Florida Court Warns Attorneys: Verify AI-Generated Citations or Face Discipline
Russell v. Mells, Fla. 2d DCA, No. 2D2024-1560, 2025 WL 3533637, Dec. 10, 2025
More and more, judges are referring attorneys to the bar for discipline for lapses in professional conduct when using generative artificial intelligence to perform legal research without verifying the caselaw cited to the court. Recently, the Second District Court of Appeal in Florida referred appellate counsel to the Florida Bar for citing imaginary legal authorities as if they were law.
The Court of Appeal addressed two issues. In the first, the court reversed the trial court’s denial of the plaintiff’s motion for leave to amend her complaint. The court then addressed the appellee’s briefing where the attorney cited three cases. Two were actual, published cases but quoted text from other cases. The third citation was to a non-existent case. The court issued an order directing counsel to explain how the case citations and quotes were generated. The attorney explained that all three case citations were the product of computer generated searches which she failed to verify. The attorney went on to state that the errors were not substantive, there was Florida case law that supported the substance of her arguments and there was no intent to mislead the court. The court was unpersuaded. Noting the increasing frequency of attorneys’ reliance on artificial intelligence without verification, the panel was compelled to report the attorney to the Florida Bar.
Attorneys are required to practice with competence and candor. Those ethical requirements are not excused because a computer program generated faulty or misleading legal analysis, or the attorney did not intend to mislead the court. It is a fundamental duty of all attorneys to read and confirm that the authorities cited stand for the propositions for which they are cited.
The court closed with the following warning: Efficiency, expertise, and cost savings are some of the reasons why attorneys delegate work and use technological tools such as generative artificial intelligence in representing their clients. But his case is another reminder that an attorney who does so remains responsible for the work product that is generated.
