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I agree with the “lesson has been learned” justification of not having any penalty added. At this point, it wouldn’t really add much. Penalties are supposed to

I agree with the “lesson has been learned” justification of not having any penalty added. At this point, it wouldn’t really add much. Penalties are supposed to stop people from violating the law. Getting your face and firm known across the world seems to be sufficient deterrent to future offenders because the “oops I didn’t know” defense won’t apply a second time.

TX81Z 3y ago
That is true, but sanction in the court of public opinion isn’t the same as sanction in a real court. I’m not sure a judge should be taking bad publicity into account when handing out punishment - they should likely be treated as independent.
- zephyrthenoble 3y ago
  If someone wasn't a lawyer and did something similar, they would face little to no negative effects socially. Why should a lawyer get a free pass, especially considering they should know better?
- rjmunro 3y ago
  I think the sanction in the court of public opinion is probably much worse.
  - krger 3y ago
    The Court of Public Opinion can't suspend or take away your law license.
harles 3y ago
Unless he wasn’t the first and this possibly wasn’t his first time. All we really know is it’s the first time for someone to get caught and penalized for this. Serious penalties seem reasonable in my opinion.
- kayodelycaon 3y ago
  If it wasn’t his first time, the I didn’t know defense doesn’t apply and he needs the book and the gavel thrown at him.
  - harles 3y ago
    It’s possibly his first offense (no knowledge on that). What I was trying to say is that folks rarely get caught their first time doing something nefarious, which makes stiffer penalties important in my opinion.
nerdponx 3y ago
What's the penalty for asking your friend to make something up instead of writing it yourself? This should be equivalent.
- rjmunro 3y ago
  Of course you're allowed to ask others to help you. He's probably got a team of people to help him. This isn't a kid faking his school homework. The purpose of this writing is not to assess the skill of the lawyer.
londons_explore 3y ago
Note that it appears the lesson was not learned... This lawyer at first cited these (fake) cases, and then when asked to provide copies of the cases then faked the copies too, also using ChatGPT. In my view, that is being caught (asked to provide copies, which is unusual in the legal world, and presumably only done because the judge had failed to find them), and then doing the crime again (using chatgpt to fake these cases)
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  Yeah, that second bit is what got him in really deep trouble. Spidey sense should've kicked in there, but instead he doubled down.
- circuit10 3y ago
  Or he just viewed ChatGPT as a reliable search engine and thought it had found something hard to find
  - circuit10 3y ago
    Why was this downvoted? I don’t think that means he did the right thing, but that’s probably what he thought rather than being actively malicious. That makes him incompetent, sure, but there’s no point in making up motivations that probably don’t exist because you’re annoyed with him
code_runner 3y ago
Yeah you should be allowed to file more than just a handful of fake cases before you’re penalized by the body that exists to make sure you don’t. I mean, as long as the internet is mean to you about it. Now, if the internet isn’t mean enough you should be penalized some amount that accounts for how mean the internet was. In fact, I think doctors that amputate the wrong limb should not face malpractice lawsuits if the greater metropolitan areas local news station ran more than 2 stories about it reaching a population of at least 2 million viewers.
JohnFen 3y ago
I strongly disagree. "Professional embarrassment" isn't really much of a punishment. > sufficient deterrent to future offenders because the “oops I didn’t know” defense won’t apply a second time. I disagree with this as well, because the error this attorney made wasn't really about using AI. It was about not doing due diligence. Surely even freshly minted lawyers are well aware that doing due diligence is most of what people pay lawyers for in the first place.
- gnfargbl 3y ago
  > "Professional embarrassment" isn't really much of a punishment. That really depends on the profession. If you're a line cook at Waffle House and you get fired for coughing on the eggs, then that's probably not career-ending. If you're a software developer who deletes the production database and causes a week of downtime then that's worse, but likely still not terminal. On the other hand, this guy's income depends to a large extent on convincing his clients that they will be represented competently. Being known primarily for breathtaking incompetence will probably have a pretty significant effect on his future income.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Being known primarily for breathtaking incompetence will probably have a pretty significant effect on his future income. Perhaps so, but most people won't ever know the he's breathtakingly incompetent. It's certainly not a career-ending thing. For an error of this scale, I think that a strong argument can be made that he should choose a different career.
m3047 3y ago
"Penalties are supposed to stop people from violating the law." That only works based on prior evidence. Either somebody prior to the potential violation was penalized or the weren't; either people fear, based on the prior, suffering the same penalty, or no worries mate the prior offender wasn't punished.

