Legal research has improved over time, going from the use of digest books to online databases like Lexis and Westlaw. Litigators are beginning to make the jump from those databases into the world of Artificial Intelligence ("AI"). When done right, AI can be incredibly beneficial for attorneys and the public. [...] However, the current state of AI has its shortcomings. [...] The instant case is simply the latest reminder to not blindly rely on AI platforms' citations regardless of profession.
Curated from caselaw.findlaw.com →
A family sued Walmart over a hoverboard they say caught fire and burned down their house. Their lawyers, at Morgan & Morgan, filed motions citing nine cases in January 2025, and eight of them do not exist. One attorney had used the firm's own internal AI platform to produce the citations. On 24 February the court revoked his admission in the case and fined him 3,000 US dollars, and fined the supervising partner and local counsel 1,000 dollars each. The firm itself was not sanctioned, because it had already trained staff not to use the tool that way and had added a verification acknowledgement. It is the sequence worth noting: the policy existed before the filing, and the policy is not what stopped it.
