In a recently reported opinion, the Appellate Court of Maryland referred an attorney representing the appellee in a family law appeal to the Attorney Grievance Commission after the attorney filed a brief containing multiple fictitious, AI-generated citations. See Chukwuemeka Mezu v. Kristen Mezu, No. 361, Sept. Term 2025, Slip Op. (filed Oct. 29, 2025). The case arose from a family law dispute involving issues that, as the Appellate Court explained, would not have typically resulted in a reported opinion. However, the Court chose to publish the decision “as a warning to others” and to “address a problem that is recurring in courts around the country, i.e., the use of AI to draft briefs or other pleadings, resulting in incorrect, inaccurate, or fictitious case citations.” Id. at 2.
Specifically, the attorney for the appellee-mother (“Mother’s Counsel” or “Counsel”) submitted a brief containing “irregularities” including “citations to multiple fictious cases, as well as quoted passages and citations to cases that do not support the proposition for which they are cited.” See id. After reviewing the briefs in preparation for oral argument, the Appellate Court issued to Mother’s Counsel an Order to Show Cause (“OSC”) why he should not be sanctioned and/or referred to the Attorney Grievance Commission. The OSC further ordered Counsel to provide the Court with “a detailed explanation as to how Mother’s brief was generated, how counsel located the fictious cases, and why counsel cited cases that did not stand for the proposition cited.” See id. at 3.
In response, Mother’s Counsel explained that his non-attorney, law clerk assisted with the drafting of, and research for, the brief in this case. Counsel denied that he personally used AI. The law clerk, in turn, explained—via an affidavit—that she had located the “cases” on the internet by using Google’s ChatGPT and VLex, which generated a list of cases, including cases that were inaccurately cited and/or did not exist. See id. at 4. The law clerk also visited other legal websites, including Court Listener, CaseMine, and Justia, but stated that she was unaware that these websites utilized AI, or that the search results produced by these websites were the product of AI, until receiving the OSC.
Counsel subsequently revised the brief and asked his law clerk to review it to confirm that the citations were accurate. According to the affidavit, Counsel asked the law clerk “multiple times whether she checked the case citations, and the law clerk assured counsel that she had complied with his requests.” See id. at 4-5. However, the law clerk relied on ChatGPT to “review the citations for accuracy.” Id. at 4. The law clerk admitted that she “never advised counsel that she had been using AI, and counsel never advised her to either use or avoid the use of AI.” See id. at 5.
At oral argument, Mother’s Counsel asserted that he “was not involved directly in the research of the offending citations,” and was unable to explain to the Court how the cases were obtained without Lexis or Westlaw, after admitting to not having a subscription to those databases, because he “does very little appellate work.” See id. at 8-9. In response to the Court’s expressed concern that Counsel clearly did not read the cases before submitting his brief (as the fictious cases did not exist), Counsel answered that he “typically did not read cases he cites, but instead, relies on summaries found in treaties or on the internet.” Id. at 10.
Counsel subsequently acknowledged that, because he was the only lawyer involved in the case, and the one who signed and submitted the brief, he was responsible for the improper citations. Id. at 5. After receiving the OSC, both Counsel and the law clerk completed continuing legal education courses on the ethical use of AI, and Counsel implemented protocols for research and citation verification. See id. Counsel requested that, in light of his acceptance of responsibility and remediation, that this Court discharge the OSC, grant him leave to correct the brief, and decline referral to the Attorney Grievance Commission.
The Court’s Response
This case appears to be the first where the Maryland Appellate Court has addressed the problems that occur when lawyers use AI, without diligence required, in drafting briefs. Id. at 6. The Appellate Court notes that the “use of AI in a legal practice is not inherently problematic, and it may be a valuable too.” Id. at 6. However, “[t]he failure to use AI responsibly in legal research raises ethical issues and can result in sanctions when used improperly.” Id. “It is unquestionably improper for an attorney to submit a brief with fake cases generated by AI.” Id.
The Appellate Court explained that “[f]ake or nonexistent legal citations typically are the result of AI ‘hallucinations.’” Slip Op. at 6 (citing Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P., 336 Cal. Rptr. 3d 897, 911 (Cal. Ct. App. 2025)). “Hallucinations” occur because many AI models are designed to maximize the chance of giving an answer—any answer—even if the answer is incorrect rather than admitting it doesn’t know something. Id. (citing Conor Murray, Why AI ‘Hallucinations’ Are Worse Than Ever, Forbes (May 6, 2025), https://perma.cc/9RC2-CCEJ (last visited Dec. 31, 2025)). In the legal context, the Court explained that “AI hallucinations may occur more often when there is no case in support of a request, such as ‘when a lawyer asks a generative AI tool to supply a citation for an unsupported principle of law.’” Id. at 6-7. In some models, AI hallucinations can occur between “30-50% of the time,” generating fictitious cases containing “inaccurate depictions of information from AI models that suffer from incomplete, biased, or otherwise flawed training data.” See id. at 6-7.
