunately, his sanction will likely be far worse than 6 months. This is the sort of thing where the judge is really going to refer you to the bar association or supreme court to get you disbarred for a while for wasting the court's time and resources.
I mean, first, did you think the court wasn't going to check your references? Or the defence? You're quoting reasons why the case should go ahead, and the court and defence are trying to get your lawsuit thrown out, so everything you write will be immediate
Vice versa (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech people have historically had a hard time with laws, particularly new laws.
That does not change the fact that they still have to comply to these laws.
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Tech people have historically had a hard time with laws, particularly new laws.
That does not change the fact that they still have to comply to these laws.
Well said.
How many lawyers have gotten away with it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you suppose all judges are so scrupulous as to check the court cases cited in a court filing?
How many lawyers have just made up cases to support their filings, even *without* ChatGPT!
Re: How many lawyers have gotten away with it? (Score:5, Informative)
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Judges don't but their clerks sure do.
They can just ask ChatGPT to check the reference of the opposing counsel!
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Re:How many lawyers have gotten away with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your lawyer should be checking the references that the other guy's lawyer provided.
That's why you pay a lawyer.
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Your lawyer should be checking the references that the other guy's lawyer provided.
That's why you pay a lawyer.
Well, one of the reasons!
But ever since WestLaw started checking for you (Goodbye to Shepard's (sniff)), there really isn't any excuse to cite a incorrectly cited, nonexistent, overruled or vacated Case.
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Just because a referenced case exists, doesn't mean it's relevant to the filing at hand. And WestLaw won't check that for you.
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Just because a referenced case exists, doesn't mean it's relevant to the filing at hand. And WestLaw won't check that for you.
True and True.
But, unless it's your key Authority, or you do it more than once; that usually just earns you a derisive comment from opposing counsel.
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Back in the day it was one of the few reliable ways to be brought up on Rule 11 sanctions.
Paralegals AND lawyers were expected to do good research and Shepardize any case law cited whether central to their argument or not.
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Back in the day it was one of the few reliable ways to be brought up on Rule 11 sanctions.
Paralegals AND lawyers were expected to do good research and Shepardize any case law cited whether central to their argument or not.
True.
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Yep, they certainly *should* check. But as with any profession, there are those who do their job right, and those who do as little as they can get away with.
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Only if he's a money grubbing thief trying to drain you dry.
Paralegals exist for a reason. If your lawyer did all the drudgery of paralegals and secretaries, your legal bills would be 10x higher.
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I'm guessing that the opposition lawyer do check them. If they don't, they aren't worth the money you are paying them!
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What kind of sucker pays his lawyers? All they do is lose anyway. What choice do I have? I can't help myself, it's like a magnet, I just start screwing them. When you're big star, you know, they let you do it.
--John Baron (I lost my 1 digit UI, so unfair. No one has been treated more unfairly than me, can you believe it? It was even the same as my best 18 hole round.)
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Yep, and there are certainly lawyers who aren't worth the money you pay them.
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And the lawyer in this story, who used ChatGPT in such a way that he submitted fake case references, was grossly incompetent. He's not the only grossly incompetent lawyer out there.
Idiotic (Score:5, Insightful)
His paralegal wrote these... (Score:2)
He probably hadn't even read the motions until he was taken to task
I'm a bit surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently some junior lawyers aren't given access to Westlaw or LexisNexis? Because that seems to be what these guys are claiming.
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In other words, the laws you need to follow are secret. It's not just "junior lawyers", it's 99.999% of us.
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Your tinfoil hat is on too tight. You have better and more ready access to the law than at any time in history. There is no secret law. The whole of it is public record.
Re:I'm a bit surprised (Score:4, Informative)
Your tinfoil hat is on too tight. You have better and more ready access to the law than at any time in history. There is no secret law. The whole of it is public record.
https://www.brennancenter.org/... [brennancenter.org]
https://www.justsecurity.org/3... [justsecurity.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/1... [nytimes.com]
https://www.pogo.org/analysis/... [pogo.org]
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You probably don't realize this, but OLC opinions are not law. With that obvious fact in mind, do you have anything that actually contradicts my claim here? Of course you don't.
