Atlanta lawyers who repeatedly cited fake legal cases in client divorce were punished by a Georgia Court of Appeals judge.
Diana Lynch hit Monday with a $2,500 penalty on appeal of her client's divorce order. The order, signed by a DeKalb County judge in May 2024, appears to reference two cases that Lynch prepared and do not exist, according to a three-person court panel.
The judge said when accused by the client's ex-wife of supplementing the case reference, the lynching was not deterred and submitted responses cited 11 cases, either fake or unrelated.
“The irregularities in these submissions suggest that they were drafted using generated AI,” the judge wrote in his opinion. “We are troubled by the citation of false cases in court orders.”
Lynch did not immediately respond to phone calls or email inquiries regarding the verdict. She was recognized for practicing law in Georgia in 1995, and runs as a solo practitioner at Stone Mountain, according to Georgia records.
The judge said the Georgia Court of Appeals may be the first time that it has faced problems that could flow from the obvious use of artificial intelligence that generates content. They said other courts are addressing the issue.
US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts warned in his 2023 judicial report that commonly used AI applications are prone to “hastisation” and that lawyers could potentially file briefs citing fake cases, a Georgia judge said.
They said they deprived his ex-wife of the opportunity to properly respond to the fictional case and use of quotations in favor of her client, her husband who filed for divorce in 2022.
According to case records, Lynch's client filed for divorce in DeKalb County in April 2022 and was sentenced to divorce in July of that year. In October 2023, his ex-wife asked a county judge to resume his case, put aside his divorce order and moved to Texas in 2021, claiming that he had not been properly provided with complaints.
DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Yolanda Parker Smith denied his ex-wife's request in May 2024 in a three-page order.
In her ex-wife's complaint, she pointed out that the judge relied on two false cases and invalidated it.
The appeals judge said the order signed by Parker Smith appears to have been prepared by lynching, citing the same two fictitious cases in subsequent cases.
They said Lynch would sham the injury by requesting attorney's fees in connection with the ex-wife's appeal, and also use fake cases to support the request.
“We can't find the case cited either by the name or the quote of the case, Johnson v. Johnson,” the judge said. “And not surprising, we were unable to find the case by the alleged retention of the law being blatantly misrepresented.”
The judges imposed the biggest penalty on lynching for “frivolous” bids for lawyer fees. They sent the case back to the DeKalb County Judge to reconsider his ex-wife's request to put aside his divorce order.
Their opinions refer to research by Stanford researchers. Stanford University has discovered generative AI models, including ChatGpt, and “hastised” about 75% of the time when answering questions about court core judgments.
The application for a consumer credit case pending before a federal judge in Atlanta shows that the plaintiff's lawyers were recently asked to explain written references to the case and quotes the judge had not found.
In his response on June 26th, lawyer Naja Hawk admitted that he cannot find referenced cases, review citations or rely on them.
The impact of artificial intelligence on Georgia courts is being assessed by a Judicial Committee chaired by Georgia Supreme Court Judge Andrew Pinson and supported by the National Center for State Courts.
The committee is tasked with forming recommendations that will help maintain public confidence and confidence in the state's judicial system as the use of artificial intelligence increases.
