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Time of India
31-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
US lawyer uses ChatGPT to cite fake legal cases: Judge imposes fine; warns ChatGPT can write a story, but…
A bankruptcy lawyer in the US has been fined after using ChatGPT to cite fake legal cases in court. According to a PCGamer report, Thomas Nield, an attorney from Semrad Law Firm, was found to have submitted four fabricated case citations while representing a client in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy case. As per the report, the matter came to light when Judge Michael Slade reviewed Nield's filings and spotted multiple inconsistencies. 'In sum, what happened here is that Mr Nield cited four cases for a proposition of law, but none of them exist as alleged in his brief,' the judge said. Lawyer admits using AI The report says that Thomas Nield admitted to using AI to assist with the legal brief. He told the publication: ''I think the citation element of these cases, I guess, was—I ran it through AI to some extent, but I didn't think that the citation was wrong.' Nield told the court he had never used AI before for legal research and did not verify the output because he trusted the program's accuracy. 'He assumed that an AI program would not fabricate quotes entirely,' the court noted. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Mini House for 60 sqm for Seniors with Toilet and Bath (Price May Surprise You) Pre Fabricated Homes | Search Ads Search Now Undo Judge Slade raised concerns over use of AI in the legal environment, saying this practice was "unacceptable". He said 'At this point, to be blunt, any lawyer unaware that using generative AI platforms to do legal research is playing with fire is living in a cloud.' He said: 'The bottom line is this: at this point, no lawyer should be using ChatGPT or any other generative AI product to perform research without verifying the results. Period.' He added that tools like ChatGPT 'can write a story that reads like it was written by Stephen King (but wasn't) or pen a song that sounds like it was written by Taylor Swift (but wasn't). But they can't do your legal research for you. ChatGPT does not access legal databases like Westlaw or Lexis, draft and input a query, review and analyze each of the results, determine which results are on point, and then compose an accurate, Bluebook-conforming citation to the right cases.' Four fake cases flagged by the court The PC Gamer report lists four fake citations that the bankruptcy lawyer used in the legal case. These include: In re Montoya: The quote did not appear in the actual case, and the case did not discuss the issue cited. In re Coleman: The case was cited with the wrong jurisdiction and included a quote not found in the opinion. In re Russell: Wrong court location and no relevance to the legal argument. In re Jager: This case simply 'does not exist.' According to Judge Slade, none of the quotations matched actual court opinions. None of the quotes matched actual court opinions, and some of the cited cases were entirely fictional. 'None of the quotations relied upon in the Semrad brief are actual statements written by any court,' said Judge Slade. Judge fines law firm Lawyer Thomas Nield and Semrad Law Firm admitted to the mistake, promised not to repeat it, withdrew their request for legal fees, and completed a legal education course. However, Judge Slade ruled that 'there must be consequences.' He ordered the firm to pay a $5,500 fine and required Nield and a senior attorney from the firm to attend a mandatory AI ethics session at the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Calling the $5,500 fine a 'modest sanction,' the judge warned future offenders: 'The next lawyer who does the same thing is warned that he or she will likely see a more significant penalty.' Sony WF-C710N Review: Solid Sound and Long Battery
Chicago Tribune
03-07-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
After nearly a quarter century helping run the La Grange library, a chapter is ending for longtime trustee
After dedicating her entire working life to libraries, La Grange Library Trustee Becky Spratford has decided that after 24 years, it's time to end the chapter and retire. Spratford is no longer a librarian and is retiring from her board role, but she said she's still committed to serving the community. 'I feel really good about stepping away,' Spratford said. 'I'm going to stay involved because I love the library. I'm very involved with Pillars (Community Health), my husband and I are extremely involved, both financially and with our time.' Spratford was born in New Jersey and went to Amherst College, where she earned a bachelor's degree in American Studies and met her husband, Eric Spratford, now a doctor practicing out of Westchester. They married in 1998 and moved to La Grange the same year, where she began working for the law libraries of two separate law firms in Chicago. 'It was a really fun time to be in law libraries because it was the end of the Twentieth Century,' Spratford said. 'Westlaw, Lexis, all the databases for them to use … it was the switching from doing the book research to computer research and we were the ones that had to do it for them. So we were involved in all the fun stuff. It was a great training ground when I went to Dominican to get my masters degree in Library Information Science.' In the Summer of 2000, Spratford got her first official job as a certified librarian at the Berwyn Public Library. But she was also looking for an opportunity to give back to the community, which led her to throw her hat into the ring for an open seat on the La Grange library's Board of Trustees. 'I was looking for places to volunteer,' she said. 'I noticed in the fall that the Citizens Council was looking for someone to run for the Library Board, and I thought, well, I'm going to try this. I never thought of myself as a politician, but I'm not a politician if I'm helping the library.' In 2001, she won her first of six terms, serving at different times as trustee, board secretary, treasurer, vice president and president. Spratford is also a member of the Illinois Library Association and the La Grange board's liaison to that organization, as well as the Reaching Across Illinois Library Association and a member of the American Library Association. She also previously served on the ILA Conference Planning Committee and participated in training for the Illinois Trustee Forum. No matter what office she held, she always took time to serve on the Finance Committee. 'My goal was to always be efficient and effective with everyone's money,' Spratford said. 'Efficient without ever going over (budget), but also effective, because I understood that when staff would come and say 'we need this,' I was able to ask questions that really got to the heart of the service for the patrons.' Over the years, Spratford kept running for reelection because, as she said, because 'either no one was running, or something big was happening.' Some of those big things involved participating in searches for three new library directors, as well as several strategic planning processes. Another was the process and construction of a new library building in 2007. 'Our building was small and our community was growing,' Spratford said. 'La Grange had been going through some down times, and we were coming back. It wasn't just that the old library was tired, it was too small.' A new building required a significant infusion of cash, which, due to the Illinois property tax cap, required a referendum. Spratford said she was proud that during the time the main building was closed, she was in charge of the relocation of services to a location on Shawmut Avenue and the library operated without a break in service. 'We were able to relocate the library and have every book come there and every service still go,' she said. Spratford stressed the financial efficiency of the board in the roughly 20 years since the building opened. 'For those first 20 years we made sure we saved some money, so that's how we renovated the first floor,' she said. 'We're looking now at doing some renovations on the second floor. 'One of the things I made sure we did was we did an assessment of every system here and we have enough money that if every single system failed, the roof, the boiler, all the systems, we can fix it. You can't forget about those things … our job is to keep this building open and running.' Spratford said that she wanted to serve on the Board until the original building bonds were paid off, which happened earlier this year, saying 'it was my time to go when the building was paid off.' She might be retiring from the Board of Trustees, but she will definitely stay busy with freelance writing and her business. The roots of Spratford's business — RA for All — date back to when she was first hired as a full-time librarian at the Berwyn Public Library. 'I started at the Berwyn Public Library in a department called Readers Advisory,' she said. 'It's basically reading recommendations for adults. Spratford's web page, announces the business's purpose on its main page: 'Training Library Workers to Help Leisure Readers.' Spratford also edited a book coming out shortly, 'Why I Love Horror,' a collection of essays from 16 of the country's most distinguished writers of horror fiction. And, just in case she's not busy enough, there's also one final library matter she wants to address. 'One of the things we're missing here that other libraries of our prestige and size and use have, is that we don't have a foundation,' Spratford said. Separate from the Friends of the Library, she said a foundation would be a 'next step; it's a larger thing. It's more of an endowing organization that ensures the financial health of the library. The director and I have already had talks with local people who are involved with foundations. We'd love to have that start in 2027, at the twentieth year anniversary of opening the building … it's going to be a multi-year process.'
