Court Slaps Attorney With Record Fine For Citing Hallucinated AI Cases

In yet another cautionary tale for those working in the legal system, a Salem attorney has been hit with a $10,000 fine, the largest of its kind in Oregon, after submitting an appellate brief riddled with made-up citations generated by artificial intelligence.

The case (initially reported by Oregon Live) centers around attorney Bill Ghiorso, who submitted a brief to the Oregon Court of Appeals containing 15 entirely fabricated case citations and nine fake quotes. No doubt, AI integration into professional workflows has promised efficiency, but in this case (as well as so many others) the tech failed big time and doubled down on errors, falsely ringing up what it believed was actual case law.

The Oregon Court of Appeals had previously established a strict penalty structure for such negligence: $500 for each fake citation ...