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Disbarment is appropriate here. Why not blame your laptop manufacturer for creating the hardware you used to file your fraudulent court documents?

by rank0 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
CPLX 3y ago
No it’s not. You’ll get old one day. It’s pretty challenging to keep track of what’s real and what isn’t possible with technology. The guy apologized and said he thought it was a search engine. He should definitely face some sanctions but someone had to learn this lesson in public the hard way for word to spread.
- code_runner 3y ago
  These exemptions we are passing out are insane. This guy claims he thought it was a search engine? Lawyers use specific case law databases and they SHOULD approach any new tools with healthy skepticism. And if he googled it and cited a fake case would it be better? Why wouldn’t you vet the information.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Yeah it was bad. Disbarment is equivalent to taking away his entire life's work. Two minute hate on the internet every day is fun and all but it's not that severe.
    - Ekaros 3y ago
      He failed his duty to both client and the court. This was wilful negligence. This is like surgeon doing wrong procedure he just invented on patient.
    - vkou 3y ago
      > Disbarment is equivalent to taking away his entire life's work. 'Lawyer' is the kind of profession which actually holds its practitioners to a standard, because the system falls apart when they stop behaving honestly. This wasn't an oopsie-daisies, this was dishonesty, followed by further dishonesty, when they supplied bogus references for these cases.
      - CPLX 3y ago
        But it wasn't dishonesty it was total obliviousness, maybe negligence.
        mtrpcic 3y ago
        A negligent civil engineer that failed to verify construction details provided by GPT, which later led to a bridge collapse, would lose their license. A negligent doctor that failed to vet a treatment protocol to a patient that later caused them harm would lose their license. Negligence is a fair, reasonable, and valid reason for someone to be determined unqualified to practice their profession in the future.
        CPLX 3y ago
        > A negligent doctor that failed to vet a treatment protocol to a patient that later caused them harm would lose their license No, they wouldn’t
        vkou 3y ago
        It crossed the line from stupidity into dishonesty when the judge asked him "Wtf is this court case that you're citing", and the lawyer sent the judge a fabricated document. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.29.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57... How can anyone trust anything a lawyer does, when they are willing to fabricate documents, in order to continue to lie to a judge? This is Better Call Saul-level chicanery. He could have fessed up and apologized when called out on it, but he doubled down.
    - geon 3y ago
      We expect doctors to not pump us full with chlorine, even if chatgpt says it's good for us. Why are lawyers exempt from responsibility?
- cj 3y ago
  Is this case different from the same incident a couple weeks ago? (also on the front page here)
- FpUser 3y ago
  >"The guy apologized and said he thought it was a search engine." I am also having a thought: stop bullshitting. Or stop being a lawyer as a result of gross incompetence (I wish the same applies to politicians).
- spuz 3y ago
  The lawyers not only cited bogus cases, but when asked to provide copies of those bogus cases, fabricated multiple page PDF documents from whole cloth. This is impossible to argue as a mistake. Here is an example of one of the fabricated cases. The 11th circuit has no record of this case. 1 of the 3 judges named in the case was not on the 11th circuit at the time: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.29.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57...
flangola7 3y ago
Disbarment doesn't happen for much, much worse actions.
regulation_d 3y ago
The counterpoint here is that there is already a cause of action for this type of incompetence and it's called malpractice, which is a pretty reasonable road to remedy. I don't know if you actually think these were "fraudulent court documents", but "fraudulent" actually means something very specific and this ain't it. Even if the court is considering sanctions (which is not the same as disbarment), that seems at least partially related to the attys' failure to address their failure once they were aware of it. Something interesting about the legal profession is that it is self-regulating. The state bars are typically not government organizations. Attorneys know that confidence in their profession is extremely important and they strike the balance between preserving that confidence and, you know, destroying someone's livelihood because they don't understand how LLMs work.
gumballindie 3y ago
> Why not blame your laptop manufacturer for creating the hardware you used to file your fraudulent court documents? Because your laptop manufacturer doesnt claim your laptop “thinks”, is “intelligent”, doesnt build an entire fud marketing campaign around the two, doesnt claim it “creates” ideas on its own, doesnt claim it “learns like a human”, doesnt claim it has cognitive abilities and so on.
- LASR 3y ago
  Come on. We're dealing with qualified professionals here. The buck stops with them. A professional civil engineer blaming a new untested simulation software after a bridge fails and causes injury - does it matter what the software claimed to do? It could claim itself to be god, but it's still up to the professionals to evaluate and select the tools they choose to use. It's not like they were using an industry-standard tool they've been using for many years and it suddenly did something unexpected. This is clearly carelessness. A basic out-of-bound check on the cases it hallucinated would be part of basic due-diligence. Digitized case indices are available within minutes. What's even more egregious is that they went to the same tool to confirm its own reliability after they got some indication that it was unreliable. It doesn't take a professional to have commonsense.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > professional civil engineer blaming a new untested simulation software after a bridge fails and causes injury Which bridge failed and physically injured someone here?

