4 ms·

That should be a career-ending move, not a fine.

by sgbeal 3y ago

mindcrime 3y ago
I disagree with the notion that it should be "career ending", but I do think they got off pretty light.
- Ensorceled 3y ago
  They doubled down on their original mistake rather than admit what they did, even when it was quite clear the judge and opposing council was on to them. They should be disbarred.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article.
    - isp 3y ago
      See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.54.0_5.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57... - Page 2, the judge uses the very words "doubled down": "But if the matter had ended with Respondents coming clean about their actions shortly after they received the defendant’s March 15 brief questioning the existence of the cases, or after they reviewed the Court’s Orders of April 11 and 12 requiring production of the cases, the record now would look quite different. Instead, the individual Respondents doubled down and did not begin to dribble out the truth until May 25, after the Court issued an Order to Show Cause why one of the individual Respondents ought not be sanctioned."
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        I guess that really depends on what you consider doubling down. -On March 1, They filed a submission with fake citations from chatGPT. -On April 11th court told them the cases couldnt be found and to produce full transcripts of the cases by April 25. -On April 25, They came back and said they don't have them and couldnt find the cases, only the limited excerpts provided in "online databases". -On May 4, the court asked them why they ought not be sanctioned for citing non-existent cases to the Court. -On May 25, They said we found these cases on ChatGPT and thought they were real. I guess the more transparent response on April 25 would have been to say "We weren't able to find the full cases and we now believe they probably dont exist ". Im not sure if the latter part is material if they already admitted they cant find the cases. If you cant produce the cases, is the reason relevant at that point?
        sixstringtheory 3y ago
        > They said we found these cases on ChatGPT and thought they were real Just like Wikipedia, ChatGPT is great for generating leads, but you need to check the actual primary sources! How do people not get this?
    - jaclaz 3y ago
      >Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article It is mentioned also in the article: >then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.”
    - hartator 3y ago
      It is: > then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Did they?
    - bobthepanda 3y ago
      Here’s a longer video with more explanation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUOQ2hhdGdwdCBsYXd5ZXI%3D https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUOQ2hhdGdwdCBsY... At first it was just generated citations. The opposing lawyers and judges could not find the cases, and so they then asked chatGPT for them, and it generated them, and they were submitted to the court. (One of the lawyers notarized the other’s filings.) There are even transcripts of chatGPT telling the accused that it is not an authoritative or up-to-date legal database. —- The punishment could arguably be more severe, since it demonstrated that these lawyers do not read their cases, particularly the one that notarized everything.
  - mindcrime 3y ago
    They should be disbarred. I just can't agree. To my way of thinking there are very few (if any) things that should be "career ending" the first time they happen. And the main guy involved here, as I recall, has a long career with what has been a spotless record until now. I just can't see the justification for ending that career over one fuck-up. But, again... the punishment does seem lighter than I expected. I was thinking that any fine associated with this should be enough to hurt a bit. Something like $250,000 or something. This amounts to a slap on the wrist. Just to clarify my position here: I do think this is a major fuck-up. Like, really major. To the extent that I think the punishment should not be "career ending" it's just a reflection of my seeing "career ending" punishments as something of a "nuclear option" that should be avoided in all but the absolute most extreme cases. I guess I would say that if punishments spanned a scale from 1-10 with "10" being "disbarment" then this should probably be about an 8 or 9 in my mind.
    - Ensorceled 3y ago
      An officer of the court notarized that they had reviewed the imaginary citations and that those imaginary citations were material to the case. This is a gross breach of ethics and, given how easy it is to look up cases and verify them, grossly incompetent and lazy. These people should not be practicing law.
  - djur 3y ago
    The judge cannot disbar them, but the opinion provides all of the evidence necessary.
- cmcaleer 3y ago
  The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it. You’re not going to be able anyone’s name here for many years without this case coming up. The world at large has been watching this unfold gleefully. That, combined with the lawyers involved having decades-long clean slates, as well as this case being outside the normal realm this team would operate in, as well as ChatGPT being relatively new at the time this happened makes it all seem pretty proportional. Maybe you could say they deserve worse for how they handled things after they got caught, but I struggle to really have a problem with this punishment considering the records of those involved.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it. Both the fine and the public shaming are very light "punishments". Everyone's pointing and laughing now, but in a year nobody will even remember their name and their career will be fine.
    - sigstoat 3y ago
      local legal communities have long memories. they’ll be griefed about it at their retirement parties.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > local legal communities have long memories. So does Google, and anyone researching these lawyers or this firm in the future...
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Sure, but when you Google a lawyer's name and this comes up you may choose not to use him.
      - loeg 3y ago
        On the other hand, there are certain kinds of lawyer with low-research clients who won't suffer much from this, and these lawyers are likely that kind (representing a client suing Avianca for a drinks cart complaint).
s1artibartfast 3y ago
Why do you think that would be better than a warning or a fine?
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Because it wasn't just a simple mistake. It was such egregious professional negligence that it calls into question not only the basic competence of the attorney, but also their basic sense of ethics.
  - cyrialize 3y ago
    To add onto this - the lawyers failed to verify their resources! This is something that every lawyer carefully pays attention to before submitting anything. The fact that they did no research on ChatGPT, and they didn't verify the output from ChatGPT, is pretty bad. They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT Yes, exactly. If they'd used a human intern instead of ChatGPT, it wouldn't change the situation at all.
      - furyofantares 3y ago
        Huh, I think it would? It's still really bad, the quality of the service the client got is still abysmal, and it's still ultimately the lawyer's responsibility. That much is certainly unchanged, it would also be considered a much more understandable mistake.
        smcl 3y ago
        If they followed exactly the same processes (showing a screenshot of a text conversation saying "Is X a real case?" when challenged about the nonexistent cases) then I imagine they would have have been treated the same way. However they probably wouldn't have gone down that route, because they know "uhhhh I included those cases because my intern insisted they exist?" absolutely wouldn't fly. The difference is that they thought they could chance it because ChatGPT is a shiny, new thing that some people have a pretty mixed understanding of.
emilsedgh 3y ago
Why so eager to end someone's career? He did a lazy/stupid thing. People do far worse things. The client may want to sue them and seek damages or something and that'd be fair but I don't think their career should end. That's harsh.
- AmVess 3y ago
  Things like this is what causes lawyers to lose cases for their clients. Imagine being a client of a lawyer who uses ChatGPT. You lose the case and then your livelihood or worse. These twits should be disbarred, and without hesitation.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
    > Imagine being a client of a lawyer who uses ChatGPT. You lose the case and then your livelihood or worse. This presupposes that the use of ChatGPT is the reason the case was lost. In this case, the judge found the mistake, called it out, and fined the lawyers for their carelessness. It doesn't necessarily follow that p1) ChatGPT was used, p2) Case was lost, c) Case would have been won if ChatGPT was not used.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      No, the use of ChatGPT is the only reason that they thought they had a colorable argument that the case could be won.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Things like this is what causes lawyers to lose cases for their clients. Or to waste a lot of their clients money on cases that they should have known could not be won from the outset, as is the case here.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  What they did was the professional equivalent of a surgeon thinking "I wonder what'd happen if I chopped out this thingie?", then acting on that impulse, then lying about his actions.
Ekaros 3y ago
Or if not end career some real punishment like enough time (by USA standards couple decades) in prison.

