the Future of Change

In yet another case in which lawyers relied on flawed sources provided by generative artificial intelligence, U.S. District Judge William Matthewman of the Southern District of Florida issued an order in which he explained that “there is nothing inherently wrong with an attorney properly and competently utilizing AI…to practice law or litigate cases.” At the same time, he also noted that “evolving technology has many glitchesm,” emphasizing that “close and careful attorney supervision, fact-checking, and citation-checking are absolute necessities when utilizing AI or any of its subsets.” Because of these phenemona, Judge Crane found that lawyers “cannot delegate that role to AI, computers, robots, or any other form of technology.” This comes on the heels of U.S. District Judge Randall Crane of the Southern District of Texas issuing a standing order regarding the use of generative AI in his courtroom in which he cautions lawyers and pro se litigants “against submitting to the Court any pleading, written motion, or other paper drafted using generative artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT, Harvey.AI, generative AI services) without checking the submission for accuracy as certain technologies may produce factually or legally inaccurate content and should never replace the lawyer’s independent legal judgment.” Given the frequency with which these hallucinations are appearing in legal filings across the country, one can expect more judges to issue these sorts of orders. I have written about many of these judicial orders in the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, which range from the sort of caution that Judge Crane has advanced, all the way to outright bans on its use. You can read that piece, New Governance and New Technologies: Creating a Regulatory Regime for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Courts here.