[andrewmg]

Some context: any litigator will have access to Westlaw or Lexis-Nexis to look up and verify cited authorities like cases. It’s considered bad practice, at best, to cite authorities that one has not reviewed—for example, case citations drawn from a treatise or article.

As a practical matter, it is inconceivable to me that the attorney here, at least upon being ordered by the court to provide copies of the cases he cited, did not look them up in West or Lexis and see that they don’t exist. That he appears to have pressed on at that point, and asked ChatGPT to generate them—which would take some pointed prompting—was just digging his own hole. That, more than anything, may warrant professional discipline.

[nightowl_games]

The precision with which you wrote this is refreshing. I'm guessing you're a lawyer?

There are interesting parallels between lawyering and programming.

I'm often surprised at how poorly many programmers write English.

I think I'd have been a good lawyer.