Article states that Cozen O’Connor fires attorney over fictitious AI content in court filing in advance of appearing before Judge David Hardy to explain themselves today. Their website still lists both involved attorneys. What do you think about their explanation? Is use of ChatGPT “inexcusable” or is this something that warrants more than a public reprimand? [RGJ]
Lombardo: No evidence that cyberattack compromised data in DMV, financial systems; will be more transparent when the time comes. [TNI; Nevada Current]
Judge Christy Craig grills driver in DUI crash that killed Las Vegas vet. [RJ]
Mother sues CCSD, says it failed to protect beaten and bullied daughter. [RJ]
Is Las Vegas sending homeless people to Pahrump? [8NewsNow]
AI is simply a tool and should not warrant punishment for a mistake anymore than misquoting a reporter in the old days, a copy paste error or typo. One should be responsible for their pleadings but AI doesn’t warrant anything extra or more when there is a mistake.
I agree, this response–at least what is set forth in the article–reads like someone old school and tech adverse decided how to respond. It sounds like the partner not looking into it further after getting notified is a bigger offense than what the associate did. Of course, we only have a snippet of information about what happened. Bottom line is be responsible for your work. Use AI, but check the work and then make sure the right draft of your work gets filed. Personally, if I use AI for something, I don’t trust it on the cases and will go look it up and only use what I warrant is appropriate from the cases, but it is definitely getting better.
Absolutely could not disagree more. This is not you cited a case and failed to Shep it and it has been modified/clarified by subsequent caselaw. You cited and told the court to rely upon law that is completely false and fictitious. If you told the Court to rely upon a piece of evidence that does not exist, you would be rang up. This is no different than that because the results are either (a) the court finds out that you peddle in falsehoods or (b) the court does not find out and instead relies on your lies. NRPC 3.3.
This is correct. The intent may not be intentional, but the gravity of the mistake is what merits sanctions. AI is a powerful tool that we have to carefully use. Emphasis on carefully.
Exactly. The challenge for judges and opposing counsel is that it is not obvious at first glance that the pleading contains fictitious citations. Judge Hardy identified 24 different errors, ranging from totally non-existent cases to more subtle mischaracterizations of actual cases. The sheer volume of false statements made it easier for the judge to figure out that this pleading came from AI, but that’s not always going to happen. Uprise’s counsel, in an attempt to cut down on their own workload, ended up making everyone else’s workload much higher. If judges and the Bar go easy on offenders the problem is going to snowball just like it has for high school and college students cheating on their assignments with AI. There’s nothing wrong with using AI so long as you do it right, but expect that you will not actually save much time compared to doing it the old fashioned way.
This is another topic for another time, but I don’t know that I agree with this: “but expect that you will not actually save much time compared to doing it the old fashioned way.” I find this to be task dependent. AI saves me time for some tasks, is a push for others and is surprisingly more laborious for still others. But it certainly isn’t a magic box, it’s just a tool to leverage my existing skills and talent.
10:40 here. Quick clarification, AI will not save time doing legal research and preliminary drafting. That’s true whether you use basic ChatGPT or any of the specialized tools from Lexis, Westlaw, etc. There are plenty of other tasks that can be sped up with AI but maintaining high quality and high throughput is hard no matter what tools you use.
This isn’t that unlike numerous attorneys and firms that misquote and mischaracterize actual cases. I wish they drew 1/5th the attention that this does. There are some firms that are notorious, such that I meticulously check every parenthetical. I’ve realized that when AI doesn’t hallucinate, it often is creative with application of law.
First, it isn’t like this is the very first time that something like this has happened. Those choosing to use AI are on notice that this is an issue and should act accordingly. Second, and relatedly, I have no issue with AI as a means of turning out a draft of something, but at least have someone spend a few hours making sure that the cited cases both exist, and at least stand more or less-ish for the proposition they are being cited for. They should have known better.
Shame on Cozen. They through Mann to the wolves (a first or second year attorney), all to protect their new partner and managing partner of the office. That’s the biggest story here.
Guest
Anonymous
September 5, 2025 10:21 am
First bar exam reform and now let’s do away with legal education and licensing. Arizona considering sweeping changes. Is this nuts??
