Mike Lindell's lawyers fined for AI-generated court filing

telcodad · 2025-07-09T19:08:08+00:00

Lawyers representing MyPillow’s CEO Mike Lindell were fined $6,000 after using AI in a brief that was riddled with misquotes and citations to fictional cases: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s lawyers fined for AI-generated court filing By Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY - July 8, 2025 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/07/08/mike-lindell-attorneys-fined-artificial-intelligence/84505633007/ A federal judge has ordered the attorneys for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell to pay fines for using artificial intelligence to prepare court documents that contained several errors, including citations to nonexistent cases and misquotations of cited cases. Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster, both attorneys for Lindell in his defamation case, violated court rules when they filed a motion on Feb. 25 that contained nearly 30 defective citations, Judge Nina Y. Wang of the U.S. District Court in Denver ruled Monday, July 7. The court order obtained by USA TODAY says Lindell’s attorneys filed the motion in response to an earlier motion filed by Eric Coomer, a former director at Dominion Voting Systems, who accused the MyPillow CEO of defaming him by helping spread a conspiracy theory that he rigged the election against President Donald Trump. ….

telcodad

broknsymetry https://websitedc.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Couvrette_v._Wisnoksy_USA_12_December_2025.pdf

The issue before the Court is the appropriate sanctions for Plaintiffs’ misuse of generative artificial intelligence and continual violations of the Local Rules. In briefing the cross-motions for summary judgment, Plaintiffs filed three briefs containing citations to fifteen non-existent cases and fabricated quotations falsely attributed to eight legitimate authorities. This Opinion does not include the names of the fictitious cases doctored by Plaintiffs, as doing so could inadvertently amplify the lie that these cases exist.

Wow, I wonder if it was some newbie or intern at the firm had leaned on AI to do research for this case?

px_eliezer_

telcodad

egeezer

telcodad Wow, I wonder if it was some newbie or intern at the firm had leaned on AI to do research for this case?

Don’t know the answer but would surmise that the client was billed for several hours of research time that may have only taken a few minutes in AI queries.

dave

telcodad

From article:

That’s because coding is fundamentally deterministic, meaning there are yes/no, right/wrong outcomes. In coding jobs, the software you’re building either works or it doesn’t.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding by non-programmers of what matters in programming. “It works” is merely the baseline requirement. Any half-competent code monkey can cut’n’paste his way to something that appears to work on the few test cases tried. Beyond that, what really matters is understandability, coherence to a design, maintainability, stability, security, compatibility, etc. I have yet to be convinced that an agentic LLM will not turn a large codebase into an unappetizing stew.

px_eliezer_

dave Beyond that, what really matters is understandability, coherence to a design, maintainability, stability, security, compatibility, etc.

Maybe what a mathematician refers to as an “elegant” solution to a problem, also sometimes called a “beautiful” solution.

For example:
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/11/vexing-math-problem-finds-elegant-solution

egeezer

dave what really matters is understandability, coherence to a design, maintainability, stability, security, compatibility, etc. I have yet to be convinced that an agentic LLM will not turn a large codebase into an unappetizing stew.

This is why I don’t see Anthropic’s AI tool to migrate COBOL as the miracle being promoted.

dave

px_eliezer_

Nothing so grand - this is all just because a computer program is never finished, and in fact will have a life spanning decades. So it better have those attributes I listed, as a practical matter.

egeezer

Somewhat-Reticent Clarke ordered the woman’s lawsuit dismissed with prejudice

That precedent would be a good diseincentive for lawyers to trust AI Atools without verification.

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