Few lawyers would be foolish enough to let an AI make their arguments, but one already did, and Judge Brantley Starr is taking steps to ensure that debacle isn’t repeated in his courtroom.
The Texas federal judge has added a requirement that any attorney appearing in his court must attest that “no portion of the filing was drafted by generative artificial intelligence,” or if it was, that it was checked “by a human being.”
Last week, attorney Steven Schwartz allowed ChatGPT to “supplement” his legal research in a recent federal filing, providing him with six cases and relevant precedent — all of which were completely hallucinated by the language model. He now “greatly regrets” doing this, and while the national coverage of this gaffe probably caused any other lawyers thinking of trying it to think again, Judge Starr isn’t taking any chances.
At the federal site for Texas’s Northern District, Starr has, like