Your Lawyer Cited Cases That Do Not Exist. AI Did That. Your Case May Have Paid for It.
You finally got a lawyer working on your case. The filing was submitted. Then you found out the brief cited cases that do not exist. The lawyer used an AI tool to help draft it and did not check the citations.
This happens. Courts across the country are confronting it with increasing frequency -and the consequences land on the client as much as on the attorney.
Under California Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3, a lawyer has a duty of candor to the tribunal, which includes the obligation not to make a false statement of fact or law to a court. The same obligation exists under Rule 3.4. These rules do not change because AI was involved in the drafting. An attorney who submits a brief containing fabricated case citations has violated these obligations – and courts are now imposing sanctions, monetary penalties, and in some jurisdictions, multi-year suspensions from appearing before specific courts.
Courts have organized their responses into recognizable patterns. Some judges have prohibited AI use during hearings and in court submissions altogether. Others require disclosure of which AI tool was used and which portions of a submission it generated. The most common approach requires a certification that the attorney independently verified that every cited authority exists and is accurately represented. Effective June 1, 2026, the New York State Unified Court System adopted Part 161, a statewide model rule reinforcing attorneys’ existing verification obligations for AI-assisted filings. California has not yet adopted a comparable statewide court rule, but the professional conduct obligations under California Rule of Professional Conduct 3.3 already require the same verification.
The practical question for employees with active cases: how do you know whether your attorney is verifying AI-generated content before it is filed? You can ask. Directly. What tool was used? How were citations verified? What is the firm’s protocol for AI-assisted drafting? A lawyer who cannot answer those questions clearly is a lawyer who may not have a protocol.
If a brief in your case was filed with fabricated citations, the consequences range from a motion to strike to sanctions to the case being dismissed or adversely affected. The attorney’s professional conduct violation does not necessarily give you a malpractice claim – that turns on whether the error caused you actual harm, which is a separate and fact-specific analysis.
If the pattern sounds familiar, contact Michael Trust Law, APC for a no-charge initial consultation. The facts determine whether you have a claim – and how much of a conversation that takes.
This post shares general information based on common patterns I see in California workplaces. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and outcomes depend on specific facts – no lawyer can guarantee a result. Past results do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. AI may have been used to create this post. All content reviewed by a CA attorney before publication.