It’s both stupid because it will result in ineffective counsel and because it is a good thing that a JD is able to practice different kinds of law and creating a whole separate professional class undereducated specialists is a big step back.
There will be no justice for victims or the state and no effective representation for the accused. It takes years to become a seasoned defense attorney and prosecutor. This is reducing the profession to “shithouse lawyers” or “jail house lawyers.” The DA’s Office has to be sure they are pursing justice not just convictions that are going to be overturned. This is just going to pass the problem onto the courts who will have to scour the record for all kinds of reversible harmful error.
Agree, but on slightly different reasons. Learning to think like a lawyer is a euphemism for having depth of knowledge, not just rules or code, but acquiring the understanding the seamless web of law that only the 3-year grind of law school provides. Analogy to med school. It’s a grind that produces doctors with deeper understanding of medicine other than merely memorizing symptoms.
A one-year program might produce a good paralegal but will shortchange defendants whose lives, jobs and relationships are on the line.
But don’t get me started on the coming 100 question online Nevada bar exam.
“waste of time”
If true, it is your misfortune. You are marginal lawyer. You might be a smooth talker and maybe are able to BS enough to sign clients. You might be able to push paper, but odds are you lose more than you win. You might even be someone who is lazy and relies on AI for research.
I’m sure no one actually files complaints against them because a faculty member can destroy a law student’s chances at a clerkship or job. And if someone does complain about something legitimate, good luck to them.
Boyd law professor(s) worked relentlessly to redo and reform the bar exam. Unnecessary and a prescription for disaster IMHO. They just needed to replace the MBE instead they threw out the baby with the bath water. This will be the most dramatic change to our profession. A push over bar exam where nobody fails. More dumb lawyers?
The essays were/are incredibly silly. They were an outline dump. You had to put information in the essay that did not pertain to the question or hypo. For example, have a removal question with a fact pattern about diversity jurisdiction? Well, you have to add information about federal question in there just because/just to show you know that it exists? Silly.
Right. It does seem like the essays were subjective—but then again so is adjudicating anything. So maybe the essays are helpful. On the other hand, in practice I’ve never seen a brief with that type of “outline dump” in it. If the facts don’t require you to discuss federal question, why would you? If the bar examiners want you to talk about federal question, add it to the hypo. But they don’t.
All the Boyd campaigning is because they are graduating a large number of students who can’t pass the bar for whatever reason. This hurts Boyd’s rankings and the students who are in life-changing debt without being able to practice. We all know brilliant people who had trouble passing the bar—and dim people who had no problems. It’s not exactly a scientific test regardless of the Barbri propaganda where they claim the contrary.
I got an A in real property in Law School because I wrote the Rule Against Perpetuities does not apply because……In fact the question had absolutely nothing to do with the Rule.
Not only that – but horrible attorneys print out discovery requests, sign them in ink, scan them and email them so my assistant has to type out the damn questions instead of copy/paste.
He shouldn’t be thwacked. FFS it’s just trying to make jokes. I get its law dawg’s blog but the claim is that thwacking is to not get sued. Vajaja jokes aren’t getting anyone sued. It offends some humorless jagoffs and makes other people laugh. Like pretty much everything else in the world. Relax and let it be.
I don’t discuss prurient topics unless they are actually funny. “Vajayjay” hasn’t elicited so much as a smirk from me since the eighth grade. And let’s be real—it’s hard to get excited about something I literally bring to the table every day.
AI is simply a tool and should not warrant punishment for a mistake anymore than misquoting a reporter in the old days, a copy paste error or typo. One should be responsible for their pleadings but AI doesn’t warrant anything extra or more when there is a mistake.
I agree, this response–at least what is set forth in the article–reads like someone old school and tech adverse decided how to respond. It sounds like the partner not looking into it further after getting notified is a bigger offense than what the associate did. Of course, we only have a snippet of information about what happened. Bottom line is be responsible for your work. Use AI, but check the work and then make sure the right draft of your work gets filed. Personally, if I use AI for something, I don’t trust it on the cases and will go look it up and only use what I warrant is appropriate from the cases, but it is definitely getting better.
