4 ms·

what sorts of errors do you think a lawyer should be able to make without risking disbarment?

by sigstoat 3y ago

sidewndr46 3y ago
I would like to be assured that when I hire a lawyer they do not send obvious bullshit to the court on my behalf.
JohnFen 3y ago
What this lawyer did was simply to not do his job. It doesn't even rise to the level of incompetence.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  For a lawyer, not doing the job one has been paid for is not just incompetence, it's considered malpractice. In this case, the original malpractice of failing to check the falsified cites was compounded by submitting falsified opinions to the court (in support of the falsified cites), which is fraud and would be criminal in most states. It's blatantly obvious that he used ChatGPT to generate falsified opinions to try and cover up his original fuck-up after traditional means of verification (i.e., using a legal database like LexisNexis or Westlaw) failed to substantiate any of the ChatGPT cites he originally submitted. In most states, this lawyer would be disbarred, or at the very least suspended for many months, for this sort of conduct. This lawyer should consider himself lucky that the court hasn't yet entertained referring this case to the NY DOJ for criminal prosecution.
dimmke 3y ago
"Causes of disbarment may include: a felony involving moral turpitude, forgery, fraud, a history of dishonesty, consistent lack of attention to clients, alcoholism or drug abuse which affect the attorney's ability to practice" This was definitely an attempt at forgery and fraud. It might not be something that can be prosecuted as a felony, but it's close enough that if I was a member of the bar I would want to draw a firm line.
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Surely in order to be an attempt at forgery and fraud the lawyer would have to have known the cases were fake?
  - dimmke 3y ago
    First of all, I think it's reasonable to start with the assumption that a case is fake until you validate that it is real. Secondly, that's a ridiculous place to put the goal post. He didn't write the argument he submitted. He didn't even do basic vetting of it. It's fraudulent because he submitted work as his own that he didn't do, it's negligent because he didn't verify that the work was actually good before submitting it on behalf of his client.
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    He was put on notices that the citations (and thus the cases) were fake when the opposing counsel informed him they couldn't substantiate any of the citations.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
danShumway 3y ago
Missing a deadline, failing to realize that a case existed that was applicable, misreading forms, etc... Mistakes/errors are one thing. But submitting cases that don't exist, and then doubling down and saying that they do? There's layers of incompetence and apathy that had to happen here to get to this point, from using a tool without researching it at all (any research into ChatGPT as a legal aid would bring up warnings), to ignoring the warnings that OpenAI itself provides, to not checking the work that tool spit out (seriously, it's not hard to validate that these rulings don't exist), to being told that the cases don't exist and then repeating the entire process... It's not just they made a mistake, the way they made the mistake reveals how little care they are putting into the research they're doing. The only way this could happen is if ChatGPT was the only source this lawyer was using. Because any other source: fact checker, Internet search, etc... should have noticed either that the cases didn't exist or should have at least prompted "why is it that these cases only show up in ChatGPT and not in any of the other sources I'm looking at?" I don't know that they should obviously be disbarred, but I would have thought that it should at least be on the table. Massive levels of incompetence can be grounds for disbarment I believe. Whether this lawyer acted incompetently enough? :shrug: But we are talking about incompetence here, not just a mistake/error. If the takeaway for this lawyer from the penalties is just "now I know not to rely on ChatGPT", then that's not really addressing the problems that led to this situation in the first place.

what sorts of errors do you think a lawyer should be able to make without risking disbarment?

sidewndr46 3y ago

I would like to be assured that when I hire a lawyer they do not send obvious bullshit to the court on my behalf.

JohnFen 3y ago

What this lawyer did was simply to not do his job. It doesn't even rise to the level of incompetence.

gamblor956 3y ago
For a lawyer, not doing the job one has been paid for is not just incompetence, it's considered malpractice. In this case, the original malpractice of failing to check the falsified cites was compounded by submitting falsified opinions to the court (in support of the falsified cites), which is fraud and would be criminal in most states. It's blatantly obvious that he used ChatGPT to generate falsified opinions to try and cover up his original fuck-up after traditional means of verification (i.e., using a legal database like LexisNexis or Westlaw) failed to substantiate any of the ChatGPT cites he originally submitted. In most states, this lawyer would be disbarred, or at the very least suspended for many months, for this sort of conduct. This lawyer should consider himself lucky that the court hasn't yet entertained referring this case to the NY DOJ for criminal prosecution.

dimmke 3y ago

"Causes of disbarment may include: a felony involving moral turpitude, forgery, fraud, a history of dishonesty, consistent lack of attention to clients, alcoholism or drug abuse which affect the attorney's ability to practice" This was definitely an attempt at forgery and fraud. It might not be something that can be prosecuted as a felony, but it's close enough that if I was a member of the bar I would want to draw a firm line.

sebzim4500 3y ago
Surely in order to be an attempt at forgery and fraud the lawyer would have to have known the cases were fake?
- dimmke 3y ago
  First of all, I think it's reasonable to start with the assumption that a case is fake until you validate that it is real. Secondly, that's a ridiculous place to put the goal post. He didn't write the argument he submitted. He didn't even do basic vetting of it. It's fraudulent because he submitted work as his own that he didn't do, it's negligent because he didn't verify that the work was actually good before submitting it on behalf of his client.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  He was put on notices that the citations (and thus the cases) were fake when the opposing counsel informed him they couldn't substantiate any of the citations.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

danShumway 3y ago

Missing a deadline, failing to realize that a case existed that was applicable, misreading forms, etc... Mistakes/errors are one thing. But submitting cases that don't exist, and then doubling down and saying that they do? There's layers of incompetence and apathy that had to happen here to get to this point, from using a tool without researching it at all (any research into ChatGPT as a legal aid would bring up warnings), to ignoring the warnings that OpenAI itself provides, to not checking the work that tool spit out (seriously, it's not hard to validate that these rulings don't exist), to being told that the cases don't exist and then repeating the entire process... It's not just they made a mistake, the way they made the mistake reveals how little care they are putting into the research they're doing. The only way this could happen is if ChatGPT was the only source this lawyer was using. Because any other source: fact checker, Internet search, etc... should have noticed either that the cases didn't exist or should have at least prompted "why is it that these cases only show up in ChatGPT and not in any of the other sources I'm looking at?" I don't know that they should obviously be disbarred, but I would have thought that it should at least be on the table. Massive levels of incompetence can be grounds for disbarment I believe. Whether this lawyer acted incompetently enough? :shrug: But we are talking about incompetence here, not just a mistake/error. If the takeaway for this lawyer from the penalties is just "now I know not to rely on ChatGPT", then that's not really addressing the problems that led to this situation in the first place.