That should be a career-ending move, not a fine.

by sgbeal 3y ago

That should be a career-ending move, not a fine.

mindcrime 3y ago

I disagree with the notion that it should be "career ending", but I do think they got off pretty light.

Ensorceled 3y ago
They doubled down on their original mistake rather than admit what they did, even when it was quite clear the judge and opposing council was on to them. They should be disbarred.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article.
  - isp 3y ago
    See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368/gov.uscourts.nysd.575368.54.0_5.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57... - Page 2, the judge uses the very words "doubled down": "But if the matter had ended with Respondents coming clean about their actions shortly after they received the defendant’s March 15 brief questioning the existence of the cases, or after they reviewed the Court’s Orders of April 11 and 12 requiring production of the cases, the record now would look quite different. Instead, the individual Respondents doubled down and did not begin to dribble out the truth until May 25, after the Court issued an Order to Show Cause why one of the individual Respondents ought not be sanctioned."
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      I guess that really depends on what you consider doubling down. -On March 1, They filed a submission with fake citations from chatGPT. -On April 11th court told them the cases couldnt be found and to produce full transcripts of the cases by April 25. -On April 25, They came back and said they don't have them and couldnt find the cases, only the limited excerpts provided in "online databases". -On May 4, the court asked them why they ought not be sanctioned for citing non-existent cases to the Court. -On May 25, They said we found these cases on ChatGPT and thought they were real. I guess the more transparent response on April 25 would have been to say "We weren't able to find the full cases and we now believe they probably dont exist ". Im not sure if the latter part is material if they already admitted they cant find the cases. If you cant produce the cases, is the reason relevant at that point?
      - sixstringtheory 3y ago
        > They said we found these cases on ChatGPT and thought they were real Just like Wikipedia, ChatGPT is great for generating leads, but you need to check the actual primary sources! How do people not get this?
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    >Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article It is mentioned also in the article: >then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.”
  - hartator 3y ago
    It is: > then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Did they?
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    Here’s a longer video with more explanation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUOQ2hhdGdwdCBsYXd5ZXI%3D https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUOQ2hhdGdwdCBsY... At first it was just generated citations. The opposing lawyers and judges could not find the cases, and so they then asked chatGPT for them, and it generated them, and they were submitted to the court. (One of the lawyers notarized the other’s filings.) There are even transcripts of chatGPT telling the accused that it is not an authoritative or up-to-date legal database. —- The punishment could arguably be more severe, since it demonstrated that these lawyers do not read their cases, particularly the one that notarized everything.
- mindcrime 3y ago
  They should be disbarred. I just can't agree. To my way of thinking there are very few (if any) things that should be "career ending" the first time they happen. And the main guy involved here, as I recall, has a long career with what has been a spotless record until now. I just can't see the justification for ending that career over one fuck-up. But, again... the punishment does seem lighter than I expected. I was thinking that any fine associated with this should be enough to hurt a bit. Something like $250,000 or something. This amounts to a slap on the wrist. Just to clarify my position here: I do think this is a major fuck-up. Like, really major. To the extent that I think the punishment should not be "career ending" it's just a reflection of my seeing "career ending" punishments as something of a "nuclear option" that should be avoided in all but the absolute most extreme cases. I guess I would say that if punishments spanned a scale from 1-10 with "10" being "disbarment" then this should probably be about an 8 or 9 in my mind.
  - Ensorceled 3y ago
    An officer of the court notarized that they had reviewed the imaginary citations and that those imaginary citations were material to the case. This is a gross breach of ethics and, given how easy it is to look up cases and verify them, grossly incompetent and lazy. These people should not be practicing law.
- djur 3y ago
