🗣️ SHOUT OUT: ⏰ Last Call: The Bellwether AI Litigator Summit Starts Tomorrow — And I'm Demonstrating Perplexity for Litigation Research on September 18 ⚖️🤖

The program runs from september 17 through the 18th - hope to see you there!!!

Two weeks ago, I told you about Carolyn Elefant's Be the Bellwether AI Litigator Summit. Now I am telling you it starts tomorrow. 🗓️

If you meant to register and life intervened, this is your reminder. Registration remains open, and the program runs online September 17–18, 2026. My full write-up is here: 🗣️ Shout Out! Carolyn Elefant's "Be the Bellwether AI Litigator" Summit — And Why I'm Demonstrating Perplexity for Litigation Research on September 17-18.

Three Numbers Worth Your Attention 📊

Carolyn's program page now publishes figures that should stop any litigator mid-scroll.

1,800+ judicial decisions since 2023 involving alleged or established AI-generated hallucinations in court filings. 800+ court orders, local rules, and judicial decisions addressing AI use. 20+ decisions addressing AI, privilege, and confidentiality.

Read those again. This is no longer an emerging issue. It is a developed body of law that most of us have not read. 😬

Why the Ethics Framing Matters ⚖️

I keep returning to the Model Rules because they are the through-line.

Model Rule 1.1, Comment 8 makes technology competence an ethical duty. Forty-one jurisdictions have adopted it. Eighteen hundred hallucination decisions are, at bottom, eighteen hundred competence failures.

Model Rule 3.3 requires candor toward the tribunal. The duty to correct a false statement continues until the proceeding concludes. That is why those 1,800 decisions exist — not because AI made errors, but because lawyers filed them unverified. I unpacked the remedial protocol in 🪙🪙 MTC: When Reputable Databases Fail: What Lawyers Must Do After AI Hallucinations Reach the Court. Stanford's research put Lexis+ AI at a 17% hallucination rate and Westlaw's AI-Assisted Research near 34%. A subscription is not a safe harbor. 🚨

Model Rule 1.6 and ABA Formal Opinion 512 govern what you feed a chatbot. Those 20+ privilege decisions are courts deciding whether AI-assisted work stays protected. Nathan Gaffney's Day One session addresses exactly that, and Hilary Gerzhoy and Professor Jonah Perlin follow with platform selection, vendor terms, and retention.

Model Rules 5.1 and 5.3 put supervision on you. Your associate's hallucination is your hallucination.

Model Rule 8.4(c) reaches dishonesty and misrepresentation — squarely implicated as altered and generated evidence arrives in court. I walked through that terrain with Professor Jennifer Wondracek's students in 🎙️ TSL.P EP# 132: AI, Deepfakes, and Metadata, including the terminating sanctions in Mendones v. Cushman & Wakefield.

What Happens Thursday 👨‍⚖️

Day One carries the theme "Courts, Consequences, and Litigation Judgment." Carolyn opens at 10:00 a.m. with her survey of the 800+ standing orders. Adam Feldman follows on the hallucination cases. Shlomo Klapper and the Hon. Brian D. Palmucci bring the view from the bench at 1:00 p.m. Will Moye tells an expert's ChatGPT war story. Nick Rishwain covers expert prompts and disqualification risk. Christopher Kercher closes on the AI-native litigation firm.

Day Two is ten practicing litigators sharing screens on real matters. Porter Heath Morgan on in-house litigation management. Sarah Bashir on family law. John Stobart using Claude at trial. Regina Edwards on discovery. E. Aaron Cartright III generating thirteen litigation documents from one structured input. Arthur Rothrock running a case start to finish. Jim White on Obsidian. C. Todd Smith on Copilot. Descrybe.ai on emerging research tools.

And me, at 11:00 a.m. on September 18, demonstrating Perplexity for litigation research. Ten minutes of live screen share, five minutes of Q&A. 🔍

What I Will Actually Show You 💻

Not a product pitch. A workflow.

How I build a research query. How I evaluate what comes back. And — this is the part that matters — the verification loop that follows every single output. Reading the underlying authority is not negotiable. Regular listeners of The Tech-Savvy Lawyer.Page Podcast know my rule: AI drafts are hypotheses, never answers. 🧪

Every Day Two demonstration answers four questions. What problem was the lawyer solving? What did AI actually do? Where did it fail? What did the lawyer have to verify?

That third question is the one no vendor will answer honestly. It is the reason this program is worth your afternoon.

Register Today 🎟️

Every participant receives the Bellwether Litigator Resource Kit — court AI-order tracking, pre-filing verification, citation and quotation checking, confidentiality and privilege guidance, protective orders, expert AI use, vendor due diligence, workflow design, and human-review protocols.

That kit alone justifies the $249. The judges and the screen shares are the bonus.

