Colorado lawyer suspended for a year and a day, 90 days served, after filing a motion with fictitious ChatGPT case citations and blaming an intern

The motion. According to the Presiding Disciplinary Judge's summary, a client hired the lawyer in April 2023 to prepare a motion to set aside a judgment in a civil case. The lawyer, who had never drafted such a motion, "cited case law that he found through the artificial intelligence platform, ChatGPT" and did not read the cases or check the citations. Law Week Colorado reported that the motion, filed on 4 May, cited three Colorado Court of Appeals decisions that did not exist, and that he had been "overwhelmingly impressed" by ChatGPT after it answered test questions accurately. In the affidavit he wrote: "it never even dawned on me that this technology could be deceptive".

The hearing. Before the hearing he discovered the cases were incorrect or fictitious. Law Week Colorado quotes a message he sent a paralegal that morning: "I think all my cases cited from chatGPT are garbage". He did not alert the court or withdraw the motion, and when the judge expressed concerns he falsely attributed the mistakes to a legal intern. Six days after the hearing he filed an affidavit explaining that he had used ChatGPT. The judge denied the motion, ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned and reported to the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel, and later stated that the denial was not based on the made-up cases.

Discipline. The Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a stipulated suspension of one year and one day, with 90 days to be served and the remainder stayed on two years of probation, finding violations of Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct 1.1, 1.3, 3.3(a)(1) and 8.4(c).

A lawyer who relied on unchecked ChatGPT case citations, then misled the court about them, was suspended from practice for a year and a day, with 90 days served, by Colorado's Presiding Disciplinary Judge.

On 22 November 2023 the Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved the parties' stipulation to discipline and suspended the lawyer for one year and one day, with 90 days to be served and the remainder stayed on completion of two years of probation with conditions, effective that day. The trial judge had earlier denied the motion, stating the denial was not based on the fabricated cases. Law Week Colorado reported in June 2023 that he had withdrawn as counsel in the case on 9 June and was no longer listed on his firm's website; the firm did not answer questions about whether he was still employed.