TX81Z 3y ago

That is true, but sanction in the court of public opinion isn’t the same as sanction in a real court. I’m not sure a judge should be taking bad publicity into account when handing out punishment - they should likely be treated as independent.

zephyrthenoble 3y ago
If someone wasn't a lawyer and did something similar, they would face little to no negative effects socially. Why should a lawyer get a free pass, especially considering they should know better?
rjmunro 3y ago
I think the sanction in the court of public opinion is probably much worse.
- krger 3y ago
  The Court of Public Opinion can't suspend or take away your law license.

harles 3y ago

Unless he wasn’t the first and this possibly wasn’t his first time. All we really know is it’s the first time for someone to get caught and penalized for this. Serious penalties seem reasonable in my opinion.

kayodelycaon 3y ago
If it wasn’t his first time, the I didn’t know defense doesn’t apply and he needs the book and the gavel thrown at him.
- harles 3y ago
  It’s possibly his first offense (no knowledge on that). What I was trying to say is that folks rarely get caught their first time doing something nefarious, which makes stiffer penalties important in my opinion.

nerdponx 3y ago

What's the penalty for asking your friend to make something up instead of writing it yourself? This should be equivalent.

rjmunro 3y ago
Of course you're allowed to ask others to help you. He's probably got a team of people to help him. This isn't a kid faking his school homework. The purpose of this writing is not to assess the skill of the lawyer.

londons_explore 3y ago

Note that it appears the lesson was not learned... This lawyer at first cited these (fake) cases, and then when asked to provide copies of the cases then faked the copies too, also using ChatGPT. In my view, that is being caught (asked to provide copies, which is unusual in the legal world, and presumably only done because the judge had failed to find them), and then doing the crime again (using chatgpt to fake these cases)

ceejayoz 3y ago
Yeah, that second bit is what got him in really deep trouble. Spidey sense should've kicked in there, but instead he doubled down.
circuit10 3y ago
Or he just viewed ChatGPT as a reliable search engine and thought it had found something hard to find
- circuit10 3y ago
  Why was this downvoted? I don’t think that means he did the right thing, but that’s probably what he thought rather than being actively malicious. That makes him incompetent, sure, but there’s no point in making up motivations that probably don’t exist because you’re annoyed with him

code_runner 3y ago

Yeah you should be allowed to file more than just a handful of fake cases before you’re penalized by the body that exists to make sure you don’t. I mean, as long as the internet is mean to you about it. Now, if the internet isn’t mean enough you should be penalized some amount that accounts for how mean the internet was. In fact, I think doctors that amputate the wrong limb should not face malpractice lawsuits if the greater metropolitan areas local news station ran more than 2 stories about it reaching a population of at least 2 million viewers.

JohnFen 3y ago

I strongly disagree. "Professional embarrassment" isn't really much of a punishment. > sufficient deterrent to future offenders because the “oops I didn’t know” defense won’t apply a second time. I disagree with this as well, because the error this attorney made wasn't really about using AI. It was about not doing due diligence. Surely even freshly minted lawyers are well aware that doing due diligence is most of what people pay lawyers for in the first place.

gnfargbl 3y ago
> "Professional embarrassment" isn't really much of a punishment. That really depends on the profession. If you're a line cook at Waffle House and you get fired for coughing on the eggs, then that's probably not career-ending. If you're a software developer who deletes the production database and causes a week of downtime then that's worse, but likely still not terminal. On the other hand, this guy's income depends to a large extent on convincing his clients that they will be represented competently. Being known primarily for breathtaking incompetence will probably have a pretty significant effect on his future income.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Being known primarily for breathtaking incompetence will probably have a pretty significant effect on his future income. Perhaps so, but most people won't ever know the he's breathtakingly incompetent. It's certainly not a career-ending thing. For an error of this scale, I think that a strong argument can be made that he should choose a different career.

m3047 3y ago

"Penalties are supposed to stop people from violating the law." That only works based on prior evidence. Either somebody prior to the potential violation was penalized or the weren't; either people fear, based on the prior, suffering the same penalty, or no worries mate the prior offender wasn't punished.