A retired California judge overseeing former Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s lawsuit against State Farm discovered her law firms used artificial intelligence (AI) to generate citations—twice—resulting in a hefty fine.
Lacey was represented by legal powerhouse K&L Gates and Ellis George LLP in a lawsuit against State Farm, alleging the company refused to provide a legal defense for her late husband, who faced a civil suit after pointing a gun at a group of unarmed activists on the couple’s front porch in March 2020.
Retired Judge Michael Wilner wrote in a May 6 order that Lacey’s team submitted briefs “that contained bogus AI-generated research.” He discovered that a “supplemental brief contained numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations… approximately nine of the 27 legal citations in the ten-page brief were incorrect in some way.” He added at least two authorities cited did not exist and several quotes were misattributed and “phony.”…