Absolutely could not disagree more. This is not you cited a case and failed to Shep it and it has been modified/clarified by subsequent caselaw. You cited and told the court to rely upon law that is completely false and fictitious. If you told the Court to rely upon a piece of evidence that does not exist, you would be rang up. This is no different than that because the results are either (a) the court finds out that you peddle in falsehoods or (b) the court does not find out and instead relies on your lies. NRPC 3.3.
This is correct. The intent may not be intentional, but the gravity of the mistake is what merits sanctions. AI is a powerful tool that we have to carefully use. Emphasis on carefully.
Exactly. The challenge for judges and opposing counsel is that it is not obvious at first glance that the pleading contains fictitious citations. Judge Hardy identified 24 different errors, ranging from totally non-existent cases to more subtle mischaracterizations of actual cases. The sheer volume of false statements made it easier for the judge to figure out that this pleading came from AI, but that’s not always going to happen. Uprise’s counsel, in an attempt to cut down on their own workload, ended up making everyone else’s workload much higher. If judges and the Bar go easy on offenders the problem is going to snowball just like it has for high school and college students cheating on their assignments with AI. There’s nothing wrong with using AI so long as you do it right, but expect that you will not actually save much time compared to doing it the old fashioned way.
Excellent call, 10:40 AM.
This is another topic for another time, but I don’t know that I agree with this: “but expect that you will not actually save much time compared to doing it the old fashioned way.” I find this to be task dependent. AI saves me time for some tasks, is a push for others and is surprisingly more laborious for still others. But it certainly isn’t a magic box, it’s just a tool to leverage my existing skills and talent.
10:40 here. Quick clarification, AI will not save time doing legal research and preliminary drafting. That’s true whether you use basic ChatGPT or any of the specialized tools from Lexis, Westlaw, etc. There are plenty of other tasks that can be sped up with AI but maintaining high quality and high throughput is hard no matter what tools you use.
This isn’t that unlike numerous attorneys and firms that misquote and mischaracterize actual cases. I wish they drew 1/5th the attention that this does. There are some firms that are notorious, such that I meticulously check every parenthetical. I’ve realized that when AI doesn’t hallucinate, it often is creative with application of law.
Let’s start naming the firms that are notorious for this.
First, it isn’t like this is the very first time that something like this has happened. Those choosing to use AI are on notice that this is an issue and should act accordingly. Second, and relatedly, I have no issue with AI as a means of turning out a draft of something, but at least have someone spend a few hours making sure that the cited cases both exist, and at least stand more or less-ish for the proposition they are being cited for. They should have known better.
Just check your work before filing. AI is a good aid but it cannot be relied upon yet to be without mistakes or inventions.
Shame on Cozen. They through Mann to the wolves (a first or second year attorney), all to protect their new partner and managing partner of the office. That’s the biggest story here.
First bar exam reform and now let’s do away with legal education and licensing. Arizona considering sweeping changes. Is this nuts??
https://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2025/09/02/arizona-considers-one-year-law-school-program-for-criminal-defense/
Just have to remember “some other dude did it”
Was a Deputy Public Defender at one time. Some other Dude–is SODI-we had an actual stamp for the file. The there was THAT Other Dude Did It-
TODI.
It’s both stupid because it will result in ineffective counsel and because it is a good thing that a JD is able to practice different kinds of law and creating a whole separate professional class undereducated specialists is a big step back.
Definitely could be some constitutional/ due process challenges, I would think.
There will be no justice for victims or the state and no effective representation for the accused. It takes years to become a seasoned defense attorney and prosecutor. This is reducing the profession to “shithouse lawyers” or “jail house lawyers.” The DA’s Office has to be sure they are pursing justice not just convictions that are going to be overturned. This is just going to pass the problem onto the courts who will have to scour the record for all kinds of reversible harmful error.
Agree, but on slightly different reasons. Learning to think like a lawyer is a euphemism for having depth of knowledge, not just rules or code, but acquiring the understanding the seamless web of law that only the 3-year grind of law school provides. Analogy to med school. It’s a grind that produces doctors with deeper understanding of medicine other than merely memorizing symptoms.