  The judge cannot disbar them, but the opinion provides all of the evidence necessary.
cmcaleer 3y ago
The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it. You’re not going to be able anyone’s name here for many years without this case coming up. The world at large has been watching this unfold gleefully. That, combined with the lawyers involved having decades-long clean slates, as well as this case being outside the normal realm this team would operate in, as well as ChatGPT being relatively new at the time this happened makes it all seem pretty proportional. Maybe you could say they deserve worse for how they handled things after they got caught, but I struggle to really have a problem with this punishment considering the records of those involved.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it. Both the fine and the public shaming are very light "punishments". Everyone's pointing and laughing now, but in a year nobody will even remember their name and their career will be fine.
  - sigstoat 3y ago
    local legal communities have long memories. they’ll be griefed about it at their retirement parties.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > local legal communities have long memories. So does Google, and anyone researching these lawyers or this firm in the future...
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Sure, but when you Google a lawyer's name and this comes up you may choose not to use him.
    - loeg 3y ago
      On the other hand, there are certain kinds of lawyer with low-research clients who won't suffer much from this, and these lawyers are likely that kind (representing a client suing Avianca for a drinks cart complaint).

s1artibartfast 3y ago

Why do you think that would be better than a warning or a fine?

JohnFen 3y ago
Because it wasn't just a simple mistake. It was such egregious professional negligence that it calls into question not only the basic competence of the attorney, but also their basic sense of ethics.
- cyrialize 3y ago
  To add onto this - the lawyers failed to verify their resources! This is something that every lawyer carefully pays attention to before submitting anything. The fact that they did no research on ChatGPT, and they didn't verify the output from ChatGPT, is pretty bad. They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT Yes, exactly. If they'd used a human intern instead of ChatGPT, it wouldn't change the situation at all.
    - furyofantares 3y ago
      Huh, I think it would? It's still really bad, the quality of the service the client got is still abysmal, and it's still ultimately the lawyer's responsibility. That much is certainly unchanged, it would also be considered a much more understandable mistake.
      - smcl 3y ago
        If they followed exactly the same processes (showing a screenshot of a text conversation saying "Is X a real case?" when challenged about the nonexistent cases) then I imagine they would have have been treated the same way. However they probably wouldn't have gone down that route, because they know "uhhhh I included those cases because my intern insisted they exist?" absolutely wouldn't fly. The difference is that they thought they could chance it because ChatGPT is a shiny, new thing that some people have a pretty mixed understanding of.

emilsedgh 3y ago

Why so eager to end someone's career? He did a lazy/stupid thing. People do far worse things. The client may want to sue them and seek damages or something and that'd be fair but I don't think their career should end. That's harsh.

AmVess 3y ago
Things like this is what causes lawyers to lose cases for their clients. Imagine being a client of a lawyer who uses ChatGPT. You lose the case and then your livelihood or worse. These twits should be disbarred, and without hesitation.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 3y ago
  > Imagine being a client of a lawyer who uses ChatGPT. You lose the case and then your livelihood or worse. This presupposes that the use of ChatGPT is the reason the case was lost. In this case, the judge found the mistake, called it out, and fined the lawyers for their carelessness. It doesn't necessarily follow that p1) ChatGPT was used, p2) Case was lost, c) Case would have been won if ChatGPT was not used.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    No, the use of ChatGPT is the only reason that they thought they had a colorable argument that the case could be won.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > Things like this is what causes lawyers to lose cases for their clients. Or to waste a lot of their clients money on cases that they should have known could not be won from the outset, as is the case here.
bell-cot 3y ago
What they did was the professional equivalent of a surgeon thinking "I wonder what'd happen if I chopped out this thingie?", then acting on that impulse, then lying about his actions.

Ekaros 3y ago

Or if not end career some real punishment like enough time (by USA standards couple decades) in prison.