AI Hallucination Stemming from Contract Lawyer's Research

I blogged earlier this week about AI hallucinations in court filings by prominent law firms, as well as an incorrect citation in an expert’s declaration stemming a lawyer’s use of AI to try to format the citation. But I thought I’d blog a bit more about AI hallucinations in court filings, just to show how pervasive the problem is: I’m seeing court decisions about this every few days. And those decisions are likely just the tip of the iceberg, since many hallucinations won’t be noted in court decisions, and the great majority of court decisions are state trial court decisions that don’t show up on Westlaw.

Here’s an example: In Judge Margaret Strickland’s decision last week in Dehghani v. Castro (D.N.M.), a filing “cited to numerous cases that Respondents were ‘unable to locate.’” When asked about this by the Magistrate Judge (Damian Martinez), the petitioner’s lawyer explained “that he ‘did not have the time to devote to the project’” and had used “a company called LAWCLERK” to find a contract attorney who would write the filing.

Mr. Millan [the petitioner's lawyer] further advised that he “did not read the caselaw or verify the cases used in support of the propositions [in the Brief], trusting that the licensed lawyer from Lawclerk would perform her work in an ethical and competent manner.” …

Mr. Millan confirmed that the cases listed by the Court in its third Order to Show Cause do not exist. Specifically, Mr. Millan stated that when his staff asked Ms. Lewis [the contract lawyer] for PDF copies of the cases she used in the purchased response, she provided seven cases. A review of the cases provided revealed that the case names and citations did not match those listed in Petitioner’s Response to the second Order to Show Cause.

Although Petitioner’s response states that the case citations are corrected, in the March 26, 2025 hearing, Mr. Millan stated the cases he listed as corrected citations were cases that he believed most closely reflected the non-existent cases cited in the Petitioner’s March 7, 2025 Response. Mr. Millan’s response further explains that the remaining thirteen cases cited in his purchased response to the second Order to Show Cause “do not support the propositions stated in the quoted language and are not from the cited cases.”

Mr. Millan asserts that his staff contacted Ms. Lewis via email regarding the purchased response and were informed that ultimately Mr. Millan should have reviewed the work prior to submitting the Response and that per LAWCLERK policy, all the documents and work product Ms. Lewis used for the Response had been destroyed….

Judge Martinez concluded that Mr. Millan’s filing of the Brief was a violation of Rule 11(b). As appropriate sanctions for the violation, Judge Martinez ordered Mr. Millan to pay a fine of $1,500 to the Court; forward the Order to LAWCLERK; complete “a one-hour CLE-credited seminar or educational program related to legal ethics in writing or the use of AI in writing”; self-report to both the New Mexico and Texas state bar disciplinary boards, attaching a copy of the Order; and report the LAWCLERK attorney to the New York state bar disciplinary board, attaching a copy of the Order. On April 16, Mr. Millan (through counsel) filed a document styled “Objections to, or, in the Alternative, Appeal of Order on Sanctions and Other Disciplinary Actions.” In the Objections/Appeal, Mr. Millan takes issue with Judge Martinez’s sanction ordering Mr. Millan to self-report to the bars of New Mexico and Texas; he does not challenge the other sanctions in the Order….

The court affirmed the self-reporting requirement, concluding that the Magistrate Judge had the authority to impose it, and that the sanction was warranted; here’s a short excerpt of the fairly detailed analysis:

Mr. Millan outsourced his duties to another attorney and failed to adequately review that attorney’s work-product and ensure its accuracy before putting his own name on it and filing it with this Court…. When Mr. Millan signed and submitted the Brief, he certified under Rule 11 that he had “conducted a reasonable inquiry into the factual and legal basis for the [Brief], and that the substance of the [Brief] [wa]s well-grounded in fact and law.” In fact, neither was true. A reasonable attorney would not have filed such a document. Mr. Millan clearly violated Rule 11(b) and sanctions are appropriate….

In his Objections/Appeal Mr. Millan in fact concedes that he violated Rule 11(b). He nevertheless argues that the Order on Sanctions is clearly erroneous, apparently because he considers the ordered sanctions to be disproportionate to the violation. The Objections/Appeal are glaringly bereft of caselaw. Mr. Millan’s primary grievance is that Judge Martinez did not appropriately weigh his good intentions. He emphasizes that he himself did not invent the citations, did not expect the contracted attorney to do so, and has been candid and remorseful regarding the mistake. But, as discussed above, the standard under Rule 11 is one of objective reasonableness—the imposition of sanctions does not require a finding of subjective bad faith by the offending attorney. An attorney who acts with “an empty head and a pure heart” is nonetheless responsible for the consequences of his actions. In short, Mr. Millan’s ignorance does not excuse his Rule 11(b) violations. It was his responsibility to ensure that the Brief, which he signed and filed, was accurate. He failed to do so….

Report to disciplinary authorities is not an uncommon sanction for an attorney’s making misrepresentations to the court in violation of Rule 11(b). Mr. Millan argues that this sanction is “completely unsupported by the facts of this case,” that his conduct “falls far short of an ethical violation,” and that Judge Martinez “did not find any facts that would give rise to an ethical violation.” He is mistaken. An attorney’s failure to review for accuracy a document that he or she signs and submits to a court, and resulting submission of false information, very clearly implicates several of the attorney’s ethical obligations. Both New Mexico’s and Texas’s Rules of Professional Conduct contain, for example, rules governing candor toward the tribunal and the responsibilities of a supervisory attorney. Though the rules are not identical in the two jurisdictions, in essence they provide that attorneys shall not knowingly make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal and that supervisory attorneys have some responsibility for ensuring that attorneys under their authority also comply with the rules.

Mr. Millan contends that the state bars “would not take any action against his licenses or board certification” based on his actions in this case. This may be true—whether discipline is warranted is ultimately for those bodies to decide. But the Court agrees with Judge Martinez that Mr. Millan’s conduct implicates the disciplinary authority of the two bars. Apparently overburdened, Mr. Millan outsourced the preparation of a brief to a contract attorney and failed to adequately review the work product, and as a result signed and submitted a document rife with misrepresentations to the court…. “As licensed professionals, attorneys are expected to develop procedures which are adequate to assure that they will handle their cases in a proficient fashion and that they will not accept more cases than they can manage effectively. When an attorney fails to do this, he or she may be disciplined even where there is no showing of malicious intent or dishonesty.” …

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