A U.S. court suspended a lawyer who cited fake precedents created by artificial intelligence (AI) through the so-called ‘hallucination phenomenon’, which presents false information as if it were fact. The idea is that even if legal research is conducted through AI, lawyers still have a responsibility to carefully review the facts. It is pointed out that Korea also needs specific guidelines for lawyers using legal AI.
According to what The Law Times confirmed, on the 8th, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Florida suspended lawyer Thomas Grant Neusom, ordering him to stop practicing at the court for one year.
Mr. Newsom submitted a ‘case report’ to the court while carrying out a civil lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Florida in July of last year. The court determined that there were errors in the document, including incorrect labeling, and requested an investigation into the document by the Grievance Committee for the Central District of Florida. As a result of the committee's investigation, the cases and sources cited in the document were inaccurate and some precedents did not exist. There was also content that misquoted the meaning of actual precedents.
When questioned by the committee, Mr. Newsom said, “I used Westlaw and FastCase (when writing the document), and I may have used artificial intelligence in the drafting process,” adding, “But I did not use excerpts and quotations.” “I couldn’t confirm it,” he confessed. Westro is a local legal tech service that provides legal information search, and Fastcase provides precedent and news search and date management functions.
The committee pointed out, “We are aware that AI is becoming a new tool for legal research,” but “this does not eliminate lawyers’ responsibility to present accurate legal grounds to support legal claims and to work diligently.” did. He also said, “Some of what Mr. Newsom wrote was completely fabricated,” and “I could not find the precedents he mentioned through LexisNexis, Westero, or Internet searches.”
The court said, “Mr. Newsom violated the rules of the Florida Bar,” accepted the committee’s recommendation and banned him from practicing law for one year.
In the case of Korea, there are still no guidelines or guidelines at the bar organization level regarding the use of AI.