Disbarment is appropriate here. Why not blame your laptop manufacturer for creating the hardware you used to file your fraudulent court documents?

by rank0 3y ago

Disbarment is appropriate here. Why not blame your laptop manufacturer for creating the hardware you used to file your fraudulent court documents?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

CPLX 3y ago

No it’s not. You’ll get old one day. It’s pretty challenging to keep track of what’s real and what isn’t possible with technology. The guy apologized and said he thought it was a search engine. He should definitely face some sanctions but someone had to learn this lesson in public the hard way for word to spread.

code_runner 3y ago
These exemptions we are passing out are insane. This guy claims he thought it was a search engine? Lawyers use specific case law databases and they SHOULD approach any new tools with healthy skepticism. And if he googled it and cited a fake case would it be better? Why wouldn’t you vet the information.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Yeah it was bad. Disbarment is equivalent to taking away his entire life's work. Two minute hate on the internet every day is fun and all but it's not that severe.
  - Ekaros 3y ago
    He failed his duty to both client and the court. This was wilful negligence. This is like surgeon doing wrong procedure he just invented on patient.
  - vkou 3y ago
    > Disbarment is equivalent to taking away his entire life's work. 'Lawyer' is the kind of profession which actually holds its practitioners to a standard, because the system falls apart when they stop behaving honestly. This wasn't an oopsie-daisies, this was dishonesty, followed by further dishonesty, when they supplied bogus references for these cases.
    - CPLX 3y ago
      But it wasn't dishonesty it was total obliviousness, maybe negligence.
      - mtrpcic 3y ago
        A negligent civil engineer that failed to verify construction details provided by GPT, which later led to a bridge collapse, would lose their license. A negligent doctor that failed to vet a treatment protocol to a patient that later caused them harm would lose their license. Negligence is a fair, reasonable, and valid reason for someone to be determined unqualified to practice their profession in the future.
        CPLX 3y ago
        > A negligent doctor that failed to vet a treatment protocol to a patient that later caused them harm would lose their license No, they wouldn’t
      - vkou 3y ago
        It crossed the line from stupidity into dishonesty when the judge asked him "Wtf is this court case that you're citing", and the lawyer sent the judge a fabricated document. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.29.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57... How can anyone trust anything a lawyer does, when they are willing to fabricate documents, in order to continue to lie to a judge? This is Better Call Saul-level chicanery. He could have fessed up and apologized when called out on it, but he doubled down.
  - geon 3y ago
    We expect doctors to not pump us full with chlorine, even if chatgpt says it's good for us. Why are lawyers exempt from responsibility?
cj 3y ago
Is this case different from the same incident a couple weeks ago? (also on the front page here)
FpUser 3y ago
>"The guy apologized and said he thought it was a search engine." I am also having a thought: stop bullshitting. Or stop being a lawyer as a result of gross incompetence (I wish the same applies to politicians).
spuz 3y ago
The lawyers not only cited bogus cases, but when asked to provide copies of those bogus cases, fabricated multiple page PDF documents from whole cloth. This is impossible to argue as a mistake. Here is an example of one of the fabricated cases. The 11th circuit has no record of this case. 1 of the 3 judges named in the case was not on the 11th circuit at the time: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.29.1.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57...

flangola7 3y ago

Disbarment doesn't happen for much, much worse actions.

regulation_d 3y ago

The counterpoint here is that there is already a cause of action for this type of incompetence and it's called malpractice, which is a pretty reasonable road to remedy. I don't know if you actually think these were "fraudulent court documents", but "fraudulent" actually means something very specific and this ain't it. Even if the court is considering sanctions (which is not the same as disbarment), that seems at least partially related to the attys' failure to address their failure once they were aware of it. Something interesting about the legal profession is that it is self-regulating. The state bars are typically not government organizations. Attorneys know that confidence in their profession is extremely important and they strike the balance between preserving that confidence and, you know, destroying someone's livelihood because they don't understand how LLMs work.

gumballindie 3y ago

> Why not blame your laptop manufacturer for creating the hardware you used to file your fraudulent court documents? Because your laptop manufacturer doesnt claim your laptop “thinks”, is “intelligent”, doesnt build an entire fud marketing campaign around the two, doesnt claim it “creates” ideas on its own, doesnt claim it “learns like a human”, doesnt claim it has cognitive abilities and so on.

LASR 3y ago
Come on. We're dealing with qualified professionals here. The buck stops with them. A professional civil engineer blaming a new untested simulation software after a bridge fails and causes injury - does it matter what the software claimed to do? It could claim itself to be god, but it's still up to the professionals to evaluate and select the tools they choose to use. It's not like they were using an industry-standard tool they've been using for many years and it suddenly did something unexpected. This is clearly carelessness. A basic out-of-bound check on the cases it hallucinated would be part of basic due-diligence. Digitized case indices are available within minutes. What's even more egregious is that they went to the same tool to confirm its own reliability after they got some indication that it was unreliable. It doesn't take a professional to have commonsense.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > professional civil engineer blaming a new untested simulation software after a bridge fails and causes injury Which bridge failed and physically injured someone here?