The Court acknowledged that the citation of fake cases in a brief or other pleading filed with a court implicates multiple Maryland Rules, including, but certainly not limited to:
- Maryland Rule 1-311(b) (providing that “[t]he signature of an attorney on a pleading or paper constitutes a certification that the attorney has read the pleading or paper; that to the best of the attorney’s knowledge, information, and belief there is good ground to support it; and that it is not interposed for improper purpose or delay”). See id. at 7. The Appellate Court noted that Counsel’s conduct implicates this rule because he admitted that he did not read the cases cited, and instead, relied on his law clerk, a non-lawyer, who also clearly did not read the cases, which were fictitious.” Id. at 8.
- Maryland Rule 19-303.1 (mandating that an attorney “shall not bring or defend a proceeding or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless there is a basis for doing so that is not frivolous”). See id. at 8. The Court asserted that a “‘citation to a fake opinion does not provide a non-frivolous ground for’ bringing or defending a proceeding.” Id. (citing Mata v. Avianca, Inc., 678 F. Supp. 3d 443, 461 (S.D.N.Y. 2023)).
- Maryland Rule 19-303.3 (“An attorney shall not knowingly . . . make a false statement of fact or law to the tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal”). See id. at 9. The Court noted that “Counsel represented that he did not know that several of the cited cases were fictious or that others did not stand for the proposition cited. We have no basis to discredit that statement.” Id.
- Maryland Rule 19-301.1 (“An attorney shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation”). See id. at 8. A comment to this rule provides that “[c]ompetent handling of a particular matter includes inquiry into and analysis of the factual and legal elements of the problem, and the use of methods and procedures meeting the standards of competent practitioners” and “also includes adequate preparation.” Md. Rule 19-301.1 cmt. [5]. The Court found that Counsel’s conduct did not satisfy the requirement of competent representation. Id. at 8-9.
- Maryland Rule 19-305.3(b) (providing that “an attorney having direct supervisory authority of [a] non-attorney shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person’s conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the attorney”). Id. at 9. The Supreme Court of Maryland has further held that an attorney cannot escape responsibility for problems caused by an employee, as an attorney has an ethical obligation that all employees under his supervision perform their responsibility in a competent manner. See Att’y Grievance Comm’n v. Glenn, 341 Md. 448, 479 (1996). The Court found that Counsel’s supervision did not meet this standard. See id. at 9.
In determining how to respond to Counsel’s conduct, the Court looked to how other courts have responded to similar situations. The Court noted that courts across the country have issued sanctions, as well as referring the attorney for potential disciplinary proceedings, and ordering counsel to serve a copy of the court’s decision on the client.” See Slip Op. at 11-12. See e.g., Benjamin v. Costco Wholesale Corp., 779 F. Supp. 3d 341, 351 (E.D.N.Y. 2025) (sanction of $1,000 payable to the clerk of the court and order to serve copy of the court’s sanction order on the client); Wadsworth v. Walmart Inc., 348 F.R.D. 489, 498 (D. Wyo. 2025) (revoke pro hac vice status and sanction of $3,000 payable to the Registry of the Court); Gauthier v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., No. 1:23-CV-281, 2024 WL 4882651, at *3 (E.D. Tex. Nov. 25, 2024) (sanction of $2,000 as well as order to attend a continuing legal education course on the topic of generative AI and provide a copy of the sanction order to client); Garner v. Kadince, Inc., 571 P.3d 812, 816 (Utah Ct. App. 2025) (order to refund all fees charged to counsel’s client associated with the pleading, pay the opposing party’s attorney’s fees associated with responding to the pleading, and pay a $1,000 donation to “and Justice for all”).
As it relates to the appropriate sanction in the instant case, the Court concluded that:
[W]e have considered the nature and severity of the conduct in this case. The brief here did not contain an isolated instance of a citation mistake. Rather, it cited multiple cases that did not exist, as well as others that did not support the proposition for which they were cited. When asked at oral argument about the concern when a lawyer obviously has not read the cases cited to the court, counsel indicated that this was not a unique circumstance, stating that he typically did not read the cases he cited in pleadings submitted to the court. Based on all the circumstances, we shall refer this case to the Attorney Grievance Commission.
See Slip Op. at 13.
Take Aways
Attorneys must be extremely cautious about using AI generative tools in conducting legal research used in connection with any filing submitted to the court or other adjudicatory proceedings, including, and especially, when an attorney is responsible for supervising other attorneys or non-attorneys. It is imperative that anyone conducting research with the assistance of AI-generated tools check, and recheck, that the cases cited therein not only stand for the proposition for which they are cited, but also, in fact, exist.
Eccleston & Wolf recommends that lawyers and law firms implement a clear AI policy given to all staff members, delineating both the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI tools in conducting legal research, such as requiring disclosure of any use of AI generated tools, procedures for cite-checking AI-assisted legal research, and other proactive measures to address this growing problem upsetting the judicial system and legal profession as a whole. As the Mezu case makes unequivocally clear, the failure to do so may result not only in monetary sanctions and exposure to civil liability, but also could result in attorney disciplinary proceedings affecting the attorney’s license to practice law.