{"id":249977,"date":"2025-09-23T21:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249977\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T21:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:57:13","slug":"l-a-attorney-fined-10k-for-using-chatgpt-in-legal-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/249977\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A. Attorney Fined $10K for Using ChatGPT in Legal Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Los Angeles attorney used AI to improve his appeal, but he didn\u2019t know ChatGPT would make up evidence in the process<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"low\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/los-angeles-usa-april-5-2014-hall-of-justice-in-los-angeles-the-courthouse-is-one-of-oldest-survivin.webp\" alt=\"The Hall of Justice\" class=\"wp-image-41306\"  \/>The Hall of JusticeCredit: Courtesy Tupungato via Adobe Stock<\/p>\n<p>A Los Angeles attorney has been hit with a historic $10,000 fine after submitting an appeal containing information fabricated by ChatGPT.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This marks the largest fine ever issued in California over AI use so far.<\/p>\n<p>According to the opinion, the appeal contained evidence that was attributed to sources that either did not have the quotations or referred to cases that did not exist entirely. Additionally, of the 23 quotes from the case cited, 21 were found to be made up,\u00a0according to the court opinion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations\u2014whether provided by generative AI,\u201d stated the <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www4.courts.ca.gov\/opinions\/documents\/B331918.PDF\">document<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Amir Mostafavi, the attorney fined last week, told the court that he had used ChatGPT to improve his appeal and did not read it over before submitting it in July 2023.\u00a0 A three-judge panel fined him for frivolous appeal, violating court rules, citing fake cases, and for wasting the court\u2019s time and taxpayer dollars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe therefore publish this opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations\u2014whether provided by generative AI,\u201d stated the <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www4.courts.ca.gov\/opinions\/documents\/B331918.PDF\">document<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Mostafavi told <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/economy\/technology\/2025\/09\/chatgpt-lawyer-fine-ai-regulation\/\">Calmatters<\/a> that it is unrealistic to expect lawyers not to use AI. Comparing it to how online databases have replaced law libraries.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center is-style-altfont has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color has-xs-font-size wp-elements-a392843e06eac12cec56e735f4f8219f has-lg-margin-top\" style=\"letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase\">Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the meantime we\u2019re going to have some victims, we\u2019re going to have some damages, we\u2019re going to have some wreckages,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope this example will help others not fall into the hole. I\u2019m paying the price.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>California is not alone in having issues with AI in legal proceedings. There have been a number of other cases across the nation of attorneys and other legal professionals getting caught using AI. Like in <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nj.com\/bergen\/2025\/09\/what-this-nj-lawyer-did-with-ai-landed-him-a-hefty-fine-and-a-warning-to-all-attorneys.html\">New Jersey<\/a> this week, where another attorney was hit with a $3000 fine for basically the same reason as here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Los Angeles attorney used AI to improve his appeal, but he didn\u2019t know ChatGPT would make up&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":249978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[691,1582,276,302,2961,379,224,5337],"class_list":{"0":"post-249977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-chatgpt","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-lawsuit","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115255853343041620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}