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
A Colorado lawyer who had recently moved into civil litigation used ChatGPT in April and May 2023 to find case law for a client's motion to set aside a judgment and cited three Colorado Court of Appeals decisions that did not exist, without reading or checking them. On the morning of the 5 May hearing he realised the cases were fabricated but did not tell the court or withdraw the motion, and when the judge raised concerns he falsely blamed a legal intern; six days later he filed an affidavit saying he had used ChatGPT. The judge denied the motion, said the denial did not rest on the invented cases, and ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned and reported to attorney regulators. On 22 November 2023 Colorado's Presiding Disciplinary Judge approved a stipulation suspending him for one year and one day, with 90 days served and the rest stayed on two years' probation, for violating rules on competence, diligence, candour to the tribunal and honesty.
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 26/10/2026