Sanctions for AI Use

Two attorneys representing the infamous MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell, were recently ordered to each pay a $3,000 fine after using artificial intelligence to produce a case filing. Together, attorneys Christopher Kachouroff and Jennifer DeMaster filed a motion with nearly 30 defective citations. This included misquotations of case law, citations to nonexistent cases, and various other errors.

This took place during Lindell’s defamation case in Dever, which he lost for falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

After the errors were discovered, Kachouroff told Judge Nina Y. Wang that the poorly-made motion was a draft that was filed by accident. He further added that the Court’s accusations were an attempt to “blindside” him. However, when the “final” version of the motion was turned in, it appeared to contain even more errors than the original.

One would expect avid AI users to be able to come up with a better lie than that.

Thus, after lying to the judge and then coming clean in a pretrial hearing, Judge Wang decided to issue the $3,000 sanctions. In the ruling, Wang wrote:

“Notwithstanding any suggestion to the contrary, this Court derives no joy from sanctioning attorneys who appear before it,” and that the fines were “the least severe sanction adequate to deter and punish defense counsel in this instance.”

Unfortunately for Mike Lindell, it seems that even celebrity lawyers are not immune to the temptation of AI’s expansion into white collar work.