Judge learns that lawyers on both sides of the case are using AI, cancels the trial and throws everyone off the case

The attorneys on both sides of a federal lawsuit in Mississippi were caught using artificial intelligencea situation where generative AI tools were effectively used to argue against each other. The judge wrote in a strong sanction order that the lawyers had wasted the court’s time and that “at a time of rampant, unproven AI use in the legal field, this case represents a prime example of the risk associated with acting as a rubber stamp.”

“This case presents the court with an unusual scenario – attorneys for both litigants have engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” Sharion Aycock, chief United States district judge for the Northern District of Mississippi, wrote in a sanctions order. “This court is once again ‘burdened with processing court files relating to AI hallucinations’.”

The case in question involved a contract dispute between attorney Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, over apparently unpaid legal fees (Withers was not…