Lawyers in deep trouble for allegedly using AI to draft court papers

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A law firm has been left with legal egg on its face - and the possibility of a Legal Practice Council (LPC) investigation - for allegedly using "Google" and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to source what were non-existent legal citations in court proceedings.

GroundUp reports that Pietermaritzburg-based Surendra Singh and Associates has also been ordered to pay costs, from its own coffers, of two court hearings in September last year in which Judge Elsje-Marie Bezuidenhout, in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Pietermaritzburg, interrogated its court documents and references to case law.

From submissions and her own research, the judge concluded that "while the real source of the authorities quoted remain unknown" it was likely that the firm had relied on AI technology, which was "irresponsible and downright unprofessional".

Bezuidenhout referred her ruling to the LPC and "urged that it obtain a recording of the entire proceedings including any comments made before I entered court as well as submissions made by the various representatives of the applicant".

 
Good stuff

This AI shyte is going to be a huge issue in the years to come. Sure there are benefits but as everything things are used for peoples own devious purposes.
 
Surely these lawyers read about the case in the US...did they think they'd never be caught? Perhaps if the judge is asleep at the wheel...
They probably got away with it with judges Seegobin, Chili, Mngadi, Sibiya, Ncube, Mossop, Mlaba, Chithi and Jikela and then ran into judge Bezuidenhout
 
Considering who those lawyers were representing and how shady their responses are it’s not surprising they would use ChatGPT to build a case.
"The judge said she then stood the matter down to enable Mavundla's attorneys to go to the court library and get the cases.
When the matter was recalled, Suren Singh, the owner of the law firm, appeared. He said he could not get copies because the librarian wanted him to pay for copies "which he was not willing to do".

How daft could you be to use an excuse like that in court.
 
We can definitely expect to see more of this.

AI is a great tool in so many ways, but I've noticed lots of people and businesses using it to cut corners, which can't end well.

There's been an upswing in rubbish engagement on LinkedIn as a result of it too.
 
We can definitely expect to see more of this.

AI is a great tool in so many ways, but I've noticed lots of people and businesses using it to cut corners, which can't end well.

There's been an upswing in rubbish engagement on LinkedIn as a result of it too.
To ask AI to write everything is stupid. I have myself taken terms and conditions from one well rounded website and gave AI section per section to rewrite for one of the projects I was working on. I was able to plagiarise another sites terms without plagiarising. Read through the final draft and it was great. Covered everything it needed to cover and the other site would not be able to prove I copied their terms. Saved a ton on idiot lawyers who would have probably done the same. Some lawyers can even spell.

Using AI to cut corners in a commercial sense is good, in a professional sense is stupid. Not double checking even stupider.
 
To ask AI to write everything is stupid. I have myself taken terms and conditions from one well rounded website and gave AI section per section to rewrite for one of the projects I was working on. I was able to plagiarise another sites terms without plagiarising. Read through the final draft and it was great. Covered everything it needed to cover and the other site would not be able to prove I copied their terms. Saved a ton on idiot lawyers who would have probably done the same. Some lawyers can even spell.

Using AI to cut corners in a commercial sense is good, in a professional sense is stupid. Not double checking even stupider.

Yeah, I like to use it for things like minuting meetings - means you don't have to task some individual with doing it.

Anything contract related, norrafuk.
 
Well the flip side may be that with the uptake and inexorable progress of machine learning, lawyers could become less necessary?
 
Well the flip side may be that with the uptake and inexorable progress of machine learning, lawyers could become less necessary?

For routine or transactional matters definitely. I'm sure it has already had that effect.

For more complex matters, we're years away from a machine being able to do what an accomplished pair of advocates can achieve.
 
Well this is a step up!
Last time they did some work from me, they Googled and then copied and pasted onto their letter head from WikiPedia.
And charged me R1 200 bucks for it.
lawyers, like so many other professionals, are so incompetent its criminal

I see them along with doctors, dentists, auditors and crypto scammers all on the same level
 
lawyers, like so many other professionals, are so incompetent its criminal

I see them along with doctors, dentists, auditors and crypto scammers all on the same level

And yet when you see the type of legal advice that gets dished out on this forum, you understand why they're necessary.

I'd be interested to hear why you hate dentists though. 😂
 
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