Treat Generative AI Like a New Hire, Not an Expert

John Buchanan co-authored an American Bar Association Litigation Section article examining how courts are responding to AI-fabricated filings and what those responses mean for lawyers' duties of candor, competence, and supervision.

The article surveys the growing patchwork of judicial rules governing generative AI, from Judge Brantley Starr's 2023 certification requirement in the Northern District of Texas to New York's Administrative Rule 161 and the Florida Supreme Court's amended Rule 2.515. John and his co-author note that a database maintained by researcher Damien Charlotin has logged more than 1,600 decisions worldwide addressing AI-fabricated material as of June 2026, "and the count climbs daily." Recent sanctions cited in the piece include a $10,000 penalty and state bar referral in California's Noland v. Land of the Free, a $5,000 fine from the Seventh Circuit in Perez-Castillo v. Blanche for a brief containing two dozen fabricated quotations, and a Mississippi federal judge's decision in Withers v. Aberdeen disqualifying and fining both local and pro hac counsel while barring the pro hac lawyer from the court for two years.

The article's central point is that whatever tools a lawyer uses, "when we sign a filing, we make it our statement, not a machine's.”