In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the MyPillow CEO, Michael Lindell lodged claims of fraud against Eric Coomer, former executive at Domino Voting Systems. Mr. Lindell was a very vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election had been stolen. Cooper Then sued Lindell for defamation. In June, a jury agreed with Mr. Coomer and awarded him $2.3 million. During this process, Mr. Lindell’s lawyers filed a brief with “30 defective citations,” according to U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang. The Judge said those defects included citations to cases that do not exist.

In April, Judge Wang ordered the two lawyers to show cause why they should not be sanctioned. Judge Wang said one of Lindell’s lawyers, Christopher I. Kachouroff, was “puzzlingly defiant” in tone and tenor at that hearing. Mr. Kachouroff says, no, he was simply taken by surprise at the hearing. The Judge sanctioned both of Mr. Lindell’s lawyers $3,000 each. She said the explanations of the two lawyers, absent the use of Artificial Intelligence or gross carelessness, did not make sense.

WrongBrief

Mr. Kachouroff claimed the wrong brief, a brief still in the draft stage had been filed. He blamed the error on the second lawyer, Jennifer T. DeMaster. Kachouroff said DeMaster saved a brief with the wrong file name. Mr. Kachouroff, however, was unable to show the correct brief. He said he does not save old briefs. The Judge pointed out that Mr. Kachouroff also filed Notices of defects in briefing in a second case in another jurisdiction. Mr. Kachouroff said he took full responsibility for the mistake. He added that he had no idea how incorrect citations found their way to the brief. See ABA Bar Journal report here for more information.

It is hard to imagine how this could have happened without a careless use of AI. Thirty incorrect citations is a lot. Thirty incorrect citations including some that do not exist cannot be explained other than due to AI.