A federal judge in Mississippi has disqualified both the plaintiff’s counsel and the defense counsel after each party filed briefs filled with artificial intelligence-generated mistakes in a dispute over attorney fees.

“This case presents the court with an unusual scenario—attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” said Senior U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock of the Northern District of Mississippi in her order.

Aycock removed Louisiana attorney Kathleen M. Wilson, who was admitted pro hac vice to represent another Louisiana attorney, Tom Withers III, in his breach of contract claim against the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, and Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway, a Mississippi attorney who appeared as local counsel for the plaintiff.

Aycock also removed Texas-based defense counsel Kathryn Y. Williams, who was admitted pro hac vice to represent the municipality, and Mark McClinton, who appeared as its local counsel.

After reviewing briefs submitted by both parties, “the court was unable to locate certain legal authorities cited within them,” Aycock wrote in her order. “Specifically, the court determined that [several] filings contained hallucinatory citations.”

Wilson and Williams, the out-of-state lawyers, admitted that the errors in their briefs were due to unverified AI use, according to the order. Ridgeway and McClinton, the local counsel for the parties, also admitted that they were unaware of their co-counsels’ use of AI and failed to review the briefs before signing them.

Aycock revoked Wilson’s and Williams’ pro hac vice statuses and barred them from appearing in the Northern District of Mississippi for two years. The judge also ordered all four attorneys to pay monetary sanctions, ranging from $1,000 each for the local counsel to $2,500 for Williams and $3,500 for Wilson.

“In an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubberstamp when acting as local counsel,” Aycock wrote.

 You can read more about this case  here.

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