AI and the Law

Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster were charged $3,000 each after they used artificial intelligence when filing their motion. This court filing was filled with errors, including citations to nonexistent cases and misquotation of case law—Judge Nina Y. Wang of the U.S. The District Court in Denver ruled.

“Notwithstanding any suggestion to the contrary, this Court derives no joy from sanctioning attorneys who appear before it,” Wang wrote in her ruling, adding that the sanction against Kachourouff and Demaster was “the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance.”

The motion was filed in Lindell’s defamation case, which was recently concluded when a Denver jury found him liable for defamation over false claims regarding the 2020 presidential election being rigged. According to the ruling, the filing misquoted court precedents and referenced legal principles that were not relevant to the case it cited.

Kachouroff admitted to using generative AI when drafting this motion in the pretrial hearing after errors were discovered. He initially told the judge that the filed motion was submitted by accident and that it was a draft. Wang noted that the final draft still had many “substantive errors”, including some that were not even in the first draft. The judge concluded that the filing of the AI-generated motion was not an “inadvertent error” and deserved sanction. The judge also said that by Kachouroff trying to “blindside” him over the errors was “troubling and not well-taken.”

“Neither Mr. Kachouroff nor Ms. DeMaster provided the Court any explanation as to how those citations appeared in any draft of the Opposition absent the use of generative artificial intelligence or gross carelessness by counsel,” Wang wrote.

Neither Kachouroff nor DeMaster immediately returned a request for comment.