A one-year program might produce a good paralegal but will shortchange defendants whose lives, jobs and relationships are on the line.
But don’t get me started on the coming 100 question online Nevada bar exam.
11:23 am: We agree completely. I am deeply suspicious of any lawyer that says law school was a waste of time.
Law school was a waste of time. I learned more on how to deeply question as an undergrad than I did in law school (Boyd).
Agreed. Students who studied business or hard sciences maybe never learned how to think deeply in their undergraduate clases?
“waste of time”
If true, it is your misfortune. You are marginal lawyer. You might be a smooth talker and maybe are able to BS enough to sign clients. You might be able to push paper, but odds are you lose more than you win. You might even be someone who is lazy and relies on AI for research.
Boyd law professors who troll this blog, extolling the virtues of law school in this year of our Lord 2025, need to find a hobby.
Boyd law is the last refuge for failed lawyers, those whose filed complaints pale in comparison to the complaints filed against them
I’m sure no one actually files complaints against them because a faculty member can destroy a law student’s chances at a clerkship or job. And if someone does complain about something legitimate, good luck to them.
Boyd law professor(s) worked relentlessly to redo and reform the bar exam. Unnecessary and a prescription for disaster IMHO. They just needed to replace the MBE instead they threw out the baby with the bath water. This will be the most dramatic change to our profession. A push over bar exam where nobody fails. More dumb lawyers?
The essays were/are incredibly silly. They were an outline dump. You had to put information in the essay that did not pertain to the question or hypo. For example, have a removal question with a fact pattern about diversity jurisdiction? Well, you have to add information about federal question in there just because/just to show you know that it exists? Silly.
Right. It does seem like the essays were subjective—but then again so is adjudicating anything. So maybe the essays are helpful. On the other hand, in practice I’ve never seen a brief with that type of “outline dump” in it. If the facts don’t require you to discuss federal question, why would you? If the bar examiners want you to talk about federal question, add it to the hypo. But they don’t.
All the Boyd campaigning is because they are graduating a large number of students who can’t pass the bar for whatever reason. This hurts Boyd’s rankings and the students who are in life-changing debt without being able to practice. We all know brilliant people who had trouble passing the bar—and dim people who had no problems. It’s not exactly a scientific test regardless of the Barbri propaganda where they claim the contrary.
I got an A in real property in Law School because I wrote the Rule Against Perpetuities does not apply because……In fact the question had absolutely nothing to do with the Rule.
Boyd?
Law Dawg, Can we have a post one day focused on the fact that only horrible people file non-native PDFs into cases?
Not only that – but horrible attorneys print out discovery requests, sign them in ink, scan them and email them so my assistant has to type out the damn questions instead of copy/paste.
Ask opposing counsel for their word version. I’ve never had an attorney refuse when I had to ask.
I have been refused.
Name and shame
6:39 AM here. Heavens no. What is this a 7th grade girls clique?
Bring back va ja ja poster please
You know that was made famous by both Oprah and Grey’s Anatomy.
I can’t stand that guy, but I kinda miss picking on him.
Plus your comment is fkn hilarious 😂
He shouldn’t be thwacked. FFS it’s just trying to make jokes. I get its law dawg’s blog but the claim is that thwacking is to not get sued. Vajaja jokes aren’t getting anyone sued. It offends some humorless jagoffs and makes other people laugh. Like pretty much everything else in the world. Relax and let it be.
Has vajaja been thwacked?
It doesn’t offend me. I think its painfully lacking in any wit and irrelevant to a legal blog.
.
I don’t discuss prurient topics unless they are actually funny. “Vajayjay” hasn’t elicited so much as a smirk from me since the eighth grade. And let’s be real—it’s hard to get excited about something I literally bring to the table every day.
“He said she was celibate by choice. I didn’t ask whose.”
RIP Brian Harris.
https://obituaries.reviewjournal.com/obituary/brian-harris-1093070260
Condolences. May his memory be a blessing.
did Joel Henriod leave Eglet? Why?
Yes.
probably the same reason every partner leaves Eglet