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US lawyer sanctioned after court discovers false citations filed using ChatGPT

The Utah court found attorney Richard Bednar guilty of “submitting a petition that contained fake precedent generated by ChatGPT.”

The Utah court of appeals decided to impose sanctions on Richard Bednar, the attorney who was accused of filing a brief in the court which contained false citations which were created using ChatGPT. (Image credit: Vivek Umashankar/The Indian Express)

A lawyer from the US state of Utah has been sanctioned by the court of appeals after he was discovered to have used ChatGPT for a filing, which contained a nonexistent court case. The brief, which has landed the lawyer in a controversy, was written by a law clerk at the firm and it wasn’t reviewed before filing in Utah’s court of appeals.

The Utah court of appeals, in its decision earlier this week, had decided to impose sanctions on Richard Bednar, the attorney who was accused of filing a brief in the court which contained false citations which were created using ChatGPT.

The court documents reviewed by ABC4 showed Bednar and Douglas Durbano, another Utah-based attorney who was serving as the counsel for the petitioner, filed a “timely petition for interlocutory appeal.”

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But upon going through the brief which was written by a clerk of the law firm, the respondents counsel found several incorrect references and false citations that did not even exist.

According to court documents, the respondent’s counsel wrote “It appears that at least some portions of the Petition may be AI-generated, including citations and even quotations to at least one case that does not appear to exist in any legal database and could only be found in ChatGPT and references to cases that are wholly unrelated to the referenced subject matter,” The Guardian reported.

Also Read | Man uses ChatGPT as ‘lawyer’ to get Rs 2 lakh refund from hotel, airline; netizen says ‘you make the world a worse place’

The ABC4, citing Utah court of appeals, stated that Bednar acknowledged the errors which were present in the briefing filed by the law clerk on behalf of the law firm, and apologized.

The court found Bednar guilty of “submitting a petition that contained fake precedent generated by ChatGPT.”

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The court then ordered Bednar to pay the respondent’s attorney and hearing fees, refund the legal fees to their client and donate $1,000 to “And Justice For All”, a Utah-based non-profit legal organization within 14 days.

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