Secret Law [Re:I'm a bit surprised] (Score:2)
Ah, trust a lawyer for hairsplitting terminology... without actually reading any of the sites I quoted.
If judges rely on the secret opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel in rulings, they are in effect law. If the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly rules on what's legal, that is in effect law. If the United States enters into secret agreements with foreign nations that have the same legal force as treaties, that is in effect law.
Here's the Georgetown Law Journal, if you didn't like any of
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This isn't case law! This is the opinion of a few lawyers.
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Secret laws were a problem in the past.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
https://slashdot.org/story/01/... [slashdot.org]
Remember: Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. That will be $4999.99 for your copy.
This raises an interesting question though (Score:2)
For all the hype about Chat GPT taking our jobs ("Dy-tk-urr-joo!"), how can it be used in situation where getting it wrong or inaccurate even just 5-10% of the time is a no go?
Even when there is no wrong answer, say in art, the plot of a movie has to make sense, an image has to make sense, and music has to not have too many off-notes. In programming, if it generates a bunch of code but you have to check and fix, is it really saving time? If I have it summarize a book or a wikipedia page, how can I be confid
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I don't claim to have the answers to any of these.
I do. The capabilities people are claiming are simply not possible with the technology as it is.
It's also not saving you any time. At least, I've yet to see anyone actually save time playing with one of these things. The usual pattern is to spend a few hours trying to get it to produce something that they can then spend a few hours adapting to their needs before claiming victory. "It wrote this in seconds!" They'll claim. The problem is they invariably ignore the first few hours tinkering, the second f
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As a lawyer (Score:4, Insightful)
I check and recheck every citation in every brief I do. Maybe a new case has come down that changes it. Maybe a case has been overruled. Maybe my arguments went in a different direction and this case isn't relevant anymore.
When I get a brief from an opposing party, you better believe I check every case and statue they use. And I'm not even at a top 100 firm in New York city.
These Guys procrastinated until the last minute and got caught trying to cut corners. Let this be a lesson to other lawyers.
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You forgot the disclaimer that the post wasn't legal advice, etc etc ;)
Yes I know you were not suggesting / advicing anything. You were just stating how you do your work. Just making a joke since almost anything by a lawyer has that disclaimer.
And yes, I know the above statement probably spoils the joke, but there are too many pedants who will probably point out the above :(
The Last Sentence is Accurate (Score:4, Insightful)
An attorney for the law firm also told the judge that lawyers have historically had a hard time with technology, particularly new technology.
My brother provides IT to some law firms. The kind that's owned by two 80yo partners.
In one of those the method of integration between computers isn't a network share, it's pendrives. Servers are too complicated, you know, and they like dings things as they know how to, which was by floppies, but alas floppies aren't sold anymore, so they had to upgrade.
In another, the lawyers like to write details of the case in the filenames of the files. All the details. Think 600+ characters-long filenames. My brother tried implementing WebDAV there, and discovered the hard way how full URLs are limited to 256 characters. And no, the law firm doesn't want to change how they "manage" their documents.
In a third, they want to do GDPR compliance. The 50yo main partner didn't think it was an important enough problem, that a letter of intentions would suffice. He discovered it was a very serious issue when his biggest clients started dropping their contracts with due to a lack of full GDPR compliance on his part, so he scrambled to try and have this sorted before he lost all his clients.
So, yeah, that checks.
PS: For extra fun points, remember most congresscritters are lawyers. Yes, the same ones who write the laws on how technology should behave.
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For extra fun points, remember most congresscritters are lawyers. Yes, the same ones who write the laws on how technology should behave.
Don't worry, those bills are written by corporate lawyers, then handed to those congresscreeps for sponsorship.
