Published opinion, 29 October 2025 · source · PDF · 36 pages
Opinion by Graeff, J. CITATIONS TO FICTITIOUS CASES GENERATED BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE The use of artificial intelligence (“AI”) may be a valuable tool in legal practice, but it must be used responsibly. Courts across the country have recently been presented with briefs and pleadings containing fraudulent legal citations, which result from A I “hallucinations.” If, as in this case, an attorney fails to read the AI generated citations submitted in a brief, it can result, as it did here, in a brief containing citations to multiple fictitious cases and to cases that do not support the proposition for which they are cited.
SUBMISSION OF FAKE OR INACCURATE AI GENERATED CITATIONS The issues raised by Father typically would not result in a reported opinion. We report this case, however, to address a problem that is recurring in courts around the country, i.e., the use of AI to draft briefs or other pleadings , resulting in incorrect, inaccurate, or fictitious case citations. Mother’s brief in this case is replete with citation irregularities.
Mother’s brief in this case is replete with citation irregularities. These irregularities include citations to multiple fictitious cases, as well as misquoted passages and citations to cases that do not support th e proposition for which they are cited. Before addressing the merits of the issues raised, we address th is problem.
The OSC ordered Mother’s counsel to provide the Court with a written submission in the form of a sworn declaration and provide a detailed explanation as to how Mother’s brief was generated, how counsel located the fictitious cases, and why counsel cited cases that did not stand for the proposition cited.
The law clerk utilized AI in her research, explaining that she began by using ChatGPT to search for relevant cases. She received a generated list of cases, which she acknowledged included cases that were inaccurately cited and did not exist. She then “searched for the ca se opinions via a basic Google search in order to extract proper citations, on-point verbiage, and to identify further cases cited within the proffered case.” After reviewing th ose results, the law clerk initiated a free trial of a “for -pay” website called “VLex,” where she “was able to find the case opinions from the list provided by ChatGPT.” (Footnote omitted).
15, 2025). Fake or nonexistent legal citations typically are the result of AI “hallucinations.” Noland, 336 Cal. Rptr.
15, 2025) ). AI hallucinations may occur more often when there is no case in support of a request, such as “ when a lawyer asks a 7 generative AI tool to supply a citation for an unsupported principle of law. ” Id. Hallucinated cases are “inaccurate depictions of information from AI models that suffer from incomplete, biased, or otherwise flawed training data .” Id.
Here, Mother’s counsel admitted that he did not read the cases cited. Instead, he relied on his law clerk, a non-lawyer, who also clearly did not read the cases, which were fictitious. Counsel’s conduct here impl icates several of t he Maryland Attorney’s Rules of Professional Conduct .