Explaining its decision to suspend a Toronto lawyer’s license for six months after she was dishonest in court about her use of ChatGPT, the court said the punishment was appropriate because the lawyer is sincerely remorseful, will be severely affected by suspension as a solo practitioner as she nears the end of her career, and faces other consequences for her misconduct, including contempt of court later this year.
The Law Society Tribunal, which examines matters such as misconduct, licensing, and suitability for legal professionals in Ontario, announced that it would first suspend Mary Hyun-sook Lee’s license on July 16. The court also ordered the lawyer, also known as Jisoo Lee, to pay $10,000 to the Ontario Bar Association. The LSO notified the agency last summer that it was investigating Lee’s conduct.
This case could be the first time a Canadian lawyer has had his license suspended due in part to his reliance on AI-based hallucination citations.
The court then released formal reasons for sanctioning Lee, explaining that the lawyer failed to serve his client in a family law matter by using ChatGPT to create facts, including citations and arguments from cases in which AI caused hallucinations. The court made clear that the use of AI tools to assist in the preparation of court filings is not itself professional misconduct. Mr. Lee’s mistake was not checking the accuracy of the facts.
The tribunal said the larger issue was that Lee had repeatedly lied to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the LSO about her use of AI, and that Lee’s staff had repeatedly lied about using ChatGPT to develop the facts without her knowledge. She later confirmed that she had not hired any employees since 2020 and had not hired any law students since the previous summer.
“While we are concerned that lawyers were recklessly relying on non-existent cases created by AI, we are deeply troubled by their subsequent repeated lies to the court and the legal community. This is a serious lack of integrity,” the court said.
However, the court also listed a series of mitigating factors to guide its assessment of penalties. These included the fact that Lee initially took on family law cases “in the highest traditions of professional service by lawyers.” The client had been referred to her by the Korean Canadian Women’s Association, which provides services to women in need. Mr. Lee began representing clients through a Legal Aid Certificate. When her client’s husband died, effectively turning the case into a complex estate dispute, and Legal Aid ended its funding, Ms Lee continued to represent clients pro bono who had little resources.
The court also noted that Lee had little to no prior experience with ChatGPT, had no disciplinary history throughout his 30-year career, and had repeatedly admitted to misconduct.
“The evidence suggests that her integrity was compromised in this case, which, while serious, is outrageous,” the court said.
The psychedelic material in Mr. Lee’s court filings was first discovered last spring, when Ontario Superior Court Judge Frederick Myers could not find some of the cases Mr. Lee cited. When Myers asked Lee if he used ChatGPT to write his facts, Lee said he had not. The lawyer later told LSO investigators that he was pressed for time to prepare the facts and was unable to submit them to the court until the last minute.
Myers ordered Lee to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court for failing to verify the accuracy of his submissions. Ms. Lee then submitted a letter to Ms. Myers explaining that her staff had been using ChatGPT to create facts without her knowledge. She apologized for the mistake and pledged to complete at least six hours of continuing professional education in legal ethics and technology. Ms Myers accepted her apology and pointed out that Ms Lee had already been “publicly humiliated near the end of an immaculate career” for her mistake, the court said.
Around the same time, the LSO began investigating the incident. When investigators asked Lee to identify the staff member who used ChatGPT to create the facts, the attorney refused to cooperate. She then admitted that she prepared the facts herself and that she did not know about the hallucinations until Myers confronted her about the submission. She told the LSO that her dishonesty stemmed from embarrassment and shock.
Mr. Lee subsequently admitted his dishonesty to Mr. Myers, and Mr. Myers referred the case to the Ontario Attorney General for contempt of court. The case is still ongoing.
In a statement Monday, Nadia Riba, a partner at the Riba Freeman Dent law firm who represented Lee in the court proceedings, said Lee and the LSO jointly agreed that a six-month suspension was appropriate.
“In determining whether a joint submission is appropriate, [tribunal’s] “The hearing committee found that Mr. Lee was genuinely remorseful. The committee found that Mr. Lee’s actions “occurred in unique circumstances, rooted in little experience and an inability to understand emerging technology,” Riba said.
Riba added that the court also took into account Lee’s lack of disciplinary history over her decades-long career and “concluded that her lack of integrity was an aberration of character.”
Mr. Lee is the latest Ontario lawyer to face a judgment from a court for conduct related to the use of AI. In June, the court ordered another lawyer, Shahryar Mazaheri, to pay $31,150 to the LSO for relying on AI psychedelic material to challenge his license suspension.
The court noted in Lee’s reasons for action that because the issue is still relatively new, lawyers representing the parties “failed to provide an Ontario case that addresses the penalties for a lawyer or paralegal relying on AI documents containing hallucinations.”
An LSO spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
