Artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT has been making headlines since its debut. It has been used to perform commands such as writing business emails in specific tones, styles, and instructions. In a bizarre incident, a New York lawyer faces a hearing after his company Levidow, Levidow & Oberman used the AI tool for legal research, a report in BBC. This came to light after a filling used hypothetical lawsuits as an example. The judge noted the same, noting that the situation left the court with an “unprecedented circumstance”. However, the lawyer said in court that he “didn’t know that its contents could be false”.
Initially, the case was about a man who sued an airline for what he claimed was personal injury. His legal team filed a brief citing a number of previous lawsuits in an effort to establish, through precedent, why the case should continue. The airline’s lawyers subsequently informed the judge in a letter that they were unable to locate some of the examples cited in the letter.
Judge Castel then wrote to the man’s legal team demanding an explanation. He said: “Six of the cases filed appear to be false court decisions with false citations and false internal citations.” It later turned out that the investigation was not done by the man’s lawyer, Peter LoDuca, but by one of his colleagues at the law firm. Steven A Schwartz, a lawyer with over 30 years of experience, used the AI tool to find cases similar to this one.
Furthermore, Mr. Schwartz said in a statement that Mr. LoDuca was involved in the investigation and did not know how it was conducted. He said he “deeply regrets” using ChatGPT and added that he had never used it for legal research before. He opined that he “didn’t know that its contents could be false”. He vowed never again to “complement” his legal research using AI without absolute verification of its authenticity.
A Twitter thread that is going viral on the internet shows the conversation between the chatbot and the lawyer. “Is varghese a real case,” asks Mr. Schwartz. ChatGPT replied saying “Yes, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019) is a real case.”
He then asks the bot to reveal the source. After “double-checking,” ChatGPT added that the case is real and can be discovered on legal research resources such as LexisNexis and Westlaw.
In defense of the lawyer, he submitted screenshots FROM CHATGPT claiming that the nonexistent cases exist pic.twitter.com/H2tgXu8W5s
— Daniel Feldman (@d_feldman) May 27, 2023
The judge has scheduled a hearing for June 8 to discuss “possible sanctions” for Mr Schwartz.