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An attorney for the law firm also told the judge that lawyers have historically had a hard time with technology, particularly new technology.
[...]
So, yeah, that checks.
PS: For extra fun points, remember most congresscritters are lawyers. Yes, the same ones who write the laws on how technology should behave.
I'd put it differently.
People in general have historically had a hard time with technology, particularly new technology.
IT professionals are a partial exception.
Because of the prestige surrounding lawyers people tend to expect more... but as with most things people learn the minimum they need to get by and then move on.
In another, the lawyers like to write details of the case in the filenames of the files. All the details. Think 600+ characters-long filenames. My brother tried implementing WebDAV there, and discovered the hard way how full URLs are limited to 256 characters. And no, the law firm doesn't want to change how they "manage" their documents.
Oddly enough I think I can understand where they were coming from.
Open the folder with all the case docs, put the file browser in list mode, and you just glance through the details of di
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I use the filesystem as a similar database for a similar set of objects -- PDFs of scientific articles. Putting basic information in the filename is immensely useful. Normally, that includes first and last author, year of publication and journal, and then, often, a very brief description of the area or primary finding.
Are there better ways? Yes, indeed. Am I going to spend hundreds of man-hours to convert to a new system when this works reasonably well in terms of finding articles, and moreover, integrat
Legal eagle's great rundown (Score:4, Informative)
https://youtu.be/oqSYljRYDEM [youtu.be]
They could find new careers (Score:1)
as Donald Trump**'s TV lawyers. I've heard he needs a lot and since they speak gibberish they're on his wavelength.
Jeez (Score:2)
Take their licenses away. They clearly aren't competent enough to continue.
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They may be competent lawyers, but they've set that aside because they're lazy.
Which in a way is worse - a bad lawyer can always do some basic legal work (assuming they aren't actually 'bad' bad, merely 'not very good' bad) within their ability, but a lazy lawyer will always cut corners and clients are going to get burned.
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I'm all for being lazy. But the being competent part means, at least, checking over your laziness. I'm all for them using ChatGPT to help them put stuff together in a nice, readable way. However, you have to double check it and/or tweak it. If you admittedly can't double check the source of something, you shouldn't include it. Doing so anyway shows a lack of competence.
Bad excuse (Score:2)
"Lawyers being bad with technology" is not a legitimate excuse. Instead, it's the reason why this lawyer's negligence caused his fall so visibly. Lawyers aren't allowed to put random, unverified things into legal documents, whether they come from a layperson or from non-certified software. I'm happy that the technological weakness caused by the fabricating ChatGPT helped reveal such negligence
Re: Bad excuse (Score:2)
Not really (Score:2)
"...the firm where he worked â" Levidow, Levidow & Oberman â" ..."
Is there really no bad publicity?
Because I'm sure their firm really appreciated the call out here.
caught (Score:2)
Cheaters who get caught are always extremely remorseful. Remorseful that they got caught, that is.
Using ChatGTP not their only problems (Score:2)
It's not just that they used ChatGTP to write part of a filing, it's that they also made a further false response when the sources were first questioned , and then lied to the judge directly in court.. A 3-6 month suspension might be sufficient if they just got caught using ChatGTP, but filing a false response and openly lying to the judge in court ups that quite a bit. They are going to get the hammer dropped on them , both as a deterrent for other lawyers and because these idiots just kept digging when th
Didn't they read the EULA? (Score:2)
How can you tell the difference? (Score:2)
IMHO, all legalese is gibberish designed to confuse people who don't speak legalese. The net effect is that you have to pay big bucks for someone to interpret it for you. Seems to me that ChatGPT is trying to make the language even more inscrutable instead of less which, if I know lawyers, is by design in order to keep their jobs. What I can see happening is that eventually people will subscribe to an AI-lawyer who will go up against other AI-lawyers for you and you'll never see the battle itself. Think
Call me suspicious... (Score:2)
Again!? (Score:2)
If so, dear moderators, please know your articles.
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