Register at the Bellwether AI Litigator summit page or through Eventbrite.bellwether-ai-litigator.vercel

See you tomorrow. Say hello during my Q&A. 👋

MTC: Judicial Warnings - Courts Intensify AI Verification Standards for Legal Practice ⚖️

Lawyers always need to check their work - AI is not infalable!

The legal profession faces an unprecedented challenge as federal courts nationwide impose increasingly harsh sanctions on attorneys who submit AI-generated hallucinated case law without proper verification. Recent court decisions demonstrate that judicial patience for unchecked artificial intelligence use has reached a breaking point, with sanctions extending far beyond monetary penalties to include professional disbarment recommendations and public censure. The August 2025 Mavy v. Commissioner of SSA case exemplifies this trend, where an Arizona federal judge imposed comprehensive sanctions including revocation of pro hac vice status and mandatory notification to state bar authorities for fabricated case citations.

The Growing Pattern of AI-Related Sanctions

Courts across the United States have documented a troubling pattern of attorneys submitting briefs containing non-existent case citations generated by artificial intelligence tools. The landmark Mata v. Avianca case established the foundation with a $5,000 fine, but subsequent decisions reveal escalating consequences. Recent sanctions include a Wyoming federal court's revocation of an attorney's pro hac vice admission after discovering eight of nine cited cases were AI hallucinations, and an Alabama federal court's decision to disqualify three Butler Snow attorneys from representation while referring them to state bar disciplinary proceedings.

The Mavy case demonstrates how systematic citation failures can trigger comprehensive judicial response. Judge Alison S. Bachus found that of 19 case citations in attorney Maren Bam's opening brief, only 5 to 7 cases existed and supported their stated propositions. The court identified three completely fabricated cases attributed to actual Arizona federal judges, including Hobbs v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. Admin., Brown v. Colvin, and Wofford v. Berryhill—none of which existed in legal databases.

Essential Verification Protocols

Lawyers if you fail to check your work when using AI, your professional career could be in jeopardy!

Legal professionals must recognize that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 requires attorneys to certify the accuracy of all court filings, regardless of their preparation method. This obligation extends to AI-assisted research and document preparation. Courts consistently emphasize that while AI use is acceptable, verification remains mandatory and non-negotiable.

The professional responsibility framework requires lawyers to independently verify every AI-suggested citation using official legal databases before submission. This includes cross-referencing case numbers, reviewing actual case holdings, and confirming that quoted material appears in the referenced decisions. The Alaska Bar Association's recent Ethics Opinion 2025-1 reinforces that confidentiality concerns also arise when specific prompts to AI tools reveal client information.

Best Practices for Technology Integration 📱

Technology-enabled practice enhancement requires structured verification protocols. Successful integration involves implementing retrieval-based legal AI systems that cite original sources alongside their outputs, maintaining human oversight for all AI-generated content, and establishing peer review processes for critical filings. Legal professionals should favor platforms that provide transparent citation practices and security compliance standards.

The North Carolina State Bar's 2024 Formal Ethics Opinion emphasizes that lawyers employing AI tools must educate themselves on associated benefits and risks while ensuring client information security. This competency standard requires ongoing education about AI capabilities, limitations, and proper implementation within ethical guidelines.

Consequences of Non-Compliance ⚠️

Recent sanctions demonstrate that monetary penalties represent only the beginning of potential consequences. Courts now impose comprehensive remedial measures including striking deficient briefs, removing attorneys from cases, requiring individual apology letters to falsely attributed judges, and forwarding sanction orders to state bar associations for disciplinary review. The Arizona court's requirement that attorney Bam notify every judge presiding over her active cases illustrates how sanctions can impact entire legal practices.

Professional discipline referrals create lasting reputational consequences that extend beyond individual cases. The Second Circuit's decision in Park v. Kim established that Rule 11 duties require attorneys to "read, and thereby confirm the existence and validity of, the legal authorities on which they rely". Failure to meet this standard reveals inadequate legal reasoning and can justify severe sanctions.

Final Thoughts - The Path Forward 🚀

Be a smart lawyer. USe AI wisely. Always check your work!

The ABA Journal's coverage of cases showing "justifiable kindness" for attorneys facing personal tragedies while committing AI errors highlights judicial recognition of human circumstances, but courts consistently maintain that personal difficulties do not excuse professional obligations. The trend toward harsher sanctions reflects judicial concern that lenient approaches have proven ineffective as deterrents.

Legal professionals must embrace transparent verification practices while acknowledging mistakes promptly when they occur. Courts consistently show greater leniency toward attorneys who immediately admit errors rather than attempting to defend indefensible positions. This approach maintains client trust while demonstrating professional integrity.

The evolving landscape requires legal professionals to balance technological innovation with fundamental ethical obligations. As Stanford research indicates that legal AI models hallucinate in approximately one out of six benchmarking queries, the imperative for rigorous verification becomes even more critical. Success in this environment demands both technological literacy and unwavering commitment to professional standards that have governed legal practice for generations.

