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Attorney Fined $10,000 for Citing AI-Generated Fake Cases
Attorney Fined for Submitting AI-Generated Fake Cases
An Oregon court has issued a $10,000 fine to an attorney who submitted a legal brief containing citations and quotes hallucinated by AI. This marks the highest fine yet in the state for citing fake cases. The attorney, identified as Bill Ghiorso in Salem, submitted a brief to the Oregon Court of Appeals with 15 fake citations and nine fake quotes.
Ghiorso reportedly blamed a paralegal for the AI hallucinations and initially challenged the fine. Judges noted that Ghiorso's staff had asked Google if the cited cases were real, and the AI search engine affirmed their authenticity.
AI Reliability Concerns and Attorney Responsibility Emphasized
The Oregon Court of Appeals first fined another attorney for this practice in December 2025. A three-judge panel established a standard of $500 for each fake citation and $1,000 for each false quotation. While Ghiorso's total potential fine was $16,500, the judges capped it at $10,000.
The court stated that Ghiorso should have known that "submitting a brief with unchecked and ultimately fabricated citations may breach an attorney’s duties of professionalism, truthfulness, and candor to the court." This underscores the unreliability of Generative AI tools for fact-checking and emphasizes the attorney's responsibility to verify the accuracy of submitted documents.
*Source: Gizmodo (2026-03-26)*
