Attorney Steven Schwartz recently saw a dispute he was handling take an unexpected turn. In a suit for negligence brought by Roberto Mata against Avianca Airlines in 2019, Schwartz had submitted six court cases as research for a brief. However, the cases were found to be false, with Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York in an order saying that the cases appeared to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations. As it turns out, the source of these fake cases was ChatGPT, a revolutionary AI-powered chatbot for legal research.
After the matter was raised, Schwartz issued an affidavit saying that he had never used ChatGPT as a legal research source before and that he wished that he had followed a more rigorous process to verify the content put forth by the chatbot. Schwartz is now facing a sanctions hearing on June 8. In his affidavit filed this week, he apologized for utilizing generative artificial intelligence for his research without verifying its authenticity, adding that this wouldn’t happen again.
Avianca’s lawyers from Condon & Forsyth had also written a letter to Castel questioning the authenticity of the cases. Fellow attorney Peter Loduca said in an affidavit that he had no role in the research and that he had no reason to doubt the sincerity of Schwartz’s work.
ChatGPT is a pioneer in the field of legal research based on AI technology. It enables researchers to quickly and effectively conduct legal research without having to sift through hundreds of opinions. ChatGPT makes use of natural language processing and deep learning algorithms to provide users with reliable and accurate research information. However, the potential for a user to submit false information remains present, as evidenced in this case.
Schwartz had taken screenshots of himself confirming the authenticity of the cases with the chatbot; however, the chatbot had answered that the cases were real when they in fact were not. ChatGPT had even apologized for its mistake. This serves as an excellent reminder for people to be extra careful when dealing with tech-driven legal research. To ensure accuracy, the authenticity of the legal research should be confirmed on reputable legal databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis.