MTC

MTC: Trump's 28-Page AI Action Plan - Reshaping Legal Practice, Client Protection, and Risk Management in 2025 ⚖️🤖

The July 23, 2025, release of President Trump's comprehensive "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan" represents a watershed moment for the legal profession, fundamentally reshaping how attorneys will practice law, protect client interests, and navigate the complex landscape of AI-enabled legal services. This 28-page blueprint, containing over 90 federal policy actions across three strategic pillars, promises to accelerate AI adoption while creating new challenges for legal professionals who must balance innovation with ethical responsibility.

What does Trump’s ai action plan mean for the practice of law?

Accelerated AI Integration and Deregulatory Impact

The Action Plan's aggressive deregulatory stance will dramatically accelerate AI adoption across law firms by removing federal barriers that previously constrained AI development and deployment. The Administration's directive to "identify, revise, or repeal regulations, rules, memoranda, administrative orders, guidance documents, policy statements, and interagency agreements that unnecessarily hinder AI development" will create a more permissive environment for legal technology innovation. This deregulatory approach extends to federal funding decisions, with the plan calling for limiting AI-related federal deemed "burdensome" to AI development.

For legal practitioners, this means faster access to sophisticated AI tools for document review, legal research, contract analysis, and predictive litigation analytics. The plan's endorsement of open-source and open-weight AI models will particularly benefit smaller firms that previously lacked access to expensive proprietary systems. However, this rapid deployment environment places greater responsibility on individual attorneys to implement proper oversight and verification protocols.

Enhanced Client Protection Obligations

The Action Plan's emphasis on "truth-seeking" AI models that are "free from top-down ideological bias" creates new client protection imperatives for attorneys. Under the plan's framework, (at least federal) lawyers must now ensure that AI tools used in client representation meet federal standards for objectivity and accuracy. This requirement aligns with existing ABA Formal Opinion 512, which mandates that attorneys maintain competence in understanding AI capabilities and limitations.

Legal professionals face (continued yet) heightened obligations to protect client confidentiality when using AI systems, particularly as the plan encourages broader AI adoption without corresponding privacy safeguards. Attorneys must implement robust data security protocols and carefully evaluate third-party AI providers' confidentiality protections before integrating these tools into client representations.

Critical Error Prevention and Professional Liability

What are the pros and cons to trump’s new ai plan?

The Action Plan's deregulatory approach paradoxically increases attorneys' responsibility for preventing AI-driven errors and hallucinations. Recent Stanford research reveals that even specialized legal AI tools produce incorrect information 17-34% of the time, with some systems generating fabricated case citations that appear authoritative but are entirely fictitious. The plan's call to adapt the Federal Rules of Evidence for AI-generated material means courts will increasingly encounter authenticity and reliability challenges.

Legal professionals must establish comprehensive verification protocols to prevent the submission of AI-generated false citations or legal authorities, which have already resulted in sanctions and malpractice claims across multiple jurisdictions. The Action Plan's emphasis on rapid AI deployment without corresponding safety frameworks makes attorney oversight more critical than ever for preventing professional misconduct and protecting client interests.

Federal Preemption and Compliance Complexity

Perhaps most significantly, the Action Plan's aggressive stance against state AI regulation creates unprecedented compliance challenges for legal practitioners operating across multiple jurisdictions. President Trump's declaration that "we need one common-sense federal standard that supersedes all states" signals potential federal legislation to preempt state authority over AI governance. This federal-state tension could lead to prolonged legal battles that create uncertainty for attorneys serving clients nationwide.

The plan's directive for agencies to factor state-level AI regulatory climates into federal funding decisions adds another layer of complexity, potentially creating a fractured regulatory landscape until federal preemption is resolved. Attorneys must navigate between conflicting federal deregulatory objectives and existing state AI protection laws, particularly in areas affecting employment, healthcare, and criminal justice, where AI bias concerns remain paramount. (All the while following their start bar ethics rules).

Strategic Implications for Legal Practice

Lawyers must remain vigilAnt when using AI in their work!

The Action Plan fundamentally transforms the legal profession's relationship with AI technology, moving from cautious adoption to aggressive implementation. While this creates opportunities for enhanced efficiency and client service, it also demands that attorneys develop new competencies in AI oversight, bias detection, and error prevention. Legal professionals who successfully adapt to this new environment will gain competitive advantages, while those who fail to implement proper safeguards face increased malpractice exposure and professional liability risks.

The plan's vision of AI-powered legal services requires attorneys to become sophisticated technology managers while maintaining their fundamental duty to provide competent, ethical representation. Success in this new landscape will depend on lawyers' ability to harness AI's capabilities while implementing robust human oversight and quality control measures to protect both client interests and professional integrity.

MTC